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Prevalence of clinical findings at examinations of young Swedish warmblood riding horses

BACKGROUND: Soundness of an individual horse is important for animal welfare and owner economy. However, knowledge of health status in normal horse populations is limited due to lack of systematic health recordings. The aim of the investigation was to study the prevalence of veterinary clinical find...

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Autores principales: Jönsson, Lina, Roepstorff, Lars, Egenvall, Agneta, Näsholm, Anna, Dalin, Göran, Philipsson, Jan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3764978/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23597257
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1751-0147-55-34
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author Jönsson, Lina
Roepstorff, Lars
Egenvall, Agneta
Näsholm, Anna
Dalin, Göran
Philipsson, Jan
author_facet Jönsson, Lina
Roepstorff, Lars
Egenvall, Agneta
Näsholm, Anna
Dalin, Göran
Philipsson, Jan
author_sort Jönsson, Lina
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Soundness of an individual horse is important for animal welfare and owner economy. However, knowledge of health status in normal horse populations is limited due to lack of systematic health recordings. The aim of the investigation was to study the prevalence of veterinary clinical findings in 4-5-year-old Swedish warmblood riding horses, and their influence on overall health scores, where associations to future longevity has been indicated. RESULTS: The prevalence of clinical findings in 8,281 horses examined during 1983–2005 was studied according to a standardised protocol and related to overall health scores in linear statistical models. Effects of sex, age, examination event and changes over time were included. In total, 49% of the horses had clinical findings of medical health (MED), 42% in hooves (HOOF) and 74% of palpatory orthopaedic health (PALP). However, only 6%, 3% and 24% had moderate or severe findings, of MED, HOOF and PALP, respectively. Flexion test reactions were reported in 21% of the horses (5% moderate/severe), heavily influencing the overall score (H2). One fifth of these horses also had findings of unprovoked lameness while 83% had PALP findings (44% with moderate/severe findings). Acute clinical signs, i.e. heat or soreness, had a large influence on the H2 score but were rare, whereas more common clinical findings had smaller effects on overall health. Large variations in recorded health results were observed among events. A decrease in findings has occurred since 1983, in particular for PALP findings. CONCLUSIONS: Results of occurrence and relevance of evaluated clinical findings could be used for advice on preventive actions to keep horses sound, and possibly for benchmarking, and genetic evaluation of health traits. The distinct effect of event on recorded clinical findings emphasises that further harmonisation of veterinary examinations are desirable.
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spelling pubmed-37649782013-09-07 Prevalence of clinical findings at examinations of young Swedish warmblood riding horses Jönsson, Lina Roepstorff, Lars Egenvall, Agneta Näsholm, Anna Dalin, Göran Philipsson, Jan Acta Vet Scand Research BACKGROUND: Soundness of an individual horse is important for animal welfare and owner economy. However, knowledge of health status in normal horse populations is limited due to lack of systematic health recordings. The aim of the investigation was to study the prevalence of veterinary clinical findings in 4-5-year-old Swedish warmblood riding horses, and their influence on overall health scores, where associations to future longevity has been indicated. RESULTS: The prevalence of clinical findings in 8,281 horses examined during 1983–2005 was studied according to a standardised protocol and related to overall health scores in linear statistical models. Effects of sex, age, examination event and changes over time were included. In total, 49% of the horses had clinical findings of medical health (MED), 42% in hooves (HOOF) and 74% of palpatory orthopaedic health (PALP). However, only 6%, 3% and 24% had moderate or severe findings, of MED, HOOF and PALP, respectively. Flexion test reactions were reported in 21% of the horses (5% moderate/severe), heavily influencing the overall score (H2). One fifth of these horses also had findings of unprovoked lameness while 83% had PALP findings (44% with moderate/severe findings). Acute clinical signs, i.e. heat or soreness, had a large influence on the H2 score but were rare, whereas more common clinical findings had smaller effects on overall health. Large variations in recorded health results were observed among events. A decrease in findings has occurred since 1983, in particular for PALP findings. CONCLUSIONS: Results of occurrence and relevance of evaluated clinical findings could be used for advice on preventive actions to keep horses sound, and possibly for benchmarking, and genetic evaluation of health traits. The distinct effect of event on recorded clinical findings emphasises that further harmonisation of veterinary examinations are desirable. BioMed Central 2013-04-18 /pmc/articles/PMC3764978/ /pubmed/23597257 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1751-0147-55-34 Text en Copyright © 2013 Jonsson et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Jönsson, Lina
Roepstorff, Lars
Egenvall, Agneta
Näsholm, Anna
Dalin, Göran
Philipsson, Jan
Prevalence of clinical findings at examinations of young Swedish warmblood riding horses
title Prevalence of clinical findings at examinations of young Swedish warmblood riding horses
title_full Prevalence of clinical findings at examinations of young Swedish warmblood riding horses
title_fullStr Prevalence of clinical findings at examinations of young Swedish warmblood riding horses
title_full_unstemmed Prevalence of clinical findings at examinations of young Swedish warmblood riding horses
title_short Prevalence of clinical findings at examinations of young Swedish warmblood riding horses
title_sort prevalence of clinical findings at examinations of young swedish warmblood riding horses
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3764978/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23597257
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1751-0147-55-34
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