A Sunny Week in Seattle

Last week the annual ACVIM (American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine) Forum was held in Seattle Washington. I was privileged to attend this event both as representative of Purina Animal Nutrition at the trade show that accompanies this meeting, as well as a practicing veterinarian to acquire continuing education. Ordinarily, I don’t mind spending all day inside a convention center when meetings like this are held in Seattle because the weather is usually less than ideal. However this year was different, with bright sun and daytime temperatures in the mid 60’s and 70’s, making it hard to be stuck inside all day. Fortunately, the ACVIM Forum is among the premier veterinary CE events in the country, known for its state of the art presentations by the top veterinarians in the world. The Forum is attended by more than 1300 veterinary internal medicine specialists and general practitioners.

In conjunction with the Forum, the AAVN (American Academy of Veterinary Nutrition) held its 13^th Annual Clinical Nutrition and Research Symposium. This event gives veterinary nutritionists, animal nutritionists and graduate students the opportunity to present their latest research findings related to nutrition and its effects on veterinary health. This year a record was set for attendance with over 160 veterinarians, nutritionists and students in attendance.  Purina Animal Nutrition was proud to sponsor the AAVN Large Animal/Equine Case Report Award, which was presented to Jennifer Gill from North Carolina State University for her submission entitled, “Evaluation of a potential insulin resistance in an obese Paso Fino mare with bilateral hind limb laminitis.” This year’s symposium featured primarily small animal (dog and cat) research abstracts that were very thought provoking. It can very useful and interesting to hear about advances in research involving other species and then to think about how they might apply to horses. An example of this was a presentation about a study investigating the traditional dietary recommendations for dogs with chronic kidney disease. This study found that protein restriction in the diet is likely not as critical as once thought, particularly with the advance of higher quality protein in most diets. It was a very enlightening talk that challenged one of the old dogmas of dietary management of dogs (and most other mammals) with kidney disease and these finding may have implications across all species including horses.

Our Time at the Equine Science Symposium

Part of the fun of traveling around the country doing horse research and attending scientific conferences is passing by sights like the “World’s Largest Pistachio.”  We couldn’t help but stop and take this in on our way to Ruidoso, New Mexico to attend the Equine Science Society (ESS) Symposium. The little shop there was full of homemade pistachio mixes from nuts grown on the property, local wine and fun gifts.  I am still enjoying the lemon-lime pistachios I picked up.

What in the world?

As for the conference, we had a great time at ESS and we stayed at the Inn of the Mountain Gods which is part of the Apache Indian reservation just outside of Ruidoso.  We had a busy schedule attending the scientific talks, meeting with colleagues and supplier companies, and catching up with the conglomerate of equine nutritionists that we get to see at this conference.  If you follow this blog regularly, I posted some pictures a few weeks back, which were a “teaser” to the talks Purina would be presenting.  Here is some more information about each one.

What do these three pictures have in common?

They are all from upcoming Purina presentations at the Equine Science Society Symposium in Mescalero, New Mexico!  We have 4 accepted research abstracts on a wide variety of topics, ranging from salt and water intake, how feed additives affect manure stock-piling, and protein supplementation in exercising horses.  Each research abstract will be presented as part of the symposium as a data-sharing PowerPoint presentation, describing the research hypotheses, methodologies, results and implications.  If you would like a sneak peak of the research and other topics being presented, the abstracts and full papers have already been published and uploaded to the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science website at: http://www.j-evs.com/

More information about the meeting can be found at http://www.equinescience.org/2013/

Also, we will be sure to blog about the meeting itself and provide insight into all the new and exciting equine research being presented.  The meeting covers everything from nutrition, exercise physiology, reproduction, teaching & extension and more!

2013 Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event

Looking at the Kentucky Horse Park’s schedule of events, there’s always something going on at the park; shows, demonstrations, and competitions of all shapes and kinds, not the least of which is the Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event – easily one of my favorite events of the year!

