(352) 472-1620 vets@springhillequine.com
Warmblood Fragile Foal Syndrome

Warmblood Fragile Foal Syndrome

May 14, 2018 | Breeding, Warmblood Fragile Foal Syndrome

Tuesdays with Tony

This week we’re going to talk about a tough topic: Warmblood Fragile Foal Syndrome. I apologize to those who enjoy my feline brand of sarcasm, but it will be largely missing this week. Even a cat can’t be snarky when it involves death, and Warmblood Fragile Foal Syndrome causes foals to die soon after birth, which is even worse.

What is Warmblood Fragile Foal Syndrome?

Springhill Equine Veterinary ClinicWarmblood Fragile Foal Syndrome (WFFS) is a point mutation in the PLOD1 gene. I’m going to get a wee bit nerdy here because I can’t help myself.  A point mutation means that in the DNA for this gene where a Guanine should be, there’s an Adenine. PLOD1 is responsible for helping raw collagen turn into something that can support all the stresses skin, tendon, ligaments, and blood vessels undergo every day. That single change from a G to an A means the skin can’t handle shear forces. That’s it: one letter. It can also be a cause of abortions in pregnant mares because of umbilical cord ruptures. The umbilical cord grows from the foal side of things, so if the foal has WFFS, the umbilical cord will be made with defective collagen. You know those bubbles you see in a water hose before it bursts? That’s what blood vessels made with defective collagen do. And once the umbilical cord bursts, the foal can’t survive.

I tell you, the more I learn, the more amazed I am that life even happens. There are so many places where one tiny little error makes the whole system fail.

How does my foal get it?

WFFS is an inherited genetic mutation, and specifically an autosomal recessive condition. Every foal gets one copy of genes from the sire, and one copy from the dam. For an autosomal recessive condition to cause problems, the foal has to get two copies of the gene. This is a good news/bad news scenario. It means that most foals won’t be affected with the syndrome. However, autosomal recessive is a great way to have a gene silently make its way into a population.  For example, let’s say we cross a mare that is A/G (this means she’s a carrier) with a stallion that is A/G (so he’s a carrier too). With this cross, there is a 25% chance we get a G/G foal (not a carrier and normal), 50% we get an A/G foal (normal but a carrier), and a 25% chance we get an A/A foal (fully affected). This means it is very, very important to know the status of your mare and stallion if you are breeding!

How do I test my horse?

First, if your horse is a gelding there is no reason to test unless you are curious. WFFS carrier status will NOT affect performance.

Ok, now that that’s out of the way. UC Davis and Etalon Diagnostics are the two places my Docs recommend. Many, many warmblood breeders are testing aggressively right now. This means there may be a wait to get your results, but both labs are trying to get results out as fast as they can. Both labs have submission forms on their websites. You will need to pull about 25 hairs, being sure to get the roots, and mail them in along with the submission form. That’s it.  

And if my horse is a carrier?

That depends on you. Responsible breeding would mean removing carrier horses from the gene pool by not breeding them. I do understand that’s easier said than done. At the very least, avoid breeding two carrier horses. As I said, many stallion owners are trying to determine the status of their horses. Hilltop Farm has done an excellent job getting information to mare owners. They have also said any mares bred to carrier stallions must have proof of non-carrier genetic status. This is a great start. It gives me hope for you humans.

Now be a good human: scroll down just a smidge further and subscribe. It’s the only way to be sure you see all the wisdom I have to offer delivered directly to your Inbox.

Until next week,

Tony

Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic

Subscribe to Whinny's Wisdoms

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

Navicular Disease

Navicular Disease

May 7, 2018 | Lameness, navicular disease

Tuesdays with Tony

It’s definitely busy season here at the clinic! All the breeding work and new foal checks on top of my usual bread & butter makes for one exhausted office cat. But I’d hate to disappoint my adoring fans, so I will postpone my cat nap long enough to shower you all with some new information on an old problem called Navicular disease.

 

What is a “navicular”?

     Kinda sounds like one of the pieces you make sure you take out of your Thanksgiving turkey before eating it, right? Well, in fact, the navicular is a small bone in your horse’s foot at the back of the coffin joint. It is technically a sesamoid bone, meaning it is not one of the main weight-bearing bones in a joint. Despite this, navicular bones play a huge role in the physiology of how a horse’s foot bears weight.
      Navicular disease syndrome describes a problem with the navicular bone plus or minus any of the structures it connects to. You see, the location of the navicular bone smack in the middle of the hoof makes this tiny bone extremely significant. The navicular bone is in contact with the coffin joint, the navicular bursa, the coffin bone, the short pastern bone, the navicular impar ligament, the deep digital flexor tendon, and the digital cushion. This is why navicular disease can go south so quickly!

