ModernEquineVet_May2013

Thermography accurate?I feel your pain

Equine VetThe Modern

Vol 2 Issue 4 2013www.modernequinevet.com

Afib: common problem often missed

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2 Issue 4/2013 | ModernEquineVet.com

Table of ConTenTs

PaIn

How accurate is thermography of horse's legs? ........................ 6The technique tolerates field variations

To know a horse is to feel its pain .................................................... 8Listen to your clients. They might be pretty good at assessing horse's pain

More data about development of osteoarthritis ....................10Protein appears to protect against the development of this debilitating disease

BeHaVIor

Idle 'hands' are the devil's workshop .............................................................................11Fat and idle horses more likely to misbehave

news

The equine 'adam' .................................................................................................................12DNA provides insight into the history of people and horses

That's horse manure ............................................................................................................17Enzymes from horse manure could help streamline biofuel production

TecHnIcIan uPdaTe

The equine technician's role in biosecurity .................................................................15Deborah Reeder talks about how technicians can help protect horses and people.

To conTacT us, eMaIl MarIe rosenTHal

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exercise intolerance often first sign of aFib

coVer sTory: 4

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can't stop my

One of the most common cardiac problems associated with poor performance is atrial fibrillation, but it is not always picked up until the horse ex-periences exercise intolerance, according to Kelsey A. Hart, DVM, PhD, DACVIM (LAIM).

“It can be acute exercise in-tolerance where the horse is racing and all of a sudden just quits and can’t race anymore,” she said. “Or it can be more subtle — the horse just isn’t per-forming at the owner’s desired level or not moving up the lev-els like they would like.”

My achy, breaky heartAFib occurs when the mus-

cles in the atria fibrillate instead of experience a coordinated ventricle contraction. There are two types of AFib: paroxysmal atrial fibrillation and sustained atrial fibrillation, explained Hart, assistant professor of large animal internal medicine, at the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine.

Paroxysmal atrial fibrilla-

tion, which is often diagnosed in the race horse that just quits while racing, usually does not require treatment because the sinus rhythm almost always returns to normal on its own. “It usually only lasts a day or two, and the horse will sponta-neously convert back to sinus rhythm,” she said.

returning to normalHowever, veterinarians need

to manage chronic or sustained atrial fibrillation. ”If the horse needs to go back to doing its job and it is not performing at the desired level than the veterinar-ian may attempt to convert that horse back to a normal sinus rhythm either pharmacologi-cally or electrically.

“Whether or not that will work depends on whether the horse has underlying cardiac disease and how long the horse has been in atrial fibrillation,” she said.

For veterinarians, the di-agnosis and treatment of sus-tained AFib of short duration

without any signs of underly-ing cardiac disease tends to be straightforward.

If the horse does not have an underlying cardiac condi-tion, such as a leaky valve or enlarged heart, then the vet-erinarian can attempt to return the heart rhythm to a normal sinus rhythm by administer-ing a sodium channel blocker, such as quinidine gluconate or quinidine sulfate, which slows the atrial fibrillation and al-lows the regular heart rhythm to take over. However, there can be severe adverse events to this treatment, including death, al-though that is rare.

Transvenous electrocardio-version (TVEC), which works like the defibrillators used in hu-man medicine, delivers a shock directly to the heart through an electrode inserted through a long catheter in the jugular vein. TVEC can reset the heart’s rhythm, but the horse must be under general anesthesia to per-form this procedure.

Although the procedure has

CardIology

B y M a r i e r o s e n t h a l , M s

Veterinarians can manage sustained atrial fibrillation

heart

ModernEquineVet.com | Issue 4/2013 5

For more information:

Preiss EE, Kenney DG, McGurrin et al. Influence of electrode position on cardioversion energy requirements during transvenous electrical cardioversion in horses. Am J Vet Res. 2011 Sep;72(9):1193-203. doi: 10.2460/ajvr.72.9.1193. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21879977

been available for awhile, Hart told The Modern Equine Vet that it is not something that all centers do. However, it is being used more frequently in equine medicine. Complications are not common but dangerous ar-rhythmias or cardiac arrest can occur, although cardiac arrest is rare, she said.

