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Topic:Veterinary Science
Veterinary science and horses encompass the study and application of medical, surgical, and therapeutic practices to maintain and improve the health and welfare of equines. This field addresses a wide range of topics, including disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, as well as nutrition, reproduction, and behavior. Research in veterinary science for horses often involves understanding the pathophysiology of equine-specific diseases, developing advanced diagnostic techniques, and improving treatment protocols. This page gathers peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that explore various aspects of veterinary science related to horses, providing insights into the latest advancements and methodologies in equine healthcare.
A Review of Equine Sleep: Implications for Equine Welfare. Sleep is a significant biological requirement for all living mammals due to its restorative properties and its cognitive role in memory consolidation. Sleep is ubiquitous amongst all mammals but sleep profiles differ between species dependent upon a range of biological and environmental factors. Given the functional importance of sleep, it is important to understand these differences in order to ensure good physical and psychological wellbeing for domesticated animals. This review focuses specifically on the domestic horse and aims to consolidate current information on equine sleep, in relatio...
Differential expression of glycans in the urothelial layers of horse urinary bladder. Urothelium is a multilayer epithelium covering the inner surface of the urinary bladder that acts as a blood-urine barrier and is involved in maintaining the wellbeing of the whole organism. Glycans serve in the maturation and differentiation of cells and thus play a key role in the morphology and function of the multilayered epithelium. The aim of the present study was to examine the glycoprotein pattern of the horse urinary bladder urothelium by lectin histochemistry. Methods: The study involved urinary bladders from four horse stallions. Tissue sections were stained with a panel of eleven l...
A fully automated method to quantitate total carbon dioxide in equine plasma by headspace GCMS. Pre-race dosing of horses with alkalinising agents to manipulate performance has been evident in racing worldwide for over 30 years. To regulate the use of alkalinising agents, racing authorities adopted thresholds for total plasma carbon dioxide (TCO ) in racehorses. Traditionally, racing laboratories have measured plasma TCO using ion selective electrode (ISE) technology, with the Association of Official Racing Chemists (AORC) approving the use of only three ISE instruments for measurement. Because of the manufacture and support of these instruments ceasing, racing laboratories have explor...
Pedigree-Based Description of Three Traditional Hungarian Horse Breeds. The Mezőhegyes Stud was founded in 1784 where three different horse breeds were developed: the Furioso-North Star, the Gidran, and the Nonius. These breeds were based on the same mare population, but each breed had different utilization purposes. Our aim was to analyze the pedigree information of these three indigenous breeds. The genealogical information was traced back from the actual breeding population back to the founder animals, and the final database contained more than 47,000 horses. The reference populations were defined as the registered breeding animals in 2019. The complete genera...
Spatiotemporal Environmental Drivers of Eastern Equine Encephalitis Virus in Central Florida: Towards a Predictive Model for a Lethal Disease. Eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEEV) is a mosquito-borne virus that affects humans and horses, with a high case fatality rate in both species. The virus can be transmitted by several mosquito species and maintained in multiple reservoir hosts, making EEEV dynamics difficult to anticipate. In this study, we identified spatial and temporal factors that precede EEEV detection using sentinel chicken surveillance data from Orange County, Florida, from 2003 to 2017. We first examined the land cover and mosquito species composition associated with sentinel chicken sites. We then fit distributed l...
Application of the Two-Dimensional Entropy Measures in the Infrared Thermography-Based Detection of Rider: Horse Bodyweight Ratio in Horseback Riding. As obesity is a serious problem in the human population, overloading of the horse's thoracolumbar region often affects sport and school horses. The advances in using infrared thermography (IRT) to assess the horse's back overload will shortly integrate the IRT-based rider-horse fit into everyday equine practice. This study aimed to evaluate the applicability of entropy measures to select the most informative measures and color components, and the accuracy of rider:horse bodyweight ratio detection. Twelve horses were ridden by each of the six riders assigned to the light, moderate, and heavy gr...
Horses form cross-modal representations of adults and children. Recently, research on domestic mammals' sociocognitive skills toward humans has been prolific, allowing us to better understand the human-animal relationship. For example, horses have been shown to distinguish human beings on the basis of photographs and voices and to have cross-modal mental representations of individual humans and human emotions. This leads to questions such as the extent to which horses can differentiate human attributes such as age. Here, we tested whether horses discriminate human adults from children. In a cross-modal paradigm, we presented 31 female horses with two simul...