How is Navicular disease diagnosed?

      Navicular disease usually manifests itself as forelimb lameness. The lameness may be mild or intermittent at first, and it may be difficult to tell which front foot is lame. The classic feature of navicular disease is that it is almost always bilateral (affecting both front feet). If your horse’s lame foot is blocked (numbed with local anesthesia), and the lameness switches to the other foot, a diagnosis of navicular disease is high on the list.
     X-rays of the front feet are needed to confirm this diagnosis and to get an idea of the severity of your horse’s condition. This is when I get to sit back and watch the docs and techs try to make your horse do circus tricks in order to get some fancy X-ray views. First, they need the horse to put both front feet up on these little wooden blocks. Next, they get the horse to stand on a tunnel with the X-ray plate in it. Then they ask the horse to stand with one leg forward and one leg back while they crouch under the horse’s belly and point the machine at the horse’s heel. Let me tell you, it looks absolutely ridiculous, and is hilarious to watch.
    While X-rays can give the docs a lot of information about the navicular bone itself, MRI is required to fully evaluate the soft tissue structures involved. If it’s in the budget, we would strongly recommend an MRI if your horse is diagnosed with Navicular disease.

Can Navicular disease be treated? 

     Yes! While navicular disease is a degenerative condition, this diagnosis is certainly not a death sentence for your horse when it is identified in its early stages. Certain breeds, such as Quarter horses and Paints, are more likely to develop the condition than others. If you own one of these horses and notice any forelimb lameness, or if your farrier tells you that your horse is painful across his heels, have him evaluated by a vet ASAP!
     Corrective shoeing is the cornerstone of treatment for navicular disease. Wedge pads will take some pressure off the heels, where the navicular structures are, and redistribute the weight to his toe. Any decent farrier should be able to handle applying wedge pads, but make sure he or she gets a chance to look at your horse’s X-rays to determine what degree of wedge your horse needs. If you have a stellar farrier who is adept at corrective shoeing projects, he may try a therapeutic shoe with a built-in wedge (bars that are thicker at the heel than at the toe), and/or other modifications to suit your horse’s individual needs.
     The corrective farriery is essential to managing a horse with navicular disease, but it’s not always enough by itself. Your vet may prescribe anti-inflammatory medications to give your horse long-term in order to maintain his comfort. Equioxx is commonly employed in these cases because it boasts far fewer negative GI side effects compared to Bute or Banamine. Joint injections are another way to decrease the inflammation associated with navicular disease. Going back to our anatomy lesson from earlier, injections into either the coffin joint or the navicular bursa may help your horse, as the navicular bone borders both of these structures.

A word about OsPhos

    The new kid on the block as far as treating navicular disease goes is a drug called OsPhos. This medication is definitely in vogue right now, especially in the Quarter Horse world, but does it really work? Well, lucky for you, I like to be a well-educated cat, so I did some research on the subject.
     OsPhos has been shown in vitro (that means in a Petri dish in the lab) to reduce osteoclast activity. Osteoclasts are cells that break down bone. One of the primary features of navicular disease is that the navicular bone essentially disintegrates over time (a severely diseased navicular bone will look like a slice of Swiss cheese). Ok, so this sounds like a no-brainer, right? The navicular bone is breaking down, so let’s give a drug that inhibits bone breakdown to stop progression of the disease.
    Well, there are 2 little problems with OsPhos. Remember that whole Petri dish thing? Well, just because we know a drug works in a lab means nada when it comes to how that drug will work when injected into a horse’s body. The medication has been approved by the FDA so we know it is relatively safe for horses, but how well it works at actually treating navicular disease is anybody’s guess.
    The second problem is a recently-recognized side-effect, which we all should have expected when you think about it. It has been suggested (by some very smart veterinarians) that OsPhos inhibits bone healing. This makes sense, because in addition to eating away at diseased navicular bones, osteoclasts actually have an important role in bone healing in a healthy horse. If your horse were to fracture a bone, osteoclasts would get to work right away cleaning up the shattered fragments and making way for osteoblasts (bone-making cells) to lay down new bone. Well, if your horse is in work, and his bones are under stress, they are essentially sustaining millions of micro-fractures all the time. In a normal horse, this would be no big deal. Osteoclasts would swoop in, clean up the damaged bone, and it would be replaced by new bone, which would be even stronger than before. But, in a horse that has been treated with OsPhos, those osteoclasts are inhibited, the damaged bone doesn’t get cleaned up, the new bone can’t be laid down, and the bone is left weaker than before.
     If you’ve followed my cat-splaining this long, good for you! If not, don’t worry, just trust my vets. Here’s their two cents: OsPhos is worth a try in horses with a definitive diagnosis of navicular disease. However, if one treatment doesn’t do the trick, it’s probably not a good idea to give this medication repeatedly. OsPhos is definitely not a lameness cure-all, and it doesn’t make sense to use it in horses to treat anything other than navicular disease.
   Well, I sure hope I still have time to get my nap in! Tomorrow’s another day full of foals, mares, and stallions. I need to be alert to manage my minions as they run around like chickens with their heads cut off.
    See you next week!
           -Tony