And some horses do not con-vert to a normal sinus rhythm with this procedure.

A recent study by the Univer-sity of Guelph, found that opti-mal electrode placement can reduce the energy requirement for TVEC, which means that someday, this technique might be done under short-term IV anesthesia with good response.

“If it is a race horse with par-oxysmal AFib, it has a pretty good prognosis. We don’t know why it happens, but it doesn’t seem to re-cur, and it doesn’t seem to impact a horse’s racing performance once it resolves,” she said.

The story is different for a

horse with sustained AFib, es-pecially if the horse has under-lying cardiac disease. If AFib has been present for more than four months, there is a 60% chance it will recur even if the horse initially responds well to treatment. MeV

Whether a veterinarian will be successful

changing an abnormal rhythm to normal depends

on how long the horse has been in afib and

whether it has an underlying cardiac disease.

shown are normal and abnormal equine ecGs, the definitive method for evaluating arrhythmia, showing changes in the heart's electrical activity. The p wave reflects whether the atria has received a normal electrical impulse and has contracted. The q,r, and s waves reflect whether the ventricles have received a normal electrical impulse and contracted. The t wave reflects whether the electrical impulse has traveled all through the heart and is no repolarizing to start the sa node. source: dr. Hart at uGa.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21879977


laMeness

Infrared thermography is being used more often to investigate the cause of lameness in horses, be-cause the equipment is easy to use and the method is fast and safe for the animal and the veterinarian.

But is it accurate?Recent work by Simone Wes-

termann, DrMedVet, in Vienna

shows that the technique is sur-prisingly tolerant of variations in the position of the equipment, such as how far from the horse the camera is or at what angle to the animal the infrared camera is held.

However, it is important to en-sure that the horse is not standing

in a draft as even barely detectable wind speeds are sufficient to effect the measurements dramatically.

The findings were published in two articles, one in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association and the other in the Equine Veterinary Journal.

The horse’s body surface emits

Diagnosing lameness:

Thermographic images of a horse's forelegs, no draft (left) and draft of 1.3 to 2.6 meters per second (right). After 2:30 minutes the right hand leg has cooled down considerably. (Graphics: Vetmeduni Vienna/Westermann)

How accurate is thermography of horse's leg?


infrared radiation that can be detected by an infrared camera, which is both easy and inexpen-sive to use. The camera produces a colored image that shows the variation in surface temperature across the area investigated. The temperature is directly related to the presence of blood vessels near the skin, so the method can detect local inflammatory lesions or re-gions of modified blood flow and help localize the origin of lame-ness.

The theory is clear but until now, there have been little data concerning the reliability of the method for diagnosing horses.

Real-world experience In practice trivial matters,

such as time constraints and the horse's movement, can cause changes in both camera angle and distance of the camera to the area of the horse being investigated. Westermann wanted to know if these changes affected the results of thermographic imaging. She also wanted to know the affect that drafts might have on the re-sults, since thermographic imag-ing of horses should be performed in draft-free surroundings.

Westermann of the clinical unit of equine surgery at the Uni-versity of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, with colleagues at the University of Veterinary Medi-

cine, Vienna (Vetmeduni Vienna) and the Vienna University of Technology decided to find the answers to these questions.

They found that the method was highly reproducible and was less sensitive to variations in cam-era position and angle than might be expected. In fact, the results were almost completely unaf-fected by 20° changes in camera

angle and increases of up to 50 cm in the distance of the camera from the animal. At a distance of 1 m from the horse a 20° change in camera angle corresponds to about 35 cm. This represents the effective horizontal tolerance in positioning of the camera.

