Equine Disease Quarterly | EQUINE
In this issue, Dr. Alan Loynachan addresses the
underlying causes of the 898 equine abortions
examined by the UK Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory
over the 2016 and 2017 breeding seasons. This
retrospective look is important to help us identify areas
where we can improve management techniques and
where we should focus our future research efforts to
best benefit horse owners and breeders. As such, it’s
critical that breeding farms send their aborted foals to
a veterinary diagnostic laboratory, even if the cause of
abortion appears obvious.
Approximately 50% of the abortions evaluated were
deemed non-infectious. Of these, most are not likely
to be management related with the exception of
twin pregnancies; however, twins did not comprise a
large percentage of the abortions submitted. This is
likely due to better management techniques, namely
identification and reduction of twin pregnancies
early in gestation, but also likely reflects the failure of
owners to submit abortions with an obvious cause to
the diagnostic laboratory. While this is understandable,
it also makes it difficult to accurately measure the
frequency of these losses.
Infectious abortions comprised the other 50% of
submitted abortions, with placentitis representing
the majority of these cases. Unfortunately, we know
little about what predisposes a mare to develop
placentitis, and still have trouble with early, accurate
and specific diagnosis. Even so, there are steps that
owners can take to aid in early diagnosis, including
endocrine monitoring, regular ultrasound evaluation
of the placenta as well as daily checks for premature
mammary gland development, premature lactation,
and purulent vulvar discharge. If anything out of the
ordinary is noted, a veterinarian should be called to
examine the mare and start treatment if indicated.
As placentitis comprises the majority of the infectious
abortions seen, the laboratory of Dr. Barry Ball at the
Gluck Equine Research Center has been focusing on
better understanding the causes and progression of
placentitis. By utilizing state-of-the-art techniques to
look at changing gene expression, we have identified
several potential targets which we believe will function
as diagnostic aids and/or treatment options. Although
more work is still needed to confirm our findings,
we are optimistic that better options for dealing with
placentitis will be available soon.
Again, I cannot stress enough the importance of sending
all aborted foals, including fetal membranes and
maternal serum, to a veterinary diagnostic laboratory.
When breeders fail to submit abortions, it becomes
more difficult to spot trends and, in turn, becomes more
difficult to identify and respond to emerging threats.
It’s easy to justify only submitting abortions without
an obvious cause; however, the overall health of the
equine breeding industry relies on the submission of
every abortion, every time.
CONTACT:
Shavahn Loux, PhD
[email protected]
(859) 257-4757
Maxwell H.Gluck Equine Research Center
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY
Third Quarter 2018
The International Collating Centre, Newmarket, United
Kingdom, and other sources reported the following
equine disease outbreaks.
The final four cases of African horse sickness to be
reported by the Republic of South Africa (RSA) this
season occurred during the first half of July; two were
• Volume 21 Issue 1 | March 2019 •
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