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Office Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

Subscribe to Whinny's Wisdoms

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Foaling and Due Dates

Foaling and Due Dates

Apr 30, 2018 | Foaling, Foals

Tuesdays with Tony

Foaling and Due Dates

We had a foal on Monday. The humans went all gaga over it. I was more like, “Hey, can a cat get some attention over here?” I guess she’s cute. There is some debate over what color she is. Even odds right now on buckskin vs. bay. What’s really exciting about this foal is that she’s finally here. May, the mom,  went 378 days from ovulation to foaling. That’s way over the normal gestation of 340 days, but mares are mares and will do what they please, including ignoring due dates. And on that note, let’s talk about why it was okay that May went 378 days, and why that’s often better than foaling too soon.

Let’s talk placentas

Horses have what’s known as diffuse placentation. When you look at a horse placenta, it looks almost like velvet (red, gooey velvet, but velvety nonetheless). That velvet forms a connection at a microscopic level with mom’s blood vessels. Humans do sort of the same thing, but only in one spot on the placenta. Cows make these connections in a bunch of big knots called cotyledons. This matters because horses need every bit of the placental connection they’ve got to grow that big ol’ foal in there. It’s why twins in horses are usually a bad idea. Where the twins touch, there’s no connection to mom, which means not enough nutrition to grow into a healthy, happy foal.

When placentas go bad

It goes without saying (but I’m going to say it anyway) that bacteria in the uterus with a baby is bad. The cervix does its part to keep the outside out, and the immune system works hard to keep things from the blood stream out of the placenta. However, life being what it is, sometimes stuff happens. In this case that thing is called placentitis. Placentitis occurs when bacteria get into a pregnant uterus and start attacking the placenta. The most common place for this to happen is at the cervix. In some ways, that’s a good thing.

My Docs recommend ultrasound exams throughout those long 11 months (or sometimes 12 months +) of pregnancy. One of the things they are evaluating is the placenta at the cervix. They know it should normally measure less than 1cm and should be tight against the cervix. If they see anything even a little bit off they can start treatment right away. My Docs ultrasounded May at 5, 7, and 9 months gestation and everything was good, so placentitis was unlikely. To be fair, May got ultrasounded a few more times when she started going past her due date, but that’s because the Docs wanted to be doubly and triply sure. And who doesn’t get a little antsy waiting 378 days for a foal???

Uh Oh! There’s an udder!

To be honest though, the Docs weren’t worried about May because her udder wasn’t growing. The udder is an excellent way to tell how the foal/uterus/placenta are doing. Udders should start developing around Day 330 of gestation. If the udder is growing any sooner than that, Call My Docs IMMEDIATELY. Was I clear enough there? Milk coming in before day 330 is not good!!!

May’s udder showed absolutely no changes until about 10 days ago. It then grew at glacial speeds, despite twice daily checks from the techs, Docs, and everyone else around here. (Glacial means really, really slow, for all you native Floridians who avoid all things cold-weather related.)

Antibiotics to the rescue

It’s 290 days of gestation for your mare, every check-up until now has been normal, but suddenly this morning she has a huge udder and you can express milk. My Docs ultrasound her and find some separation of the placenta at the cervix. What now? Antibiotics! And Regumate, and Banamine. But mostly antibiotics. The good news about placentitis is we can generally get it treated with SMZ antibiotics. A little Regumate is added in to quiet the uterus down, and Banamine reduces inflammation. The sooner placentitis is caught, the better the chances things will go well.

May’s placenta was normal, her cervix was tight, and she had no udder. That means no placentitis. My Docs did a couple extra things to make sure everything was OK in there. They did a serum amyloid A test. This looks for inflammation from infection. May’s was normal. They also used the ultrasound from outside that enormous belly to be sure the foal was moving. She was. That left my impatient humans with sitting and waiting. Which they did very, very reluctantly. Lo and behold, we had milk early on Monday morning with a pH of 6.2 (read here about why that’s important), and later in the morning we had a bouncing baby girl!

foal due date

Can’t you induce like they do in humans?