Neurological Examination of Horses. The neurological examination is undertaken to determine whether any deficit is due to a lesion in the nervous system and, if so, where within the nervous system any possible lesion or lesions are located. The examination of horses has challenges not encountered when doing the equivalent examination in dogs and cats, principally that spinal reflexes and postural reactions are impossible/difficult to assess in most animals. The anatomy book can be consulted later but at the end of the neurological examination the clinician then should be able to determine broadly which area of the neuromuscular ...
Neutralising antibodies to West Nile virus detected in horses in Windhoek, Namibia. West Nile virus (WNV) is a vector-borne virus maintained in nature by a bird-mosquito cycle. However, it can occasionally and accidentally infect horses and human beings, leading to sometimes severe or even fatal outcomes in these species. Therefore, the monitoring of its circulation and disease occurrence is of relevance. Unfortunately, it is underdiagnosed or not diagnosed in several African counties, including Namibia, where no data is currently available for horses. In this study, 98 horses in three different stables in the Windhoek city area were investigated. They were found to have a se...
Leishmania V. braziliensis infection in asymptomatic domestic animals within an endemic region in the Northeast of Brazil. American cutaneous leishmaniasis is a commonly neglected, vector-borne tropical parasitic disease that is a major public health concern in Brazil. Leishmania (Viannia) braziliensis is the main species associated with the disease. Accurate diagnosis is based on epidemiological surveillance, clinical assessment, and laboratory testing. Leishmania (V.) braziliensis has been detected in several wild and synanthropic mammals. Their epidemiological role has not been entirely elucidated. This study aimed to assess potential L. braziliensis infections in asymptomatic domestic animals, by molecular and...
Species-specific identification of donkey-hide gelatin and its adulterants using marker peptides. Donkey-hide gelatin is an important traditional Chinese medicine made from donkey skin. Despite decades of effort, identifying the animal materials (donkeys, horses, cattle and pigs) in donkey-hide gelatin remains challenging. In our study, we aimed to identify marker peptides of donkey-hide gelatin and its adulterants and develop a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method to identify them. Theoretical marker peptides of four animals (donkeys, horses, cattle and pigs) were predicted and verified by proteomic experiments, and 12 species-specific marker peptides from donkey-hide gel...
Testing individual variations of horses’ tactile reactivity: when, where, how? Tactile perception is involved in a variety of contexts (adaptations to climatic conditions, protection of the body against external dangers…) and is as important as the other sensory modalities for the survival of an individual. This tactile modality has been particularly well studied in humans, revealing high individual variations modulated by a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors such as age, sex, pathological disorders, or temperament. Tactility is also involved in animals' social lives, although there are disparities between species. For example, social tactile contact among hors...
Non-contact respiratory measurement in a horse in standing position using millimeter-wave array radar. This study aimed to apply radar technology to a large quadruped animal. We first developed a non-contact respiration measurement system using millimeter-wave array radar for a horse in standing position. Specifically, we measured the respiration of a stationary domestic horse in stables. Simultaneously, we measured the respiration rate using infrared thermography and developed a method for analyzing the radar information while verifying the rate of agreement. Our results suggested that the radar technology detected breathing and accurately measured the respiration of a horse, despite variation...
A Comparison of Methods to Maintain the Equine Cecal Microbial Environment In Vitro Utilizing Cecal and Fecal Material. The equine gastrointestinal (GI) microbiota is intimately related to the horse. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the microbiome and metabolome of cecal inoculum maintained in an anaerobic chamber or chemostat batch fermenter, as well as the fecal slurry maintained in an anaerobic chamber over 48 h. Cecal and fecal content were collected from healthy adult horses immediately upon death. Cecal fluid was used to inoculate chemostat vessels (chemostat cecal, = 11) and vessels containing cecal fluid (anaerobic cecal, = 15) or 5% fecal slurry (anaerobic fecal, = 6) were maintain...
