Equine

Study: Always Use Pain Meds During Dehorning

April 20, 2016

A study has found that 90 percent of people within and outside the international dairy industry believe that pain relief should be used when debudding or dehorning calves, a practice that is not universally carried out. The research was done by a team at the University of British Columbia Animal Welfare Program in Canada and published in Animal Welfare, a peer-reviewed journal of the British charity Universities Federation for Animal Welfare. The team stated that it hopes the findings serve to promoting awareness of the subject among veterinarians and dairy producers. “Despite evidence that these procedures are painful, and the availability of effective means of pain relief, use of pain mitigation remains low in many parts of the world,” said study co-author Marina von Keyserlingk, MS, Ph.D., a professor of animal welfare at the University of British Columbia. “Although veterinarians are able to provide pain control … approval of additional analgesics for use in food animals is also needed.” She recommended that more effort be put into the breeding of polled, or hornless, dairy cattle. Debudding is performed on young calves—often with hot irons or caustic paste—to eradicate horn-producing cells. Dehorning involves the use of cutting or gouging tools. …

The Case for Year-Round Heartworm Prevention and Affordable Options

Veterinarians are often more than just clinicians - they’re advisors, educators, and, increasingly, financial counselors. In today’s economy, pet owners may hesitate to invest in year-round prevention due to budget constraints; but, skipping even a few months of heartworm protection can have serious consequences.

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What’s Good to Put on a Horse’s Wound?

April 18, 2016

Horses sometimes seem almost single-mindedly bent on hurting themselves, so proper wound care is an important part of any equine practitioner’s responsibilities. To help with those responsibilities, a seemingly endless number of products are said to help promote wound healing. Unfortunately, many of them lack evidence of safety or effectiveness, and some can even cause harm. At the American Association of Equine Practitioners conference in December, Colorado State University’s Dean Hendrickson, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVS, gave a presentation on “What You Should and Should Not Put on Wounds,” from which most of this article is drawn. It’s always a good idea for any practitioner to know what effect a wound care product will have on a wound prior to using it. Proper wound care includes removal of any necrotic tissue and debris while, at the same, time reducing bacterial contamination on the surface. While undoubtedly important, cleaning a wound causes additional mechanical trauma, and the cleaning process may introduce potentially cytotoxic agents to the wound surface. Thus, the risks, benefits and costs of various techniques must be considered prior to using any approach. In human medicine, it’s been …

New Robotic Lifting Device Works to Help Injured Horses

April 12, 2016

To help horses recover from limb fractures and other traumatic injuries, researchers and engineers from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, have created a robotic lift system for injured horses. According to a news release from the university, written by Alison Williams, a third-year veterinary student, “A team of researchers has partnered with RMD Engineering, a local Saskatoon engineering and manufacturing company, to design and build a one-of-a-kind robotic lift system. The lift will help rehabilitate horses suffering from acute injuries and other musculoskeletal problems by providing mobility, weight distribution and support.” Normally, a horse’s recovery from surgery is complicated: They have a strong flight response, and they’re heavy weight can cause issues too. And, as Williams points out: “Veterinarians regularly use slings to help support injured horses, but current designs significantly limit the animals’ normal activity and support all of their weight on the thorax and abdomen. This leads to further problems because of compression on the lungs and development of pressure sores. With the lift system … clinicians can reduce and redistribute the weight the horse is carrying dynamically. The system allows the animal to be mobile with …

Phibro Swine Drug Draws FDA Scrutiny

April 11, 2016

Phibro Animal Health Corp. is defending the safety of its swine drug Mecadox (carbadox) after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration moved to rescind approval of the antimicrobial because of the potential risk to people who eat carbadox-treated pigs. Approved in the 1970s, Mecadox is indicated for the control of salmonella and swine dysentery and for weight gain and feed efficiency. The Mecadox label requires pigs to be off the drug for at least 42 days before slaughter. The FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine on Friday announced that a safety re-examination found the medication may leave trace amounts of a carcinogenic residue. “A preliminary risk characterization … indicated there could be potential risk to human health from ingesting pork, especially pork liver, derived from carbadox-treated pigs,” the agency stated. Phibro, based in Teaneck, N.J., noted that FDA’s action does not prohibit the sale or use of Mecadox. The company criticized the agency’s action as hasty given that Phibro is close to completing further studies of carbadox. “Our studies are due to be completed in the next 90 days, and we expect that the remaining evidence will support the continued safe use of Mecadox,” Phibro stated. “We are disappointed …