“Vets should have little dif-

ficulty in remaining within this limit, so the method is applicable in practice,” Westermann said. Surprisingly, the results showed that horses’ left and right fore-limbs show minor differences in temperature, and she cautioned that “it might be important to take these into account before reaching a final diagnosis.”

Blowin' in the windThe technique is reliable and

robust, at least in terms of varia-tion in where the camera is lo-cated. However, it turned out to be extremely sensitive to even very gentle drafts. A wind speed of less than 1 m/s causes a drop in measured temperature of about 0.6°C, while winds of 1.3-2.6 m/s cause a drop of 1.5°C and winds of 3-4 m/s cause a drop of 2.1°C. The discrepancies are more than sufficient to lead to a wrong di-agnosis, although even the high-est wind speed tested is hardly perceptible: it would barely cause leaves on trees to move.

“It turns out that it is not too important to be sure that the camera is in exactly the correct position before taking measure-ments. But it is essential to per-form thermography on horses in a room that is completely free of draughts. If you don’t, your diag-nosis will be completely unreli-able,” Westermann said. MeV


Westermann S, Heinz HF Buchner, Schramel JP, et al. Effects of infrared camera angle and distance on measurement and reproducibility of thermographically determined temperatures of the distolateral aspects of the forelimbs in horses. JAVMA. 2013;242:388-395. http://dx.doi.org/10.2460/javma.242.3.388

How accurate is thermography of horse's leg? Ensure horse is not standing in a draft for best results

Thermography is

highly reproducible

and is less sensitive to

variations in camera

position than might

be expected.

http://dx.doi.org/10.2460/javma.242.3.388

Veterinarians would do well to listen to owners and trainers when assessing a horse’s pain, ac-cording to Ann E. Wagner, DVM, MS, DACVP, DACVA.

Because they are more familiar with the horse’s normal relaxed be-havior, they might do a good job at recognizing abnormal manner-isms that could signal stress and pain, said Wagner, of Colorado State University, who is a specialist in equine anesthesiology and pain management.

“There is no ‘gold standard’ for assessing pain in horses,” said Wag-ner, although researchers have de-veloped different pain scales that focus on painful sites, such as gas-trointestinal or orthopedic, to deter-mine if a horse is in pain and how much pain it might be experiencing.

“Many of the signs of pain men-tioned in various pain scales are changes in behaviors that can be detected by owners," she said.

Behaviors that can be indicators of equine pain include decreased response to people and surround-ings, restlessness, agitation, reluc-tance to move, sweating, kicking, pawing, changes in appetite, and lameness. Many of these also can

indicate that the horse is stressed, which likely has an impact on the horse's pain level.

“The recognition and successful management of pain in people and animals remain among the greatest challenges faced by health care pro-viders,” Wagner wrote in a review on the topic. “Human patients are able to provide a self-assessment of pain, whereas, assessment of pain in animals is more complex and re-quires evaluation of behavioral and physiologic changes.”

Veterinary pain management is “suboptimal” she said because peo-ple don’t always pick up the horse’s cues and appropriate pain relief is not always provided.

However, efforts are being made to improve the recognition and quantification of animal pain. Just as pediatricians might use facial ex-pressions to help determine wheth-er an infant is in pain, veterinarians might be able to assess pain from animal expressions. Dale J. Lang-ford and colleagues developed the mouse grimace scale, a standard-ized behavioral coding system, which had a high degree of accu-racy and reliability.

Emma J. Love, BVMC, PhD,

DAV, DECVAA, MRCVS, per-formed a study to quantify facial movements in horses during a brief painful stimulus to develop a similar scale. She looked at 24 horses and watched for reflective markers at the eyelids, nostril, facial crest and mid-line and was able to measure chang-es that resulted from mild stimulus.

