Emerging Equine Diseases: What You Should Know

Mar 27, 2015

Not long ago, we didn't know that some now-common equine diseases even existed. Potomac horse fever, hendra virus infection, and contagious equine metritis, among others, were all once considered emergent diseases. And while we no longer think of them as new conditions, there are likely many more just waiting to make their first appearance or spread across an international border into a previously unaffected country.

At the recent 2015 University of Kentucky Equine Showcase, held in Lexington, Peter J. Timoney, FRCVS, PhD, shared some important insight into emerging equine diseases. Timoney is a professor and former department chair and director of the University of Kentucky Gluck Equine Research Center, also in Lexington.

What is an emergent disease?

Emergent diseases are those that are recorded for the first time in a population (such as Potomac horse fever or hendra virus) or those that might have been around for a period of time, but had not been diagnosed (like mare reproductive loss syndrome or contagious equine metritis), Timoney said.

Source: TheHorse

Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.