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Disturbance In Sleep Patterns May Indicate Equine Ill Health

Researchers in England are monitoring the nightly sleeping patterns of horses to try to determine if rest patterns may indicate that a horse is feeling unwell. The scientists, based at Nottingham Trent University, will take into account other factors like temperature, age, personality and exercise, which may influence rest. They hope that if they can discover what is “normal” for a particular horse, that deviation from this normal pattern will alert owners that something may be wrong.

Horses have two sleep phases: slow-wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Horses that are sleeping while standing experience only slow-wave sleep; to enter REM sleep, the horse must lie down. REM sleep is very important for equine physical and mental well being.

Horses that can't lie down, whether because of illness, injury or environmental stress, will become sleep deprived. As owners generally don't see their horses sleep, sleep deprivation may go unnoticed until it become extreme.

To help them in their research, scientists will analyze videos of equine actions over multiple nights, recording the behavior of each horse. The horses will also be fit with an accelerometer that will record the horse's movement. The researchers plan to use two different populations of horses: riding school horses and racehorses to help them understand the different sleeping patterns.

Top Worldwide Equine Welfare Concerns Include Biosecurity And Delayed Euthanasia

There are 80 equine welfare issues considered serious throughout different facets of the horse world, making it extremely difficult to get a handle on which are top priority. In an effort to determine which issues faced the most horses, researchers in the UK created two lists: one that included issues that affect the entire horse population; and one that included issues that cause suffering for individual horses, reports The Horse.

The research team, which included Drs. Fiona Rioja-Lang, Melanie Connor, Heather Bacon and Cathy Dwyer, asked 19 equine welfare experts what they felt were the UK's main equine welfare issues. Respondents provided 84 issues, which were then discussed in a two-day meeting to prioritize the list of issues.

The conference attendees determined that the most prevalent issues facing the equine population as a whole included lack of biosecurity and disease surveillance. The next most-concerning issues included delayed euthanasia; lack of owner understanding of equine welfare; the horse's frustration, fear and stress from their jobs; and obesity.

Delayed euthanasia was also deemed to cause the most suffering to individual hoses. Other concerns for individual horses included lack of owner recognition of pain behavior; internal parasites; obesity; and diets being fed that are unsuitable for equines.

These concerns highlight the need for owner education—many owners would be surprised to learn how many issues relate to them and not veterinary care. Other group welfare concerns that involve equine owners include unstable social groups, indiscriminate breeding and ill-fitting tack. Individual equine welfare concerns included overwork, overweight riders and the inability for horses to have normal social interactions with how they are managed.

Can Animals Be Used As Earthquake Prediction Systems?

People have believed for years that some animals exhibit unusual behavior before a major earthquake or other natural disaster occurs. Reports have indicated that horses, cows, dogs, cats and sheep may all be able to detect something amiss long before a scientist or warning system can.

Drs. Martin Wikelski, Uschi Mueller, Paola Scocco, Andrea Catorci, Lev Desinov, Mikhail Belyaev, Daniel Keim, Winfried Pohlmeier, Gerhard Fechteler and P. Martin Mai, from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the University of Konstanz, sought to create a study to find out if these animals could detect earthquakes.

The research team attached sensors to farm animals in earthquake-prone areas of Northern Italy and recorded their movements over multiple months. They determined that the animals were restless hours before an earthquake hit. The closer the animals were to the epicenter, the earlier they began behaving oddly.

The scientists used six cows, five sheep and two dogs that had already showed signs of being able to predict an earthquake. Their movements were recorded continuously for several months. During the period the animals wore the sensors, 18,000 earthquakes were reported by authorities, 12 of which were a 4 or higher on the Richter scale.

The researchers chose specific quakes and then marked the animal's unusual behavioral using objective criteria. This ensured that the scientists truly had a model that could be used for predictions. The data measured the activity level of each animal and then evaluated it using statistical models from financial econometrics, taking into account changes in activity patterns throughout the day.

The researchers discovered unusual behavior in the animals up to 20 hours before an earthquake. The closer the animals were to the epicenter of the quake, the earlier they showed activity changes. The team noted that the change was made clear only when the scientists looked at the animals collectively instead as individuals.

Though it's still unclear how the animals can sense the impending quake, scientists suggest they may sense the ionization of the air in their hair; they may also smell gases released from the earth right before the quake occurs.

Condylar Fracture Not Career Ending For Bella Ciao

Bella Ciao, a 3-year-old filly trained by father-and-son team Alessandro and Antonio San, and owned by Cairoli Racing Stable and Magic Stables LLC, sustained a condylar fracture to her right front leg in April of 2019. She had just finished breezing at Gulfstream Park West in Miami Gardens, FL, when the break occurred.

Palm Beach Equine Clinic took on the filly's case, with Dr. Robert Brusie leading the care team. A condylar fracture occurs after repetitive strain fractures the cannon bone during high-speed work. On an X-ray, the fracture looks like a crack that goes up the cannon bone and out the side, breaking off a corner of the cannon bone.

These fractures can be incomplete and non-displaced, meaning that the bone has not chipped off and is in its original position. Complete, displaced fractures mean that the fragment has moved away from the cannon bone; these types of condylar fractures are more difficult to repair.

Dr. Brusie surgically repaired the fracture with screws and recommended stall rest and handwalking for the first few months after she had surgery. The filly went back to the track at the end of October in a $45,000 allowance race, which she won.

The filly has won additional races in 2020, proving that not all condylar fractures are career ending.