However, the study was small and she could not say with certain-ty whether the expressions were the


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Listen to your clients – they might be pretty good at assessing pain

B y M a r i e r o s e n t h a l , M s

PaIn

To know a horse is to

feel its pain



Wagner AE. Effects of stress on pain in horses and incorporating pain scales for equine practice. Vet Clin Equine 2010;26:481-492. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21056295

result of pain or stress. In a review article, Wagner

found that stress might inten-sify the horse’s perception of pain. Therefore, actions taken to reduce stressors and make the horse more comfortable might help reduce the pain the horse feels.

Reducing stress means doing common sense things like re-maining calm, minimizing activ-ity and noise around the horse, speaking in soothing tones, rub-bing or patting the horse if he likes that, and offering a small amount of feed if possible to

distract it. “If the horse is not already in its own stall but can be moved, put it back in its stall or familiar surroundings. Don't let other horses annoy it, but if the company of another horse is calming, keep another horse nearby or in sight," she said. MeV



When a horse misbehaves the reason might have more to do with how the horse was managed than as the result of bad tempera-ment, according to Petra Buckley, BVSc, DipVetClinStud, MVetClin-Stud, MANZCVSc, PhD.

“Misbehavior is not a horse temperament trait, but the result of our mismanagement,” said Buckley of the school of agricultural and veterinary sciences, Charles Sturt University in New South Wales, Australia.

Good nutrition and regular ex-ercise improves the horse’s behavior and increases the bond between horse and rider, she added.

Buckley and her colleagues ex-amined the risk factors for mis-behavior by observing a cohort of 84 Pony Club horses owned by 41 families for 13 months. Pony Club is an international youth organiza-tion, and Pony Club horses are an important aspect of the pleasure horse sector in Australia, where the study took place. The results were published in the Equine Veterinary Journal.

When purchasing horses, par-

ents of riders were particularly con-cerned about the horse’s tempera-ment, Buckley said, but they did not see the connection between body condition and behavior.

During the prospective, longitu-dinal study, owners recorded daily

horse management, and veterinar-ians examined the horses monthly. Daily management observations in-cluded nutrition, housing, exercise, health care and health problems. They also noted when the horses misbehaved.

The researchers determined which factors influenced the horse’s behavior. They found that the heavier horses misbehaved more than conditioned horses. The risk of misbehavior was higher among heavier horses, horses with access to

idle ‘hands’

behaVIor

Fat and idle horses more likely to misbehave than exercised and fit horses


Buckley P, Morton JM, Buckley DJ, et al. Misbehavior in Pony Club horses: Incidences and risk factors. Equine Vet J. 2013 Jan;45(1):9-14. doi: 10.1111/j.2042-3306.2011.00541.x. Epub 2012 Mar 11. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23237295

are thedevil’s workshopB y M a r i e r o s e n t h a l , M s



pastures with more green grass cov-er, those fed daily supplements and those that did not receive enough exercise.

Buckley said that regular exer-cise and conditioning (about three times a week) ensured that

• Horses were better condi-tioned, less prone to injury and more likely to meet the de-mands of Pony Club rallies and competition.

• Horses and riders spent more time together in positive activi-ties that improved the horse-rider bond.

• Horses learning improved through repetition.

“In other words, regular exercise sessions provide opportunities for horse education,” she said.

“We believe the excess feed en-ergy that is deposited as fat provides (apart from altering the horse’s me-tabolism toward unhealthy) excess energy for the horses to engage in non essential activities (non-surviv-al activities), such as play, and mis-behavior. In other words, we believe that too much feed lowers the bar for misbehavior to occur,” she said.

Many of the heavier horses misbehaved more during com-petition, which might be due to the added tension created during competition.

Veterinarians can play an im-portant role in helping owners over-come behavioral issues by discuss-ing nutrition and exercise. When owners keep a horse well condi-tioned, they will not only improve behavior, but also help the horse live a long, healthy life.

“Previously, misbehavior was difficult to generalize about. It is im-portant to spread the message, that the responsibility to monitor horse health and body condition score lies with the owners. They have the power to very strongly influence their horse’s health through man-agement every day,” she said. MeV

Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine have unraveled the effects of a natu-rally occurring protein called lubricin or Proteoglycan 4, which appears to protect joints from signs of aging, such as osteoarthritis, as well as helps with joint remodeling related to injury.

