This week Kate and Nancy revisit the Donkey Skin Trade (ejiao) crisis and the African Union Ban of February 2024.

Research Reference/Link:

Shan Su, Ewan A. Macdonald, Nico Arcilla, Maurice Beseng, Felipe Thomaz, David W. Macdonald (2023). Characterising the links between the trade in donkey skins for traditional Chinese medicine and timber of conservation concern, Global Ecology and Conservation, Volume 46.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989423002330

Link to 2021 Donkey hide episode: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/dj6qsbfiIIb

Link to The Brooke: https://www.thebrooke.org/

This episode Nancy and Kate interview Scott Cieslar owner of MadBarn. Madbarn is a nutrition, and supplement company that also fuels equine research. Listen in and check out the website @ https://madbarn.com/ (USA) or https://madbarn.ca/ (Canada).

This week Kate and Nancy discuss using smartphone apps to help in the recognition of emotions and pain in horses.

Research Reference/Link

Corujo, Luis A., Emily Kieson, Timo Schloesser, and Peter A. Gloor. (2021). "Emotion Recognition in Horses with Convolutional Neural Networks" Future Internet 13, no. 10: 250.

https://doi.org/10.3390/fi13100250

Equine Pain and Welfare App:

Link to Training Program for EPWA:

https://training.epwa.nl/

Nancy and Kate talk about Dr. Manfredi's equine metabolic research at Michigan State University.

Reference/Link to article:

Manfredi, J. (2023). Horse health research will help humans stay healthy, too, with insights on reining in diabetes and obesity, The Conversation; Michigan State University.

https://theconversation.com/horse-health-research-will-help-humans-stay-healthy-too-with-insights-on-reining-in-diabetes-and-obesity-205185

This week Nancy takes a look at the use of Bell Mares during the 1800s up to WWII.

Research References:

L. Proops et al (2012).Social relations in a mixed group of mules, ponies and donkeys reflect differences in equid type, Behavioral Processes.

Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0376635712000654

Górecka-Bruzda A, Jastrzębska E, Drewka M, Nadolna Z, Becker K, Lansade L (2022) Female Horses are more socially dependent than geldings kept in riding clubs. Appl Anim Behav Sci 254:105714. 

Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2022.105714

This episode Kate and Nancy discuss a listeners' recently published research. This research is a 2024 update to our past episodes on Equine Assisted Therapy.

Research Reference:

Seery, Rita, and Deborah Wells. 2024. "An Exploratory Study into the Backgrounds and Perspectives of Equine-Assisted Service Practitioners" Animals 14, no. 2: 347.

Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14020347

This week Nancy and Kate discuss a listeners' email request via a recently published paper on the effects of weather on pastured horses.

Research Reference and Link (not open access-snippets available.):

Keller, G.A.; Nielsen, B.D.; Vergara-Hernandez, F.B.; Robison, C.I. Tracking the Impact of Weather on Equine Activity While Pastured. J. Equine Vet. Sci. 2022, 116, 104052.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0737080622001903

Kate and Nancy discuss using the EBPI to manage osteoarthritis in horses.

References and Link:

Howard DL, Lancaster B, de Grauw J. Development and Preliminary Validation of an Equine Brief Pain Inventory for Owner Assessment of Chronic Pain Due to Osteoarthritis in Horses. Animals. 2024; 14(2):181.

https://doi.org/10.3390/ani1402018

Nancy and Kate discuss the horses role in 1872 and how an equine flu epidemic shut down the US economy, but also led to improved horse welfare.

Research Reference/Link:

Freeberg, Ernest (2020). How a flu virus shut down the US economy in 1872 – by infecting horses. The Conversation US, Boston, MA. December Issue.

https://theconversation.com/how-a-flu-virus-shut-down-the-us-economy-in-1872-by-infecting-horses-150052

Nancy and Kate review their favorite episodes and then reveal the favorite episodes of the listeners.

Welcome Everyone to 2024 - Season 5