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Study Shows Possible Link Between Equine Obesity And Asthma

It's been proven that carrying extra pounds can cause humans to develop asthma, and researchers are now attempting to find a link between obesity and breathing issues in horses.

Texas A&M and the Morris Animal Foundation are funding research on the debilitating condition. Currently, the main treatment option for asthmatic horses is the use of corticosteroids, which can cause laminitis in overweight equines.

Texas A&M researcher Dr. Michelle Coleman intends to use 60 horses brought to the University's veterinary teaching hospital for the study. The research team will assess each horse's body condition, identify if they have insulin issues, and determine their asthmatic state by listening to their lungs and taking fluid samples from their lower airways. The horses will be divided into four groups of 15: Obese and asthmatic, non-obese and asthmatic, obese and healthy, and non-obese and healthy.

Each group will be examined for inflammation markers, including cytokine levels. The cytokine levels in humans differ between obese asthmatic people and non-obese asthmatic people. The study will also look at each horse's lung microbiota to see if there is a difference in obese asthmatic horses and non-obese asthmatic horses.

Researchers hope the results from the study will allow horse owners and veterinarians to identify horses at higher asthmatic risk and assist in preventing asthma or intervening in such situations earlier.

Study: Does Hierarchy Affect Foraging Behavior?

Horses that live outside in a herd rapidly establish a hierarchy that affects everything they do, including eat; dominant horses tend to shoo others away from the tastiest grass or hay. A team of researchers wanted to investigate if this meant that horses lower in the pecking order eat less or if they have to spend more time grazing to make up for mealtime shortages.

Drs. Sarah Giles, Pat Harris, Sean Rands and Christine Nicol created a study to investigate the association between social dominance, interruptions to foraging behavior and body condition. The research team used 116 horses from 20 herds, and completed the study during the winter, when pasture was limited and there was competition for food.

The team began by giving each horse a body condition score between 4 and 8.5. They also measured social dominance and observed foraging behavior, tracking the duration and frequency of grazing, as well as the number of interruptions.

The study team found that foraging success of individuals may be partly influenced by their social status, but the relationship between her behavior, dominance and body condition wasn't fully established from the study. They concluded that for horses, the benefits of group living outweigh the costs; individual horses learn to follow behavioral rules that allow them to function as a social unit.

These scientists reviewed over 120 hours of herd monitoring and found that the total time spent foraging wasn't influenced by body condition or social dominance. Horses that had higher social standing also had higher body condition scores, but the main factor behind this was foraging efficiency. The horses that raised their heads more and were hyper-aware of their surroundings, had lower body condition scores. This vigilance was not associated with social status and seems to be an inherited trait.

The study also found that subordinate horses or those with lower body condition scores did not forage more. This suggests that the difference in body condition can be seen when subordinate horses are in the presence of dominant horses and reduce forage intake, they report.

Lower-ranking horse were unlikely to continue to forage when their companions were not, which supports the idea that social factors may result in body-condition score difference in horses living in a herd.

Read the study here.

Research Update: Hay Intake Of Blanketed And Non-Blanketed Horses

Thermoregulation in the horse is an energy-expensive process, which can be mitigated by blanketing horses in cold climates, potentially preventing weight loss or leading to decreased feed intake.

The objective of a recently published research project, conducted at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, was to evaluate feed intake, body weight, and body condition scores in blanketed and non-blanketed horses.

Starting in October, 16 adult horses were either blanketed (n = 8) or not blanketed (n = 8). From December through January data was collected, including body weight, body condition scores, hay nutritive value, and round bale weights. Round bales were offered continuously to the horses, and hay waste and any remaining hay was weighed to calculate horse dry matter intake.

Average bale weight, forage nutritive value, body weight, and body condition score were not different between blanketed and non-blanketed horses. However, the daily dry matter intake was different. Blanketed horses consumed 2.3 percent of their body weight, while non-blankets horses consumed 2.5 percent of their body weight. These results suggest blanketed horses conserve energy, leading to decreased feed intake.

For more information on this research, read the article in the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science.

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