“This protein also affects the metabolism of the cartilage and does it in a way that prevents its breakdown. This is not just lubrication of the joints,” said Brendan Lee, MD, PhD, who is professor of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine and director of the Rolanette and Berdon Lawrence Bone Disease Program of Texas.

Osteoarthritis is a common condition, affecting man and beast, and there is no cure. “In spite of a lot of investment, there is no disease-modifying treatment that affects the course of the disease,” said Lee.

Graduate student Merry Z.C. Ruan, in Lee’s laboratory, developed a special imaging technique called phase contrast ultra-high resolution micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) that allowed the researchers to “see” the tiny cartilage in the knee joint and to quantify that amount in the mouse joint.

The researchers studied mice that pro-duced higher levels of the protein in cartilage and found that mice with an injury to their knees did not develop traumatic or injury-induced osteoarthritis.

As the mice that made extra lubricin aged, their cartilage resembled that of young mice, he said. There was no osteoarthritis suggest-ing that this protein may protect against the two common forms of OA-related and age-related injuries.

Eventually, they tried a gene therapy on normal mice, using a specially developed virus to inject the gene into the joints of the mice.

“The lubricin protein was expressed for the life of the mouse after a single injection into the joint,” said Lee. Moreover, the injection similarly protected the mouse against the development of injury-related OA.

He and his colleagues plan to test the gene therapy in horses that suffer from osteo-arthritis. The most immediate use would probably be to treat osteoarthritis that occurs after a sports- or work-related injury.

Using a special “chip” or microarray panel, they found that the protein not only lubricated the joint, it also affected metabolism and prevented breakdown of cartilage in the joint. MeV


Ruan MZC, Erez A, Guse B, et al. Proteoglycan 4 expression protects against the development of osteoarthritis. Science Translational Medicine, 2013; 5 (176): 176ra34 DOI:10.1126/scitranslmed.3005409 http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/5/176/176ra34

Protein found that may prevent osteoarthritis

neWsnoTes

Proteoglycan 4 appears

to protect joints from

signs of aging, such

as osteoarthritis, and

helps with joint changes

related to injury.

http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/5/176/176ra34

The analysis of DNA in-herited from a single parent has provided valuable insights into the history of human and animal populations. However, until re-cently we had insufficient infor-mation to be able to investigate the paternal lines of the domestic horse.

This gap has been filled by Barbara Wallner and colleagues at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna (Vetmeduni Vienna), who recently published information about the genetic variability in the horse Y chro-mosome and demonstrated how various breeds of the modern horse are interrelated in the on-line journal PLOS ONE.

Like father, like sonIn mammals, an individual’s

sex is determined by the chromo-somes it inherits from its parents. Two X chromosomes lead to a female, whereas one X and one Y lead to a male. Y chromosomes are only passed from fathers to sons, so each Y chromosome rep-resents the male genealogy of the animal in question.

In contrast, mitochondria are passed on by mothers to all their offspring. This means that an analysis of the genetic mate-rial or DNA of mitochondria can give information on the female ancestry. For the modern horse, it is well known that mitochon-drial DNA is extremely diverse

and this has been interpreted to mean that many ancestral female horses have passed their DNA on to modern horse breeds. Un-til recently, though, essentially no sequence diversity had been detected on the Y chromosome of the domestic horse. Not only does the lack of sequence mark-

ers on the Y chromosome make it impossible to trace male lineages with confidence, it also represents a scientific paradox. How can a species with so many female lines have so few male lines?

Wallner initially selected 17 horses from a range of European breeds. She pooled their DNA and used modern sequencing technol-ogy to examine the level of diver-sity on a 200 kb portion of the Y chromosome she had previously

sequenced. The Y chromosomes were found to be highly similar: with a variability in only five posi-tions. “The results confirmed what we had previously suspected: that the Y chromosomes of modern breeds of horse show far less vari-ability than those of other domes-tic animals,” Wallner said.

