Sleep occurs in every animal that researchers have studied, including birds, fish, aquatic mammals, and insects. Between 50 and 60 years ago, research was published on sleep in horses. Nothing was mentioned when I attended veterinary school from 1980 to 1984, with the exception of horses falling down, sound asleep during World War One (1914… Read more

This week’s Rounds With Doc T covers 3 essential aspects of physics as it applied to horses remaining sound or becoming lame:

• Force – mass times acceleration
• Piezoelectric currents
• Vector analysis on the distribution of weight on the hooves and joints.

There may be a lot more to keeping horses sound. Still, a critical… Read more

This Rounds was supposed to be about soundness – or lameness – in our horses. Instead, I was asked about propionate, a volatile fatty acid, which are the short-chain fatty acids made by the hindgut bacteria. It is used as a mold inhibitor in breads and in baled forage. After this, I briefly discussed end-stage teeth in horses, and then a… Read more

• 0:01:04 – I cover the difference between laminitis and founder and the rotation of the coffin bone.
• 0:06:05 – I am often asked to age a horse using their teeth because I see so many horses’ teeth. It makes sense. Not all horses have papers, lip tattoos, or computer chips embedded under the skin. Can the teeth give an accurate age,…

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I just heard a fascinating discussion about pain (in humans) by someone who has made his life helping those who have difficulty controlling their pain. It went to places I had never thought of. However, I realized that it is part of what I use daily as I float teeth in worried horses with oral pain.

We covered the FEI announcement about… Read more

Timestamps based on the full questions below:

• 0:04:40 – Magnesium discussion
• 0:22:00 – Developmental Orthopedic Diseases (DOD) discussion
• 0:39:10 – External Parasites (https://aaep.org/resource/external-parasite-and-vector-control-guidelines/)
• 1:01:40 – Summary
• 1:03:25 – horses backing off of eating SBM and someone…

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