Veterinary care in horses encompasses the medical and preventive measures taken to maintain and improve the health and well-being of equine patients. It includes a wide range of practices such as routine health examinations, vaccinations, dental care, parasite control, and management of injuries and diseases. Veterinary care also involves diagnostic procedures, surgical interventions, and therapeutic treatments tailored to the specific needs of horses. This page gathers peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that explore various aspects of equine veterinary care, including advancements in diagnostic techniques, treatment protocols, and health management strategies to support the well-being and performance of horses.
Dalin G, Jeffcott LB.Gait analysis can play an important role in exercise physiology, racetrack ergonomics, lameness prophylaxis, and assessment of performance potential in racehorses. This article concentrates on the methods used for gait analysis and considers some basic data on the different gaits of the horse.
Coyne CP, Hornof WJ, Kelly AB, O'Brien TR, DeNardo SJ.Equine fibrinogen was isolated and aliquots were stored frozen at -70 C before radiolabeling with 125I (half-life = 60.2 days; gamma = 35 keV, using monochloroiodine reagent. Radioiodination efficiencies were 49% to 53%, resulting in a labeled product with 98% protein-bound activity and 91% clottable radioactivity. In 6 equine in vivo investigations, plasma half-lives of 125I-labeled fibrinogen were from 4.1 to 5.2 days, corresponding to a mean daily plasma elimination rate of approximately 15%.
Nap RC, Wouda W, Firth EC, Dik K, von Dijk P.The case of a horse affected with frontal sinusitis, in which neurological complications occurred following trepanation, is reported. The previous history of the animal as well as the clinical, radiological and pathological findings are discussed.
Lovell DK.Through the study of equine exercise physiology, one can learn more about what happens to the body of the performance horse during all forms of exercise. Better understanding of skeletal, joint, tendon, and ligament adaptations to loading and stress may allow adjustments to be made in training techniques to reduce the incidence of injury. The information obtained from exercise research may also facilitate the investigation of questions such as the following: What makes one horse perform better than another? How can one bring out the optimal performance in each horse? How can one tell when a ho...
Garris GI, Scotland K.Cattle, sheep, goats and horses were examined for ticks. Over 95% of Holstein cross-breeds, 28% of sheep (local mixed breeds) and 18% of goats (local mixed breeds) examined from 18 August to 4 September 1983 were infested with the southern cattle tick, Boophilus microplus Canestrini. About 90 and 17% of the horses examined were infested with the tropical horse tick, Anocentor nitens Neumann, and the tropical bont tick, Amblyomma variegatum Fabricius, respectively. The tropical bont tick was found infesting 10% of cattle in the Gros Islet area of St. Lucia. The tropical bont tick was also found...
Hodgson DR.This article provides an overview of the characteristics of skeletal muscle, with an emphasis on equine skeletal muscle. A discussion of many of the adaptive processes that can occur in this tissue in response to altered states of physical activity is also included.
Bayly WM.A training program is designed with the aim of developing the specific physiologic capabilities required to perform a certain type of exercise. Such capabilities involve the psychologic familiarity with, and acceptance of, the required tasks, the development of the neuromuscular coordination to perform these tasks optimally, and the utilization of energy by the working muscles. This article presents some basic principles for the design of training programs and offers ideas on how these principles may be applied to the conditioning of horses.
Rose RJ, Allen JR.Hematology has been widely used in attempts to provide information about disease states, performance problems, and fitness in performance horses. However, owing to factors such as the temperament of the horse and time of collection and feeding, considerable variation in the hemograms can be found. This article reviews some of the hematologic responses to exercise and training.
Hyland JH, MacLean AA, Robertson-Smith GR, Jeffcott LB, Stewart GA.The removal of one of twin embryos was attempted by infusion of 24% (w/v) saline into the gestation sac in 2 mares by laparotomy. The treatment was successful in one mare (Case 1) and the untreated embryo remained viable. However, neither foetus survived in the second mare (Case 2). Plasma oestrone sulphate (E1S) concentrations fell immediately after treatment in both mares but recovered to approximately 50% of pretreatment levels in Case 1. In Case 2 plasma E1S concentrations declined steadily and were less than 1 ng/ml within 6 days of treatment. These preliminary results suggest that the me...
Herr S, Huchzermeyer HF, Te Brugge LA, Williamson CC, Roos JA, Schiele GJ.The same techniques may be used in the complement fixation test (CFT) for the serological diagnosis of bovine brucellosis, Johne's disease (paratuberculosis), dourine, equine piroplasmosis and Q fever (caused by Coxiella burnetii). The reproducibility of results is excellent, falling for the most part within the twofold range and never exceeding the fourfold range. Agreement with other laboratories is excellent (i.e. within twofold) in the case of brucellosis and equine piroplasmosis antibody titres. A good correlation between the occurrence of the disease and serological reactions is found on...
