| VETERINARY |
P ER F O R MA NC E H OR S E CP D, GOWR AN PA R K RAC EC OUR S E
Vets from all over Ireland congregated at Gowran Park racecourse in July for a continuing professional development event on the Performance Horse. The event, organised by European Trainer Magazine and Merial Animal Health, was the second in a series of veterinary CPD events for 2017 and featured a panel of expert speakers. The event was co-sponsored by Haygain and Connolly’s RED MILLS. Becky James BSc, MSc attended the seminar and reports on the key messages.
Merial is now part of Boehringer Ingelheim
MANAGING INFLAMMATORY AIRWAY DISEASE DR EMMANUELLE VAN E R C K- W E S T E R G R E N
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he first speaker Dr Van Erck-Westergren was due to fly in from Brussels on the morning of the event, so when her flight was cancelled at the last minute there was a moment of concern for the organisers but they arranged to bring her into the room via a video link so all was not lost! Using her experience in practice at the Equine Sports Medicine Practice in Belgium, Dr Van Erck explained the importance of vets helping clients to manage the environment of the horses to prevent and manage Inflammatory Airway Disease (IAD). She described managing the horse’s environment to reduce exposure to noxious inhalable particles and improve hygiene and ventilation in the stable as the cornerstone to the success of treating IAD. Important considerations for the environment include building design, bedding, stable activities and most critically, the forage, as this is in the horse’s breathing zone. Dr Van Erck explained that hay remains an important source of forage for horses but it is also a major source of dust and contaminants. Soaking hay is a cheap way of reducing airborne dust but it promotes bacterial proliferation and leaches out the nutritional value so well-made haylage or preferably steamed hay should only be fed to horses with IAD. The hygienic and nutritional quality of haylage produced by local farmers can be irregular. Some horses’ digestive systems do not tolerate it well and horses can get gases or diarrhoea. Commercially-available haylage usually undergoes quality control but is expensive and although lower in airborne dust, is never “dust-free”.
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Hay steamers are a promising alternative, reducing the airborne respirable dust by 98% and the wet heat of the steam killing the bacteria and moulds in the hay without altering the nutritional quality. In comparison to all other hay sources, steamed hay has been shown as the optimal solution to significantly reduce IAD in affected horses. [1]. It must be noted that some homemade hay steamers do not allow homogenous circulation of the steam and improper temperatures at the core of the hay results in microbial incubation rather than elimination. [1] Dauvillier J. & Van Erck-Westergren E. Prevalence of fungi in respiratory samples of horses with Inflammatory Airway Disease. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACVIM Forum, Denver, USA.