The five variable positions, or polymorphisms, were neverthe-less sufficient to enable the re-searchers to derive a “family tree” for the various breeds of modern horse they investigated. An ex-amination of more than 600 stal-lions from 58 (largely European) breeds showed that the animals could be grouped into six basic lines or haplotypes. The ancestral haplotype is distributed across al-most all breeds and geographical regions.

A second haplotype also occurs at high frequencies across a broad range of breeds, although not in northern European breeds or in horses from the Iberian Peninsula.

A third haplotype is present in almost all English Thorough-breds and in many warm-blooded breeds. The final three haplotypes are only found in local northern European breeds: one in Icelandic horses, one in Norwegian Fjord horses and one in Shetland ponies.

The pedigree of horses is very tightly controlled, with studbooks in many cases going as far back as the 18th century. Combining the results of the genetic analysis


The equine

‘Adam’ lived fairly recently

neWsnoTes

The restricted genetic

diversity of the

modern horse's

y chromosome reflects

the species dynamic

history.

with pedigree data enabled the scientists to trace the paternal roots of many of the current male lines. “The results were intrigu-ing, for example in the way the distribution of one haplotype re-flects the widespread movement of stallions from the Middle East to Central and Western Europe in the past 200 years. Another haplo-type results from a mutation that occurred in the famous English Thoroughbred stallion ‘Eclipse’ or in his son or grandson. It is amaz-ing to see how much influence this line has had on modern sport

horses: almost all English Thor-oughbreds and nearly half the modern sport horse breeds carry the Eclipse haplotype,” she said.

The scientists have confirmed the low diversity of the horse Y chromosome, which contrasts sharply with range of mitochon-drial DNA haplotypes observed in modern horses. The difference is presumably due to the strong variation in male reproductive success. Wild horses have a po-lygynous breeding pattern, while the intensive breeding practices in domestic horses mean that single

stallions can effectively pass on their DNA to entire generations.

“Most modern breeds were established in the last two centu-ries, during which time the horse has undergone a transition from working and military use toward leisure and sports. This has large-ly been achieved through the use in breeding of a few selected males. The restricted genetic di-versity of the modern horse Y chromosome is a reflection of what has survived the species’ dynamic history,” said Gottfried Brem. MeV



Wallner B, Vogl C, Shukla P, et al. Identification of genetic variation on the horse Y chromosome and the tracing of male founder lineages in modern breeds. ” PLoS ONE 8(4): e60015. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0060015. http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0060015

Distribution of the six haplotypes (HT1-HT6) found in the stallions across Europe and America (Graphics: Vetmeduni Vienna/Wallner)

http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0060015

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A three course, 10 module, equine-only online program offered through ACTGeared toward Credentialed Veterinary Technicians, Assistants, Support staff, & StudentsAreas of study include: equine medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, parasitology, laboratory, diagnostics, equine basics (breeds, wellness, husbandry,) diagnostic procedures, emergency medicine, restraint, pharmacology, surgical assistance and anesthesia, equine office proceduresA certificate of completion is awarded to those who: Successfully complete required courses Complete the list of required skills (per a supervising DVM who is an AAEP member) Attend an AAEVT regional CE symposium and participate in the we labsThose individuals who successfully complete the programs will be recognized as AAEVT Certified Equine Veterinary Technicians / AAEVT Certified Equine Veterinary Assistants depending on their current designation. The certificate is recognized by the AAEVT and the AAEP but does not grant the credentialed status by the AVMAFor more information go to www.aaevt.4act.com or call 800-357-3182

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By Deborah Reeder, RVT, VTS-EVNAAEVT Executive Director

Biosecurity is a set of pre-ventive measures designed to reduce the risks for intro-duction and transmission of an infectious disease agent.

