Horse News & Views - August 2002

Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs

Ontario Association of Equine Practitioners

• Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) is cultivated in Canada as a crop for fodder and for the production of buckwheat honey. Ingesting entire plants, dried or fresh, has caused photosensitization in animals with exposed or light-colored skin, including cattle, goats, sheep, swine and turkeys. Exposure to the sun is necessary. This plant is considered to be a primary photosensiti-zer, although jaundice has occurred concurrently, which indicates secondary involvement of the liver. (Knight AP. A Guide to Plant Poisonings of Animals in North America. 2001. ISBN 1-893441-11-3)
• The management of manure can be a major problem at equestrian facilities. The centralization of composting for the mushroom industry is starting to impact on some horse farms since they have either no land or insufficient land on which to spread manure. This can be an overwhelming concern since a mature horse produces approximately 50 lbs of manure per day (on a wet basis) or about 9 tonnes per year and requires manure storage space of 0.05 m3 per day. In fact, the volume of manure produced annually from twenty racetracks in Ontario alone would fill the Toronto Skydome to one third of its height.
• In many horse barns, thorough cleaning for disease control is difficult to accomplish due to the presence of wooden walls, dirt floors, open ceilings and the lack of drains. The stripping of dirt floors from stalls to remove contaminated material is hard work and no fun. When building a new barn, incorporate a design and materials to make cleaning easier. This includes appropriately located drains.

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