NO!! is the definitive, emphatic answer. Foals develop their lungs in the last 36 hours of gestation. We don’t have a way to know when that is. Take May as an example: if she had been induced at day 340 of gestation (her technical due date), her baby would have still needed 36 days more for her lungs to mature. I may be a cat, but I’m guessing no lungs doesn’t go well with the outside world.

As I said earlier, mares are mares and they will do as they please. It’s a philosophy I can really get behind. Got questions about your mare or due dates? Want to breed? Go check out my blog page for tons of wisdom. Want the wisdom every week? Scroll down a little farther and subscribe to my blog. So easy, even a human can do it!

Until next week,

~ Tony

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Office Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

Subscribe to Whinny's Wisdoms

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Recognizing Pain in Horses

Recognizing Pain in Horses

Apr 23, 2018 | Pain

Tuesdays with Tony

Recognizing Pain in Horses: The Telltale Signs

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times: “Gee doc, your job must be so hard, because you can’t tell when your patient is hurting.” But the truth is, our docs use non-verbal signs to tell when a horse is in pain, and after years of practice they have become quite proficient at recognizing when something is wrong. So, how do horses “tell us” when they are in pain?

Lameness

It may seem obvious, but limping is a sign of pain. The source of that pain can be anywhere from the tip of the toe to the shoulder/hip. The docs have a wide array of tools to determine where exactly the pain is coming from, but that’s a topic for another day.

Horses don’t “fake” lameness to get out of work. They are prey animals, so if anything, they will try to hide a limp when their adrenaline kicks in. Horses that are “sometimes a little off” or horses that “work out of it” are also in pain. I will add here that Bute is a powerful pain-killer. If your horse is “sound on Bute” but lame when off of Bute, he has an underlying source of pain somewhere.

Vets go through rigorous training during school in order to be able to see a subtle lameness. Both of my docs also happen to be experienced horsewomen, so they also understand what lameness feels like under saddle. However, during a lameness evaluation, they are looking for signs such as a head bob, hip hike, fetlock drop, or shortening of stride to tell them where a horse is hurting.

Heart Rate

One reliable indicator of pain that vets use on a daily basis is heart rate. In human medicine, a doctor may ask you to rate your pain on a scale of 1-10. Well, vets can’t do that in horses. But they can measure their heart rate and monitor whether it goes down with various treatments.

You can easily learn how to take your horse’s heart rate at home. Get yourself a stethoscope (it doesn’t have to be fancy). Locate the horse’s heartbeat just behind the left elbow. Look at your watch and count the number of beats in 15 seconds, then multiply by 4. This gives you the horse’s heart rate in beats per minute. The normal resting heart rate in a horse is about 30-40 beats per minute.

Some horses are very stoic. They may not show any overt signs of pain until they are near death. Certain breeds such as Walking horses, Draft breeds, Mules, Standardbreds, and some Quarter horses can be very stoic when it comes to pain. In these horses, it is very useful to get a quick heart rate measurement to assess their current comfort level.

Pain in horse expressionFacial Expression

Have you heard the phrase “I can see it in his eyes” when referring to a horse in pain? Well there is actually some truth to this theory, and it has even been empirically studied. Horses have a characteristic grimace that they often exhibit when they are in severe pain. You may have seen it if you have ever had a horse suffering from colic, laminitis, or a major injury.

When horses are in pain, their ears tilt back, their nostrils scrunch up at the corners, and they elevate their eyebrow muscles. There is a subtle distinction between a pain expression and an angry or worried expression. Our docs are all too familiar with the pain face, and can recognize it quickly, then get busy looking for the source of the pain.

If you think your horse looks like he is in pain, give him a good once-over. Is he “pointing” one forelimb in front of the other- a common sign of foot pain? Is he “flank-watching” or looking at his sides- a common sign of colic? Is he squinting one eye more than the other? If you’re not sure where the pain is coming from, give me a call at the clinic and I will get my experts involved!

The Silent Treatment

Animals certainly do feel pain. Just because they aren’t screaming and kicking like a human doesn’t mean they are not hurting. Even dogs and cats like me are rarely vocal when they are in pain. We use meows, hisses, barks, and growls to communicate other emotions, but not pain. I am more likely to slink off into a corner if I’m hurt than to come crying to a human.

Horses will almost always suffer in silence. For this reason, it is important to have a vet who can recognize and interpret their silent cries for help. It is also important to listen to your veterinarian’s recommendations regarding pain management. Sometimes the best option for easing your horse’s suffering may be humane euthanasia. But rest assured, our docs always have the best interests of your horse in mind.