Infectious disease pathogens may be brought to and spread at your practice, at a client’s barn, or to an equine event venue by horses, people, domes-tic animals other than horses, vehicles, equipment, insects, ticks, birds, wildlife including rodents, feed, waste and water.

It is important to create and implement a bios-ecurity plan ahead of time, so as to minimize or prevent the movement of diseases and to control pests. The equine technician can be instrumental in developing this plan and implementing it at the practice, for a client or in preparation of an equine event.

Horses and horse events have now become international. Horses are no longer immune to ex-posure to diseases and pests from other states or countries. The first role of the technician in charge of biosecurity is to become familiar with the basic principles and understand the basic biol-ogy of infectious diseases and their agents. How do these diseases spread, which horses and areas are at the greatest risk for an outbreak, and how to best protect your practice and its patients.

Breeding and show farms, stables, racetracks, and horse events are at a high risk for outbreaks. There is a high concentration of horses in one area and there is high traffic movement on and off the premises from a wide variety of locations and pro-tocols. Even if there is a vaccination protocol for those entering the farm, stable or event – it does

not apply to those horses or previous location where the horse came from. And there is usually not a focused attention on infection control bios-ecurity at most farms or equine events in between the events or moving of a horse in and out. This is probably more in effect at an equine practice, especially if a compromised patient was admitted.

Influenza, rhinopneumonitis, encephalitis, teta-nus, equine infectious anemia, West Nile virus, ra-bies, equine herpes virus, equine protozoal myelo-encephalitis, Rhodococcus, strangles, pigeon fever, etc. all have unique characteristics, signs, methods of transmission, duration of illness and virulence. It is why we have to be aware of administer so many vaccines! The most successful program has a well thought out immunization program and follows it. The prepared technician is knowledgeable about these diseases and has resources available. He or she must also stay abreast of any new medical up-

dates, as well as perceived outbreaks.

A second basic com-ponent of the biosecurity plan is to house horses based on their risk of exposure, along with the farm, stable, ranch needs. Horses should be housed in small groups and grouped by age, use and gestation time. Where there is an event, the stalls should be indi-vidual enough so there is little contact with other horses next door.

In all cases, there should be a protocol in place for daily monitor-ing and charting of tem-peratures. Movement among different stables or barns should be mini-

mized, as well as new arrivals. Equipment that is used should be kept to a specific group of horses and as much as possible minimize sharing to and including stall pickers, buckets, brushes, wheel-barrows, etc.

A daily physical examination should be a pri-mary part of your biosecurity and overall equine protocol, especially in a clinic situation. Checking

The equine technician's role in biosecurity

TeChnICIan uPdaTe

The University of Guelph has a useful tool to assess the biosecurity of a farm. Take the test here www.equineguelph.ca/Tools/biosecurity_2011.php


TeChnICIan uPdaTe

attitude, appetite, temperature, appearance of na-sal discharge, coughing, fecal character, and any onset of neurological signs should be noted daily and in good record format for each horse. Help-ing clients or event managers to create systematic charts for these parameters will go a long way to protect the industry and build awareness.

Practicing good hand hygiene is an important step to prevent disease and one we are all familiar with in human medicine, but a step we often for-get when dealing with horses. The protocol should be in place to wash hands before and after attend-ing each horse with soap and water and use a hand sanitizer or gloves. Posting signs as a reminder and having a sink or area available to wash hands ap-propriately is a good reminder.

Cleanliness should also be applied to housing areas, traffic areas, equipment, grooming supplies and trailers. The protocol should include an over-view of how each of these areas will be cleaned and disinfected routinely as well as before and after admittance of a patient or arrival of a new horse.

Even if you have prepared your practice well or your clients farm, there is always the threat of an outbreak. Have a predetermined plan in place that addresses how and when to isolate a sick animal, what protective clothing is needed, and how you will implement nursing precautions, barriers and providers. Post signs to communicate the situation and communicate directly with any team members involved. An outline of how to take samples and where to submit will be a great resource for your team.

