A comprehensive publication aimed at mitigating the risk of equine disease transmission has been released by British Equestrian’s Equine Infections Disease Action Group.
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Q: My 20-year-old Thoroughbred has respiratory allergies that require him to live outside most of the time. However, he’s a very easy keeper and needs to wear a grazing muzzle in the spring and summer. Is there anything I can do to help him breathe a little easier while wearing his muzzle? He sounds like he’s laboring.
Shawna, Georgetown, KY
A: This is an interesting question and one that others may have to deal with. When we consider the kinds of respiratory “allergies” horses can develop, we commonly think about recurrent airway obstruction (RAO, or equine asthma or heaves). There are some geographic differences with regard to when and how horses demonstrate clinical signs of airway inflammation. However, regardless of the inciting trigger, horses with lower airway inflammation in the form of heaves generally demonstrate clinical signs of nostril flare, cough, and increased abdominal effort with expiration (exhaling). When horses are in remission from ai
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Your senior horse might have chronic laminitis even though he’s not lame, obese, or diagnosed with pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction (PPID, also known as equine Cushing’s disease). A study of sound older horses has revealed that subclinical laminitis coffin bone rotation before the horse becomes lame can’t be accurately predicted by body condition, cresty neck scores, or the hormonal biomarker that points to PPID.
Advanced age alone could mean “chronic changes within the hoof capsule have surreptitiously developed without overt signs,” said Nathalie Fouché, DVM, clinician at the Swiss Institute of Equine Medicine (ISME) at the Vetsuisse Faculty of the University of Bern in Switzerland.
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