Jul 15, 2014 | Ailments
Dr. Bourke’s phone rang recently with a call from this mare’s very concerned owner. She found the mare squinting her eye late in the evening and wasn’t sure what to do so she called us. Dr. Bourke started the mare on medications that evening and the owner brought her in to Springhill Equine the next morning. Spice was holding her right eye closed, squinting, and didn’t want Dr. Lacher to touch her eye. A few treats were handed out to let Spice know we were here to help. Dr. Lacher placed a green stain in the eye and found it stayed stuck to the cornea on the outside half. The green stain is called Flourescein and it shows us where the cornea is missing its top layer.
In Clinic Equine Veterinary Services, Equine Vet Hospital, And Emergency Vet
Spice was started on additional eye medications to combat a wide variety of fungus, bacteria, and the pain that comes from a corneal ulcer. We always give a little treat with these medications so the horses thing it’s a fun game. Spice came back in a few days for Dr. Bourke to check on her progress. Unfortunately when Dr. Bourke re-checked her the ulcer wasn’t doing any better and was even a little bit worse. One concern we always have is how much of the eye medications get into the eye but in this case Spice was being given treats every time her eye was treated so she thought eye medications were wonderful! Dr. Bourke used a sterile Q-tip to sample the cornea itself and see what was going on. This picture was what was going on and unfortunately those straight purple lines are fungus.
Fungus
Fungus is a common problem in our hot, humid weather here in Florida. And summertime is full of hot, humid, and even downright wet weather! Those large eyes horses have just love to get stuff in them and horses love to rub them on things when the gnats get bad. This can lead to a small scratch and Voila! fungus has a way in. Because of the prevalence of fungus in Florida, Dr. Lacher and Dr. Bourke always start any ulcer on anti-fungal therapy. Dr. Lacher and Dr. Bourke start with ointments 4-6 times per day, atropine to dilate the eye and reduce pain daily, and Banamine twice daily to help manage pain.
Our Doctors then check in with a phone call, text, or e-mail every day to make sure things are going well and perform a recheck exam and stain of the eye. We know life gets difficult so to make things easier staying with us at Springhill Equine is great for complicated eye cases!
Sometimes even with great owner and easy-to-treat horses the fungus gets ahead of us. For those cases we place a special type of catheter in the eye that lets us treat them with more powerful liquid medications. We give these horses lots of treats with every medication! Staying at the hospital is perfect for these cases so Dr. Bourke, Dr. Lacher and I can monitor them every day. As the eye improves we slowly decrease the medications until we are back to ointments a couple times per day.
Questions about eyes? Give my Docs a call! This is Tony hoping your food bowl is full and your litter box is clean!
Mar 30, 2014 | Leg issues
Our Doctors spend an awful lot of time talking about joint supplements. Just yesterday I caught Dr. Lacher reading this article http://www.thehorse.com/articles/33601/oral-joint-supplement-efficacy-tested-in-senior-horses about joint supplements in older horses. So this week I thought we could chat a bit about these supplements. Personally I find most of them to be very tasty but more on that later.
Let’s start with why a joint supplement might or might not be needed in the first place. Lots of you ask your horses to perform as athletes. This is why I’m glad I’m a cat and don’t have such demands placed on my days. In the process of performing low level damage is done to the joints and particularly to the cartilage. This is part of exercise and is very normal. Most of this damage is readily repaired by the body but some of it is too extensive for the normal repair processes. When this happens we call it an injury and over time injuries can lead to arthritis.
So what’s a human to do? Well logic says if we give the body the stuff it needs to make more cartilage it will help those joints heal faster. Logic does say this but I have been doing a lot of research. After all with this much rain it’s not like this cat wants to go outside and play. Glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate have been shown to be absorbed by the equine intestinal tract and to have potential for anti-inflammatory effects. However, studies looking at the level of these molecules in blood and joints after oral and intravenous administration show they aren’t anywhere near high enough to be therapeutic. Hyaluronic acid fared even worse in studies. It was shown to be absorbed but nearly 95% of what was given was found in the feces. Studies have also been done in rats and dogs only, not horses. Fatty acids are new to the picture and the studies are preliminary at best. It looks like alpha-linoleic acid and cetyl myristoleate are the top candidates for horses. Moral of the story: There is some science behind the ingredients in joint supplements but most simply can’t be fed at high enough levels to be effective.