Technicians can take the reins on implementing a successful biosecurity program with a little extra effort. It will not only communicate to your cli-ents that you care, and that you are prepared, but it will also help your clients know that your techni-cian and your team is resourceful, prepared, and is looking out for the health and welfare of your patients – their horses. MeV

The basic principles of biosecurity include:

• Understanding the infectious disease process

• Understanding how to house horses based on risk of exposure

• Perform daily monitoring and taking of temperatures

• Hand Hygiene

• Cleanliness, decontamination and disinfection controls

• Prepare a contingency plan • Immunization protocols

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neWsnoTes

Scientists have discovered a potential treasure trove of candidate enzymes in fungi thriving in the manure and intestinal tracts of horses. These en-zymes might be the key to the economical produc-tion of biofuels from non-food plant material, ac-cording to a report at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) held recently in New Orleans.

Cellulose is the raw material for making biofuels from non-food plant materials, but it is sealed inside a tough network of lignin within the cell walls of plants, according to Michelle A. O'Malley, PhD. To produce biofuels from these materials, lignin must be removed through an expensive pretreatment process. Then, a collection of enzymes breaks cellulose down into sugars. Finally, in a process much like making beer or wine, these sugars become food for microbes to ferment into alcohol for fuel, ingredients for plas-tics and other materials.

“Nature has made it difficult and expensive to ac-cess the cellulose in plants. Additionally, we need to find the best enzyme mixture to convert that cellu-lose into sugar,” O’Malley said. “We have discovered a fungus from the digestive tract of a horse that ad-dresses both issues — it thrives on lignin-rich plants and converts these materials into sugars for the ani-mal. It is a potential treasure trove of enzymes for solving this problem and reducing the cost of biofuels.”

The digestive tracts of large herbivores like horses, which can digest lignin-rich grasses, have been a well-trodden path for sci-entists seeking such enzymes. But in the past, their focus has been on enzymes in bacteria, rather than fungi. The goal: Take the genes that produce such enzymes from gut fungi and genetically engineer them into yeasts. Yeasts already are used in time-tested processes on an industrial scale to produce huge quantities of antibiotics, foods and other products. That proven pro-duction technology would mean clear sailing for commercial pro-duction of biofuels.

O’Malley explained that several genes from gut fungi are unique compared with bacteria, since the fungi grow invasively into plant material. Also, they secrete powerful enzyme complexes that work to-gether to break down cellulose. Until now, however,

fungi have largely been ignored in the search for new biofuel enzymes — and for good reason.

“There was relatively little scientific knowledge about fungi in the digestive tracts of these large ani-mals,” O’Malley explained. “They are there, but in low numbers, making it difficult to study. The low con-centrations also fostered a misconception that fungi

must be unimportant in digestion of cellulose. And it is extremely difficult to isolate and grow these fungi to study their enzymes.”

O’Malley’s research group at the University of California, Santa Barbara, collaborated with re-searchers at the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Uni-versity. They worked with a gut fungus isolated from horse ma-nure and identified all the genetic material that the fungus uses to manufacture enzymes and other proteins. This transcriptome, the collection of protein-encoding material, led to the identification of hundreds of enzymes capable of

breaking through that tough lignin and the cellulose within. The team now is shifting through that bounty to identify the most active enzyme and working on methods for transferring the genetic machinery for its production into the yeast currently used in indus-trial processes. MeV

Treasure trove in that there horse manure!

Phot

o cre

dit : C

redit

: Joh

n K. H

ensk

e

An anaerobic gut fungus from the digestive tract of a horse.

These enzymes might

be the key to the

economical production

of biofuels from non-

food plant materials.

reach your veterinarians where ever they are, whenever they want.

For adVerTIsInG raTes and InForMaTIon, eMaIlMarie Rosenthal, MS

Equine VetThe Modern

[email protected]

ModernEquineVet_May2013

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