Maczulak AE, Dawson KA, Baker JP.A total of 114 bacterial isolates were obtained from the cecal contents of two mature cecally fistulated horses on a habitat-simulating medium containing 40% energy-depleted cecal fluid. Of these isolates, 108 were maintained in pure cultures and were tentatively grouped on the basis of cell morphology and physiological characteristics. Gram-negative rods (50.9%), gram-positive rods (22.8%), and gram-positive cocci (21.9%) represented the largest groups isolated from these animals. Fifty isolates were tested for their ability to grow in media containing urea, ammonia, peptones, or amino acids ...
Her GR, Watson JT.Sensitive and specific methodology based on capillary column gas chromatography-electron capture-negative chemical ionization-mass spectrometry has been developed for the quantitative analysis of corticosteroids from biological fluids. The feasibility of this method is demonstrated in the quantitative analysis of dexamethasone in horse urine following administration of the drug. A structurally similar compound, 6 alpha-methylprednisolone, is added to the urine as an internal standard. The free dexamethasone and the internal standard are extracted and oxidized to high-electron-affinity 1,4-andr...
Schneider JE, Adams OR, Easley KJ, Schneider RK, Bramlage LR, Peter J, Boero MJ.Supraspinatus and infraspinatus muscle paralysis with atrophy was treated by partial osteotomy of the scapula, deep to the suprascapular nerve. The horses had various gait abnormalities, which were corrected by the surgery, but regeneration of the muscles varied from partial to complete, depending on the duration of the condition and the degree of atrophy before surgery.
Collier MA, Rendano VT, Kallfelz FA.A delayed union metacarpal stress fracture was repaired in a horse, using lag-screw fixation in conjunction with dc electrical stimulation. Twelve weeks after surgery, radiographic and scintigraphic evaluations revealed that the fracture line was not discernible and that there was a decrease in radiopharmaceutic uptake, as compared with that in previous bone imaging studies. In this horse, DC stimulation of a delayed union stress fracture in a bone resulted in a healing pattern similar to that in human beings with delayed union fractures when treated with electrical stimulation.
Adams OR, Schneider RK, Bramlage LR, Easley KJ, Schneider JE.Suprascapular nerve decompression has proven to be a useful treatment for refractory neuropraxia in horses. The surgical procedure used to effect that decompression is described. The surgery can be undertaken when conservative treatment has failed, but the sooner the surgery is done, the more likely the muscle mass is to be cosmetically satisfactory.
May SA, Baker JR.GIANT cell tumours of bone (osteoclastomas) are extremely
rare in animals, with most cases being reported in dogs and
cats (Pool 1978). Extraskeletal giant cell tumours have been
reported in the horse (Gordon 1974; Ford, Empson, Plopper
and Brown 1975; Render et a1 1983) but there have been no
well documented case reports of giant cell turnours of bone.
Osteoclastomas are said to occur in the horse (Hickman 1964)
but early reports of such tumours may be the result of
misdiagnoses (Jacobson 1971). A case of lameness in a horse
which, at autopsy, was found to be the result of a giant ce...
of surveillance testing, April to June 2016Continuing reports of abortion due to equine herpesvirus type 1 infectionInternational disease occurrence in the second quarter of 2016These are among matters discussed in the most recent quarterly equine disease surveillance report, prepared by Defra, the Animal Health Trust and the British Equine Veterinary Association.
Reppas GP, Canfield PJ.A 12-year-old Arab stallion was presented with a chronically swollen right carpus resulting in profound lameness of the same leg. An incisional biopsy of subcutaneous tissue from the right carpus submitted for cytology and histopathology revealed large numbers of eosinophils interspersed by substantial numbers of variably sized and granulated mast cells. Fungal culture of a subcutaneous tissue sample taken from the right carpus was negative. Serial full blood counts revealed persistent mature eosinophilia, not accompanied by a mastocytaemia, neutrophilia without left shift and persistent hyper...
Frymus T, Degórski A, Kowalski B, Crisman M.
Summary:
Serum lysozyme (LZM) activity and nitroblue tetrazolium (NBT) reduction capacity of circulating phagocytes were determined by the lysoplate technique and the microquantitative method, respectively. As blood donors 47 clinically normal Arabian foals ranging in age from 6 hours to 22 days and their 40 dams were used.
A significantly (p < 0.05) lower serum LZM activity was found in foals older than 24 hours, compared with the mares (40.84 U/ml ± 15.32 and 48,96 U/ml ± 17.9, respectively), but the LZM/phagocyte ratio was similar in foals and mares.
Circulating phagocytes from...
Meinders RI, Mendoza M, Dickey AN, Scholl EH, Hassan HM.We report the complete circular genome sequences of six strains and their plasmids, if any, from the fecal material of quarter horses at different ages.
Jones RD, Fessler JF.ALTHOUGH METACARPAL TI-IV and metatarsal II-IV (MC II-IV, MT II-IV) fractures are frequent in horses and surgical intervention routine, a review of the current literature revealed little information about this subject. The authors have found only two complete accounts of this problem (1, 6). The incidence of suspensory desmitis has been previously reported (3), but we find no previous correla-tion of MC II-IV, MT II-IV fractures with suspensory, desmitis. On these bases, a re-trospective study was conducted. At Purdue University from 1967 through 1974, 50 Standardbred horses underwent sur-gery...