Once again, Purina Animal Nutrition was proud to be a sponsor of the annual event. To kick of the festivities, we were treated to a course walk by Olympian and Purina Ambassador Kyle Carter on Thursday afternoon. Kyle took us on a tour of the cross country course with great insights into the strategy and approaches for each obstacle. While some obstacles have a few options to take depending on the rider’s objective, all of them are a challenge in and of themselves. Just walking the course is a huge effort so you can imagine what that translates to on horseback.

I’m not an eventer myself, but I’ve developed an immense amount of respect for what it takes to get a horse to compete at this level.  To go from calm focus on dressage day to watching them gallop through the lanes on cross country day is certainly a sight to behold only to see them come back on Sunday and jump through the stadium course with what looks like ease. Of course there’s nothing easy about a four star level event and it takes a monumental team effort to get there.

Feeding for Shine

Everyone wants their horse to look so good that he/she turns heads. Good breeding, correct conformation, and a strong topline are important, but the traditional hallmark of a beautiful horse is a shiny coat. Even horses without perfect confirmation are eye-catching when they have a shiny coat. A good example is my own horse Roman pictured below….he is an aged 15.3 OTTB with a club foot and a Roman nose, but in spite of all that I think he looks gorgeous (OK, I may be a tiny bit biased, but he does have a very shiny coat).

My horse Roman (photo credit Eve Wheeler)

Even though we can’t control confirmation flaws, we do have some level of control over the appearance of a horse’s coat. Good nutrition shows on the outside, and feeding a balanced diet that meets nutrient requirements is an essential first step to having a horse with a shiny coat.

The Challenge of Spring

Most of us associate the challenges of spring on a horse farm/ranch with all of the seasonal changes that take place.  The challenges many of us face can include; getting foals on the ground safely, getting mares bred back for the foal crop of the coming year, starting back up with cutting grass or making hay, trying to keep a close watch on horses on pasture eating that lush spring grass, the list goes on and on! One of these challenges brought me to realize a strong correlation from a discussion we had the previous week about feeding horses properly. We had an additional challenge last week when a group of severe storms came through our area. Strong winds and a tornado were reported right here at the farm. Luckily no people or horses at the Purina Animal Nutrition Center were hurt, but we did lose some trees and fence. One of the trees was a favorite of mine, it has been in countless advertisements and pictures of the farm. The picture below was from a couple of years ago after a light snow.

A substantial oak that had survived who knows how many storms and from all appearances looked rock solid and healthy. When the wind came last week we were left with the image below.

New from Purina Animal Nutrition!

It’s hard to believe we’ve actually done it! Years and years of research, countless ultrasounds, timely breedings, sleepness nights, foal after foal being born….and we have finally figured out how to feed broodmares and combine our breeding expertise in order to guarantee the sex of a foal. We are proud to present Purina Strategy Colt and Purina Strategy Filly! Start using these feeds now to rebreed your mares and get exactly the number of colts and fillies you want on the ground next year. By using these feeds and timing your breeding precisely as we specify, you will have a 90%+ chance of getting the gender of foal you plan for. No more waiting 11 months to find out, no more trying to sex the embryo at certain dates, no more disappointment when you wished for a colt and a filly pops out (no offense to the fillies), we have a feed for you too!

We have been working on this technology at our Purina Animal Nutrition Center for many years. Our statistics show that if we combine an exact percentage of protein, carbohydrates and essential fatty acids, and then inseminate mares on a precisely determined date and time via ultrasound, there is a 91.23 ± 4.5% chance of influencing the sex of the foal. This percentage is statistically significant with a P-value of 0.0496. This is a very strong statistical value and we are now preparing all of our data for peer review publication. We will let you know when the final paper is accepted and ready for print.

In the meantime, some additional statistics include:

40.0% percent of people in the US play April Fool’s Day pranks on their friends, family and/or coworkers. When these pranks are played, it makes 7.0% of people feel paranoid and another 11.0% annoyed. I, on the other hand, think they are great fun! Did I get you? I hope so. Happy April Fool’s Day!