And then we get to the confusing part. Articles, like the one Dr. Lacher was reading, show that using objective measurements older horses with known arthritic conditions benefited from joint supplements. One way this may work is that inflammation in a joint will cause glucosamine and chondroitin to increase. This is likely due to an increase in cell transport mechanisms secondary to inflammation. Some scientists theorize that these molecules also work as anti-inflammatories in the liver and kidneys where they reach much higher levels due to the filtering nature of these organs. Fatty acids work in the entire body to reduce inflammation. This means that some horses sometimes have been shown to respond for reasons we don’t fully understand.
Real world advice time. You have a horse you would like to give a joint supplement to but you aren’t sure which one to use. Start with a well known name brand such as Cosequin or the SmartPak brands. glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate are probably the most important ingredients. For the horse in intense work or with known problems fatty acids added to the chondroitin and glucosamine may increase the benefit. However, when it comes down to your horse the best answer is to pick a supplement, try it for 30 days, stop it for 30 days and see how you feel. At the end of the day your horse’s response is really the only one that matters.
I have posted links to many of the articles I read for this blog. Most are very sciency and I had to ask Dr. Lacher and Dr. Bourke for help interpreting them. They said they would be more than happy to do the same for you guys any time. Until next time may your litter box be clean and your food bowl full!
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bdd.392/abstract
The bioavailability and pharmacokinetics of glucosamine hydrochloride and chondroitin sulfate after oral and intravenous single dose administration in the horse
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2042-3306.2002.tb05422.x/abstract
Effect of glucosamine on interleukin-1-conditioned articular cartilage
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/art.20762/full
Synovial fluid levels and serum pharmacokinetics in a large animal model following treatment with oral glucosamine at clinically relevant doses
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf8017029
Absorption, Uptake and Tissue Affinity of High-Molecular-Weight Hyaluronan after Oral Administration in Rats and Dogs
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049017201986378
Biochemical basis of the pharmacologic action of chondroitin sulfates on the osteoarticular system
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2746/0425164054530687/abstract
Effects of glucosamine hydrochloride and chondroitin sulphate, alone and in combination, on normal and interleukin-1 conditioned equine articular cartilage explant metabolism
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2042-3306.2006.tb05615.x/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
Double blind investigation of the effects of oral supplementation of combined glucosamine hydrochloride (GHCL) and chondroitin sulphate (CS) on stride characteristics of veteran horses
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1939-1676.2012.00901.x/full
Systematic Review of Efficacy of Nutraceuticals to Alleviate Clinical Signs of Osteoarthritis
Mar 19, 2014 | Ailments, Feed, Leg issues, Pests
They were making a fuss around here recently about a groundhog and a shadow and warmer weather. I don’t know what the big deal was I see my shadow all the time and it has nothing to do with the weather. This did, however, lead to a conversation about Spring and horses. Turns out horses face some pretty unique challenges during the warm up from our frigid winter. I realize some of my readers from the north are chuckling about the weather but this cat thought it was plenty chilly.
New green grass. New grass is very high in sugar. This sugar can quickly bring on an attack of laminitis in horses who are overweight or have Cushings. These horses are prone to a syndrome called Equine Metabolic Syndrome which causes them to have diabetes type responses to sugar. There are some treatments available but diet control and exercise are the most important.
Parasites. Parasites love Spring and Fall, feel pretty good about Winter, and hate Summer. The best parasite control methods use fecal egg counts to figure out which horses carry the most worms. Now is the best time to do fecal egg counts. Use this handy chart to determine how long you need to wait after you deworm to bring us poop:
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Product Given
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Wait this long to bring us a sample
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Moxidectin
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16 weeks
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Ivermectin
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12 weeks
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Pyrantel, Oxibendazole, Fenbendazole
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9 weeks
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Weather changes. Rapid weather changes play havoc with our horses GI tract. The best advice our Doctors have is water, water, water! Adding water to your horse’s grain on a regular basis helps combat those cold weather colics. A small handful of salt when temperatures suddenly drop will encourage your horse to drink.
