Abstract: Solving horse nutrition challenges require contributions from Psychology, Biology, Agriculture, and Veterinary Medicine because these are biological challenges of an anthropological nature. The domesticated horse has shifted from an animal of war, transportation, and farmwork, to a companion enjoyed for sport, leisure and recreation. The first realization and responsibility must lie in the fact that it is the owners and managers which are the source of many of the horses’ challenges. Nutritional challenges include: defining requirements and absorption of nutrients, improving feed efficiencies for performance, improving feeding management and eating behaviors, and preventing or treating clinical problems. These challenges can be addressed through science, horse management, and education. Many of today’s challenges in horse nutrition can be related to the equine genome and genetics. Those that can be addressed with nutritional consequences include Polysaccharide Storage Myopathy, Equine Metabolic Syndrome, Recurrent Exertional Rhabdomyolysis, Glycogen Branching Enzyme Deficiency, Hyperkalemic Periodic Paralysis, and Development Orthopedic Disorders. It is the scientific understanding of cellular processes in relation to nutrients which address the symptoms associated with these diseases. Consequently, feeding management can be changed to actually treat the disease. The most recent advances in equine nutrition implement the use of molecular and cellular based techniques to understand how nutrients are needed during times of stress, feed withdrawal and to maintain gut health. For example, the absorptive capacity and transporter gene expression and localization, are now being quantified. We are also now assessing the impact of the loss of reproductive endocrines on calcium and phosphorus homeostasis in the horse. Additionally, bioluminescent pathogenic bacteria have been utilized to view attachment rates in the gastrointestinal tract of the horse. These are merely examples of the approaches of science to these nutritional challenges. Science is of little use unless it is incorporated into improved management of horses. Every type of horse requires different management and good husbandry. In our country, 70+% of the horses are kept in small herds, on limited acreage, and used for recreation and sport. Since we have taken the horse out of its natural environment and subjected it to these roles, we now seek to determine ways to feed the horse in our environments; i.e. obesity, inconsistent exercise, confinement, surgery, competition, diseases. Private horse feed agribusinesses have aggressively positioned excellent products with claims to improve health, reproduction, performance, and even horse happiness. Owners and managers seek unbiased science upon which they ultimately make their own decisions. General challenge categories seem to be feeding geriatric horses, active performance horses, and idle horses with secondary metabolic problems. Thus, feeding recommendations include the determination of specific horse nutrient requirements, maximization of available forages, providing other nutrients, and exercise to manage horses more as horses. Private and public companies and Extension systems exist to provide online and other sources of information. As more and more people own horses as a hobby and for recreation, they share responsibility to inform themselves on how to best feed and care for their horses.

Abstract: African horse sickness (AHS) is an infectious but no-contagious viral disease of equidae with high mortality in horses. The disease is caused by an arthropod-borne double-stranded RNA virus within the genus Orbivirus of the family Reoviridae transmitted by at least two species of Culicoides. Nine different serotypes have been described. The nine serotypes of AHS have been described in eastern and southern Africa. Only AHS serotypes 9 and 4 have been found in West Africa from where they occasionally spread into countries surrounding the Mediterranean. Examples of outbreaks that have occurred outside Africa are: in the Middle East (1959-1963), in Spain (serotype 9, 1966, serotype 4, 1987-1990), and in Portugal (serotype 4, 1989) and Morocco (serotype 4, 1989-1991). Laboratory diagnosis of AHS is essential. Although the clinical signs and lesions are characteristic, they can be confused with those of other diseases. Several techniques have been adapted for the detection of RNA segments, antibodies and antigen. Two types of vaccines have been described for AHS virus. Attenuated live vaccines (monovalent and polyvalent) for use in horses, mules and donkeys, are currently available, as well as a monovalent, serotype 4, inactivated vaccine, produced commercially but no longer available. New vaccines, including a subunit vaccine, have been evaluated experimentally. In this paper a review of the last AHS outbreaks in Spain, occurring during 1987-1990, and affecting the central and south part of the country, is presented. The role that vaccination played for the control and eradication of the disease, as well as other aspects such as climatological conditions, number of vectors and horse management, are also presented and evaluated.

Abstract: Staphylococci occur in donkeys more frequently than in other animals, and only from donkeys coagulase-negative staphylococci, characteristic of humans (S. hominis, S. capitis, S. cohnii), were isolated. Least frequently staphylococcal carrier state was registered in cats; in these animals only coagulase-negative strains were found to occur. From 30 donkeys coagulase-positive staphylococci belonging to 47 S. aureus strains were isolated. These strains differed from known ecological variants in their biological properties, thus suggesting the existence of S. aureus ecovar specific for donkeys. These strains did not coagulate human, bovine and ovine plasma, but coagulated rabbit plasma in 100% of cases and donkey plasma only in 53% of cases; at the same time they relatively often produced delta hemolysin, rarely phosphatase and hyaluronidase and never fibrinolysin. These strains were typed by KPC phages, mainly 116 and 117.

Abstract: Are the cognitive mechanisms underlying language unique, or can similar mechanisms be found in other domains? Recent field experiments demonstrate that baboons' knowledge of their companions' social relationships is based on discrete-valued traits (identity, rank, kinship) that are combined to create a representation of social relations that is hierarchically structured, open-ended, rule-governed, and independent of sensory modality. The mechanisms underlying language might have evolved from the social knowledge of our pre-linguistic primate ancestors.