Deoxynivalenol Degradation by Various Microbial Communities and Its Impacts on Different Bacterial Flora. Deoxynivalenol, a mycotoxin that may present in almost all cereal products, can cause huge economic losses in the agriculture industry and seriously endanger food safety and human health. Microbial detoxifications using microbial consortia may provide a safe and effective strategy for DON mitigation. In order to study the interactions involving DON degradation and change in microbial flora, four samples from different natural niches, including a chicken stable (expJ), a sheep stable (expY), a wheat field (expT) and a horse stable (expM) were collected and reacted with purified DON. After being...
A KIT Variant Associated with Increased White Spotting Epistatic to MC1R Genotype in Horses (Equus caballus). Over 40 identified genetic variants contribute to white spotting in the horse. White markings and spotting are under selection for their impact on the economic value of an equine, yet many phenotypes have an unknown genetic basis. Previous studies also demonstrate an interaction between MC1R and ASIP pigmentation loci and white spotting associated with KIT and MITF. We investigated two stallions presenting with a white spotting phenotype of unknown cause. Exon sequencing of the KIT and MITF candidate genes identified a missense variant in KIT (rs1140732842, NC_009146.3:g.79566881T>C, p.T391A) ...
Elevated dietary selenium rescues mitochondrial capacity impairment induced by decreased vitamin E intake in young exercising horses. Maintenance of mitochondrial health, which is supported in part by dietary antioxidants such as selenium (Se) and vitamin E (vitE), is pertinent to optimizing athletic performance. Deficiencies in Se and vitE negatively impact muscle health but mitochondrial adaptations to various levels of dietary Se and vitE are poorly understood. Young Quarter Horses (mean ± SD: 17.6 ± 0.9 mo) undergoing submaximal exercise training were used to test the hypothesis that a proprietary antioxidant blend containing elevated Se yeast (EconomasE, Alltech, Inc., Nicholasville, KY) would improve mitochondrial ch...
Plasma concentration of dopamine varies depending on breed, sex, and the genotype of DRD4 in horses. Dopamine (DA) is known to be a key modulator of animal behaviors. Thus, the plasma concentration of DA might be used as a biomarker for the behavioral characteristics of horses. The behavioral characteristics of horses vary depending on the breed, age, and sex. Moreover, the DA receptor genotypes are also related to horse behaviors. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the DA concentration variations of horse plasma by breed, age, sex, or genotype of its receptor. The horses were divided by breed into Thoroughbred (n = 13), Pony (n = 9), Warmblood (n = 4), and Haflinger (n = 5). The ...
Novel variant Hendra virus genotype 2 infection in a horse in the greater Newcastle region, New South Wales, Australia. In October 2021, the first contemporary detection of Hendra virus genotype 2 (HeV-g2) was made by veterinary priority disease investigation in a horse near Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, as part of routine veterinary priority disease surveillance. This discovery followed an update of Hendra virus diagnostic assays following retrospective identification of this variant from 2015 via sentinel emerging infectious disease research, enabling timely detection of this case. The sole infected horse was euthanized in moribund condition. As the southernmost recognised HeV spill-over detection to...
Horse odor exploration behavior is influenced by pregnancy and age. In spite of a highly developed olfactory apparatus of horses, implying a high adaptive value, research on equine olfaction is sparse. Our limited knowledge on equine olfaction poses a risk that horse behavior does not match human expectations, as horses might react fearful when exposed to certain odors, which humans do not consider as frightening. The benefit of acquiring more knowledge of equine olfaction is therefore twofold; (1) it can aid the understanding of horse behavior and hence reduce the risk of dangerous situations, and (2) there may be unexplored potential of using odors in severa...
Variations in the fecal microbiota and their functions of Thoroughbred, Mongolian, and Hybrid horses. The horse gut is colonized by a rich and complex microbial community that has important roles in horse physiology, metabolism, nutrition, and immune functions. Fewer across-breed variations in horse gut microbial diversity have been illustrated. In this article, the gut microbiota of Thoroughbred, Mongolian, and Hybrid horses [first filial generation (F1) of Mongolian (maternal) and Thoroughbred (paternal)] were studied by second-generation high-throughput sequencing technology. Differences in gut microbiota composition and function between breeds were determined using diversity and functional...
Analysis of the earliest complete mtDNA genome of a Caribbean colonial horse (Equus caballus) from 16th-century Haiti. Unlike other European domesticates introduced in the Americas after the European invasion, equids (Equidae) were previously in the Western Hemisphere but were extinct by the late Holocene era. The return of equids to the Americas through the introduction of the domestic horse (Equus caballus) is documented in the historical literature but is not explored fully either archaeologically or genetically. Historical documents suggest that the first domestic horses were brought from the Iberian Peninsula to the Caribbean in the late 15th century CE, but archaeological remains of these early introduct...