Encephalitis. Yep encephalitis. Spring is prime time for Eastern Encephalitis. Our mosquitoes are wicked any time of year but during the Spring they are likely to be carrying this deadly disease(99% of horses who begin to show symptoms later die of the disease). The vaccine for Eastern Encephalitis is extremely effective but only lasts for a short time. We recommend giving the vaccine every 4-6 months depending on the age and lifestyle of your horse.
Skin funk. Florida is famous worldwide for its horse skin funk. Well maybe not to regular people but definitely for horse people. Keeping your horses as dry as possible is the key! Since we all know this is next to impossible this time of year, there are several treatment options for funky Florida skin. Desitin or diaper rash cream is great for lower limbs, the zinc oxide helps heal the compromised skin while simultaneously sealing water out. Dilute Listerine or dilute vinegar may help with the thorax/ back funk but will not address a serious problem. For more severe cases (all of those sensitive skinned chestnuts out there) Springhill carries a medicated CK product that comes in a shampoo, salve, rinse and spray depending on where the problem is. Silly horses I don’t understand why they can’t just clean themselves…that’s what your tongue is for!
May your litter box be clean, and your food bowl be full!
-Tony
Mar 7, 2014 | Ailments, Feed
Dr. Bourke has been complaining recently about how much she has to feed her senior horses. I don’t understand what the big deal is, since I eat whenever I feel like it. Don’t horses do the same? I listened to her tell a story of this really nice family that had been effectively starving their older gelding because they didn’t know how to appropriately feed him. It turns out that older horses often need different kinds of feed than young or middle age horses, and LOTS of it!
All of the major feed companies make feeds specifically formulated for Senior horses. Nutrena Senior, Purina Equine Senior, Triple Crown Senior, and Seminal Senior are all examples. These senior feeds usually share the follow characteristics: They are 1) easy to chew, 2) easy to soak, 3) easy to digest, and 4) formulated as ‘complete feeds’. Complete feeds are products that can be fed as a horses’ sole source of food, replacing all other grain and hay. The major ingredient in complete feeds is usually processed alfalfa or another fiber source like beat pulp, so unlike traditional ‘grain’, you need to feed much larger quantities of it to provide the same amount of calories.
Dr. Bourke said that SKINNY senior horses, especially ones with dysfunctional teeth, need to eat between 1.5% and 2% of their body weight in senior feed per day. I did the math, and for an average sized quarter horse, this comes to 15-20 lbs of food per day!! But who feeds by weight anyway? Everybody I know uses scoops – some big scoops, some small scoops, some heaping scoops, but scoops nonetheless. Dr. Bourke said it’s really important to know how much 1 ‘scoop’ of your feed weighs. I brought her my food scoop, which turns out is only ½ a cup, and she weighed it for me. The amount was miniscule. I think I will complain to management. But back to horse feed. The ‘standard’ horse sized food scoop can hold 3 quarts, which is APPROXIMATELY 3 lbs of food. But again, this varies. If you have a kitchen scale, use this to weigh out one full scoop. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, put one scoops worth of food in a large plastic bag, and take it to your local feed store for them to weigh for you. The produce scale at the grocery store works great too!
If you need an approximate place to start, 15-20 lbs of food, assuming a 3 lb scoop, is 5-6 full scoops per horse per day. Think 2 full scoops in the AM, 2 scoops midday, and 2 scoops at night. Yes, that’s a LOT of food! Another way to think about this, is that if you are really feeding 20 lbs of food per day, you are going to use up an entire 50 lb bag of feed in 2 and a half days. It is important to remember that while it is safe and often necessary to feed this much senior feed, it would be VERY dangerous to give any horse this much of other kinds of feeds. These guidelines apply to complete senior feeds only. And as always, make feeding changes slowly.
I asked Dr. Bourke about hay, and she said that teeth-less old horses can’t chew well enough to get much nutrition out of hay. She said they can even colic or choke if given really stemmy stuff like coastal hay. She said that when feeding enough senior feed, hay isn’t required at all, but that if you want to give the horse ½ a flake or so of either alfalfa or peanut hay in order to give them something to munch on, that’s ok.
Jan 31, 2014 | Ailments, Disaster Preparedness, Leg issues, Pests
This week I have been consoling Dr. Lacher on a regular basis about her horse, Ernie. Ernie has developed a significant cellulitis in his right hind leg and Dr. Lacher is trying very hard to stay calm about (more…)
Fungus
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