How to Work With Common Horse Injuries

April 6, 2016

If your patients follow the “Equine Laws of Probability,” then you are frequently faced with injuries of all kinds, especially those involving the musculoskeletal system. Phenylbutazone will naturally be one of your primary go-to drugs to help control both pain and inflammation (regardless of the nature of the injury), but what else do you have up your sleeve? Advances in Analgesics Phenylbutazone and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSDAIDs) are a godsend, but can we being doing more to provide appropriate relief from the pain associated with acute and chronic injuries? According to Lori Bidwell, DVM, Dipl. ACVAA and certified veterinary acupuncturist from the Kentucky-based company, East West Equine Sports Medicine, we know have more options than ever to gain control of pain in our patients. NSAIDs remain the first option in many cases, but other analgesics can be used in combination with the staple, including gabapentin, tramadol, acetaminophen as well as local anesthetics. Lidocaine is inexpensive and can be used as an IV bolus, locally, and even via a topical patch (e.g., on the ankles for local pain relief in the distal extremities). Although ketamine can cause recumbency when administered as an IV bolus, Bidwell says that ketamine is an …

Funds Available from USDA for Veterinary Loan Repayment

April 6, 2016

Like working with large animals and looking to repay your school loans? The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced $4.4 million in available funding to help repay veterinary school loans if veterinarians will serve in areas lacking sufficient veterinary resources. The funding is available through the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP), administered by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). “Veterinarians are critical to America’s food safety and security, as well as to the health and well-being of both animals and humans,” said Dr. Sonny Ramaswamy, the NIFA administrator. “There are significant shortages of veterinarians in areas of this country, and a leading cause is the heavy cost of four years of professional veterinary medical training, which leaves current graduates of veterinary colleges with an average debt of more than $135,000.” The VMLRP will pay up to $25,000 each year towards qualified educational loans of eligible veterinarians. Recipients are required to commit to three years of veterinary service in a designated veterinary shortage situation. Loan repayment benefits are limited to payments of the principal and interest on government and commercial loans received while attending an American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA)-accredited college of veterinary …

The Latest on Equine Health

April 5, 2016

With the slew of studies published in 2015 in addition to conferences, wet labs and other CE opportunities, staying abreast the latest and greatest in equine practice poses time-management challenges galore. Rather than trying to invent your own DeLorean to travel through time to catch up, simply create an account at PROLibraries, an online resource for educational sessions. Organizations like the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) post sessions, such as the Kester News Hour (KNH), which can be downloaded and viewed at your leisure. The KNH is an AAEP Annual Convention staple devoted to sharing current news items in one of three categories: medicine, surgery and theriogenology. According to Carey Ross, Scientific Publications Coordinator at the AAEP, “The KNH creates diversity in our program with an emphasis on providing practical information for members to take home and use every day.” Here is a smattering of the KHN selections presented during the 61st Annual Convention of the AAEP, held December 5 to 9, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Current Equine News in Medicine Carol Clark, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, an internist at Peterson and Smith Equine Hospital in …

Kindred Hopeful of Potential for Equine, Feline Drugs

March 31, 2016

Kindred Biosciences Inc. is pushing to bring two new drugs to market: Zimeta (dipyrone injection), for treating fever in horses, and KIND-010, for weight management in cats. The Burlingame, Calif., company announced the filing of the effectiveness section as part of Zimeta’s New Animal Drug Application (NADA). All remaining technical sections were expected to be submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by the end of March. It’s potentially good news for equine practitioners. “Dipyrone will be very familiar to seasoned veterinarians,” said Peter Morresey, BVSc, Dipl. ACVIM, Dipl. ACT, a veterinarian with Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky. “While never approved in the United States, dipyrone enjoyed widespread usage for control of fever and pain before withdrawal from the market in 1995. “If approved, it will be available again in the United States in an FDA-approved formulation,” Dr. Morresey added. In other news, a field test using 32 cats showed the effectiveness and safety of KIND-010 for the stimulation of weight gain in cats under clinical conditions. At the second week of the field study, the mean weight of …

Study: Horse's Behavior Can't be Determined by the Color of its Coat

March 30, 2016

Does a particular color of a horse’s coat make it more prone to being “crazy?” That’s what researchers sought to find out, and discovered the coat has nothing to do with a horse’s personality. Researchers, in their paper titled “The relationship between coat colour phenotype and equine behaviour: A pilot study,” published in published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science, asked horse owners to fill out a questionnaire that covered several sections, including: Horse handling experience Basic horse information Equipment used when handling or riding the horse Behavioral responses in general and specific circumstances The responses helped researchers determine that the color of a horse’s coat had little to do with their behavior. Instead the breed, sex and age of a horse "significantly influence many of its behavior," according to the researchers. This new data may (or may not) change how people feel about chestnut horses. Female chestnut horses are often described as "crazy," but while researchers found chestnut horses there are behavioral differences between chestnuts and bay horses, “Chestnut horses are not more likely than bay horses to display adverse behaviors. So …

The Art of Equine Veterinarian Yoga