No size-dependent net particle retention in the hindgut of horses. Sieve analyses of hindgut contents of horses as well as observations in horses where plastic markers had been applied to a caecal cannula suggested that there may be a discrimination by particle size in the passage or retention of digesta. Here, we performed a similar experiment with five caecum-cannulated horses (562 ± 31 kg) fed a constant amount (6.81 kg dry matter/day) of grass hay. Passage markers representing the liquid (Co-EDTA) as well as the particulate digesta phase (Yb-undefined; Cr mordanted fibre 1-2 mm; Ce-mordanted fibre 8 mm) were given as a pulse-dose into the can...
Does a high social status confer greater levels of trust from groupmates? An experimental study of leadership in domestic horses. In collective movements, specific individuals may emerge as leaders. In this study on the domestic horse (Equus ferus caballus), we conducted experiments to establish if an individual is successfully followed due to its social status (including hierarchical rank and centrality). We first informed one horse about a hidden food location and recorded by how many it was followed when going back to this location. In this context, all horses lead their groupmates successfully. In a second step, we tested whether group members would trust some leaders more than others by removing the food before the ...
Horses wait for more and better rewards in a delay of gratification paradigm. Self-control, defined as the ability to forgo immediate satisfaction in favor of better pay-offs in the future, has been extensively studied, revealing enormous variation between and within species. Horses are interesting in this regard because as a grazing species they are expected to show low self-control whereas its social complexity might be linked to high self-control abilities. Additionally, self-control may be a key factor in training and/or coping with potentially stressful husbandry conditions. We assessed horses' self-control abilities in a simplified delay of gratification test that...
Correlation between Ocular and Rectal Temperature with Intra Ocular Pressure in Horse during Exercise. The aim of the present study was to investigate the response to physical exercise of some ocular physiological variables (ocular temperature and intraocular pressure) in horses performing a jumping course in the morning (a.m.) or in the afternoon hours (p.m.), before and after the exercise, in correlation with the rectal temperature. Data collection was carried out on 14 clinical healthy Italian saddle horses. All horses were trained from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. and from 19:00 to 20:00 p.m. according to a specific training program. Ocular temperature (OT), rectal temperature (RT) and intraocular pr...
Corynebacterium conjunctivae: A New Corynebacterium Species Isolated from the Ocular Surface of Healthy Horses. Twenty-two unidentified Gram-positive, rod-shaped organisms were recovered from the conjunctival surface of apparently healthy horses and subjected to a polyphasic taxonomic analysis. Based on cellular morphology and biochemical criteria, the isolates were tentatively assigned to the genus , although they did not match any recognized species. Comparative 16S rRNA gene sequencing studies demonstrated that all of the isolates were phylogenetically members of the genus The isolates shared 99.4 to 100% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity among the strains and 96.5% similarity with 2385/12, which w...
Lithium Concentration in Biological Samples and Gender Difference in Athletic Horses. Lithium (Li) represent a substance particularly used for human psychiatric disorders but its therapeutic effect is not well documented for equine specie. For its neurotrophic effect, it may be used as a possible doping substance in horses sports competitions. The purpose of the present study was to determine the different bioaccumulation of lithium concentrations in different biological substrates (blood, serum, mane, and tail), in 30 horses (15 geldings and 15 mares) and hematological parameters as blood biomarkers for lithium bioaccumulation. (RBC, WBC, HGB, HCT, MCV, MCH, MCHC). The lithium...
Simultaneous quantification of caffeine and its main metabolites by gas chromatography mass spectrometry in horse urine. Caffeine is a naturally occurring alkaloid and it is metabolized to paraxanthine, theophylline and theobromine. Analysis of caffeine and its metabolites is challenging since the metabolites theophylline and paraxanthine generate similar product and precursor ions. In this study, a new method was developed for the simultaneous analysis of caffeine, paraxanthine, theobromine and theophylline in horse urine using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Urine samples were treated using solid-phase extraction followed by the elution with dichloromethane-isopropanol (90:10) after the pH was ad...
