Light masks on mares show potential as breeding tool
Mares may shortly live on wandering their pastures wearing low-cal masks, next interrogation which shows low-cal therapy inward the pasture is but every bit effective every bit that used inward stables to get breeding.
Blue-light therapy is showing considerable hope inward horses, beingness able to inhibit melatonin levels inward horses at lower levels than low-cal from traditional bulbs.
Horses are long-day seasonal breeders, notes Dr Barbara Murphy, a lecturer inward equine scientific discipline amongst the School of Agriculture as well as Food Science at University College Dublin.
The natural reproductive catamenia coincides amongst the light-filled days betwixt May as well as September [in the northern hemisphere] , when the surroundings is optimal for the survival of offspring.
However, the universal northern hemisphere birthday for many Equus caballus breeds is Jan 1.
“This creates a need for early on foals inward club to make mature yearlings as well as two-year-old racehorses,” Murphy notes inward the latest number of Equine Disease Quarterly.
“Utilization of artificial low-cal to advance the breeding flavour is mutual practise inside the thoroughbred industry.
“Mares are maintained indoors nether barn lighting until 11pm for 8 to 10 weeks kickoff or then Dec 1. The artificially extended hateful solar daytime length acts to inhibit the hormone melatonin as well as fools the mare’s reproductive organisation into activating before inward the year.
“Historically, low-cal from a 100-watt low-cal bulb inward a 12-foot past times 12-foot stall has been used. This total of illumination is loosely defined inward the literature every bit ‘enough low-cal to read a newspaper’.”
Recently, low-cal inward the blueish low-cal spectrum – 465- 485nm – has been constitute to facilitate to a greater extent than accurate as well as efficient levels of melatonin inhibition inward other species.
In 2011, researchers at the academy investigated the threshold degree of blueish low-cal required to inhibit circulating concentrations of melatonin inward the Equus caballus as well as constitute it to live on inside the make of 10 to fifty lux — lux beingness the touchstone international unit of measurement of illuminance.
“The average low-cal intensity at middle degree inward a stall illuminated past times a 100-watt low-cal bulb is 250 lux. Of greater significance was that the degree of melatonin inhibition achieved did non differ when low-cal was administered to 1 or both eyes.”
Murphy said a minute multi-institutional written report was conducted to create upwards one's heed whether low-level low-cal to a unmarried middle from a head-worn low-cal mask could advance the breeding flavour inward mares maintained outdoors.
Fifty-nine non-pregnant, salubrious thoroughbred mares were allocated to 1 of iii groups.
On Dec 1, the firstly grouping of sixteen was housed indoors inward private stalls nether barn lighting of 250 lux until 11pm daily. Group 2, comprising 25 mares, wore low-cal masks programmed to live on on from 4.30pm to 11pm daily as well as lived outdoors every bit a herd.
The 3rd group, comprising nineteen mares, was kept outdoors nether the natural photoperiod every bit a control. All mares were maintained on farms inward Lexington, Kentucky.
At two-week intervals until mid-February, all mares received rectal ultrasound examinations as well as blood was collected for progesterone hormone analysis.
On Feb 10, the number of mares determined to accept ovulated was fourteen of the sixteen (87.5 per cent) inward Group 1; twenty of 25 (80 per cent) inward Group 2; as well as iv from nineteen (21 per cent), inward Group 3.
There was no statistical departure betwixt Groups 1 as well as 2, indicating that mobile blue-light therapy from head-worn low-cal masks is every bit effective at advancing seasonality every bit indoor barn lighting.
Studies are nether means to investigate additional applications of mobile blue-light therapy inward horses for the purposes of increasing foal nascency weights inward early on foals as well as reducing the effects of jet lag inward functioning horses.
The light-mask technology volition live on available inward 2013, Murphy said.
Gluck’s Equine Disease Quarterly is funded past times underwriters at Lloyd’s, London, brokers as well as their Kentucky agents.
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