Hopefully after writing this I’ll begin to hear a different comment from horse owners: “Gee doc, your job isn’t hard because you can’t tell when your patient is hurting. Your job is hard because you have to convince me that my horse is hurting.” Hey, a cat can hope, right?

Until next week,

~ Tony

 

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Office Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

Subscribe to Whinny's Wisdoms

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Ground Manners Matter!

Ground Manners Matter!

Apr 17, 2018 | Behavior, Safety

Tuesdays with Tony

Ground Manners Matter!

Cats are the perfect killing machine. Look at my sleek physique, my taut muscles, and my powers of concentration. My reflexes are a thing of legend. They aren’t cat-like, they’re Original Cat. Being a predator animal means I take a surprise well, unlike a horse. Despite many, many conversations with the horses that come through the Clinic here at Springhill Equine, I still don’t understand how a falling leaf can be confused with a fire-breathing dragon. Yet every horse explains to me that it could happen, and they need to be prepared! Being prepared for the sudden appearance of dragons can make veterinary care difficult. Read on to learn how to ward off dragons! Spoiler Alert, I have included some graphic pictures of what happens when horses confuse humans for horse-eating tigers.

Save the Toes

Ground mannersToes are perfectly positioned on the end of the human foot to make an excellent target for the equine foot. Add to that the unique ability of the horse to leap up into the air and land with a hoof wherever a human foot happens to be. This ability is compounded by a unique choice in human footwear known as a flip-flop. I’m not sure why you humans even wear these things. You may as well go barefoot. Needless to say, the flip-flop offers no protection to those toes, and shouldn’t be worn around horses. You can also help keep your toes alive by ensuring your horse is respectful on the ground. Training your horse to do the basic showmanship maneuvers will teach them to move away from you, rather than onto you. Pro-tip: your veterinarian will also appreciate it if your horse happily walks and jogs on a lead, and has decent ground manners!

I have included this picture of a toe to reinforce your showmanship work, and proper shoe selection.

A Sedated Horse Can Still Kick

Ground mannersMy Docs often have to do things to horses which said horse doesn’t appreciate very much. The Docs will often use powerful sedatives to help your horse agree that this is something they can do. You will notice that even when your horse is sedated, my Docs still act like they could get kicked. Sedated horses are still very able to kick. They’re less likely to, but they certainly still can, and with surprising speed. Super fun part about sedated horses: they don’t give you any warning before they kick. This means for some procedures, in some locations (especially lower legs, and back legs) my Docs may elect to fully anesthetize your horse. Most of the time the anesthesia lasts for about 20-30 minutes, and then they slowly wake up. This gives the Docs time to fully evaluate and repair a laceration, for example.

How can you help? Always be aware of where you are in relation to the feet. If you’re helping hold for one of my Docs, pay very close attention to how your horse is standing. If you notice anything to indicate a kick is coming, feel free to speak up loudly and quickly!

For this one, I included a lovely kick to a thigh by a very sedated horse during a sheath cleaning.

Needles are your friend

I’m going to start with this lovely picture here:

This was done by a horse who overreacted a wee bit to a needle. I mean seriously, it was a little tiny needle. For the record, this isn’t one of my Docs, but it is a veterinarian. This is why we take needle shyness very, very seriously. When giving shots in the neck, or drawing blood, my Docs are standing in the perfect place to get pawed (that’s what happened in the picture). This is why we bribe horses.

You may have noticed my Docs and their amazing techs feeding your horse treats, and using a clicker. This is to help desensitize them to the stick of a needle. You can definitely help your horse be prepared for needles with a little training! Any one of my minions can show you how to start the process, but basically it involves teaching your horse to tolerate the feeling of the “stick.” This is usually done by gently pinching the skin in the area where the shot will be given, and offering a food reward when they relax. The pressure of the pinch is increased until your horse is pretty sure it’s no big deal.

It’s important to remember that horses are really big, move really fast, and can hurt humans (and cats) really badly. I know what you’re thinking: My horse would never do that! Maybe, and maybe not, but a little bit of training before an accident happens, and a whole lot of paying very close attention to them can go a long way. At the end of the day, it’s all about getting the horses taken care, and getting the humans home safe!

Have you subscribed to my blog? If you say no, that’s the wrong answer. You can easily fix this wrong answer by scrolling down a little farther to the subscribe button.  So easy, even a human can do it. HAHAHA!!!!

Until next week ~

Tony

Subscribe to Whinny's Wisdoms

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Office Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!