Age and gender related changes in hematological parameters of thoroughbred foals

Abstract

Hematological and biochemical profiles commonly are required in equine medicine. We studied hematological parameters including red blood cells (RBC), white blood cells (WBC), hemoglobin (Hb), hematocrit (PCV), differential leukocyte counts, mean cell volume (MCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) in thoroughbred foals at different ages and for both sexes. Sixty healthy thoroughbred foals, 1 day, 3 days and 1 year old were used. Each age group consisted of 10 male and 10 female animals. We found significant differences related to age in RBC values of females, PCV, MCV values of males, WBC, neutrophil percentages, lymphocyte percentages, monocyte percentages of females, and eosinophil percentages and basophil percentages. Significant differences related to gender were found only with regard to PCV at 1 year and WBC at 1 day. The hematological parameters of thoroughbred foals up to one year old may be useful for evaluating and monitoring the health of these animals.

Effect of age, sex, physical activity and meteorological factors on haematological parameters of donkeys (Equus asinus)

“…This in turn requires the understanding of haematological profiles of an, apparently, healthy animal, whose physiological parameters provide invaluable information regarding the health status of the animal (Kral and Suchy 2000 ; Mori et al 2003 , 2004 ; Cetin et al 2009 ). Inspite of the clinical significance, correct haematological interpretation and analysis are sometimes difficult because many factors considerably influence the haematological parameters in goats, pigs, rabbits, camels, cattle, horses and donkeys, including age (McFarlane et al 2001 ; Caldin et al 2005 ; Gurgoze and Icen 2010 ; Melo et al 2013 ; Padalino et al 2014 ; Girardi et al 2014 ;), sex (Cetin et al 2009 ; Mirzadeh et al 2010 ; Uluisik et al 2013 ; Girardi et al 2013 , 2014 ), breed (Tibbo et al 2004 ; Lacerda et al 2006 ; Orozco et al 2007 ; Šimpraga et al 2013 ), seasons (Dmoch et al 2008 ; Adenkola et al 2011 ; Mirzadeh et al 2010 ; Abdelatif and Alameen 2012 ; Babeker et al 2013 ; Šimpraga et al 2013 ), diet (Ekenyem and Madubruke 2000 ; Iyayi 2001 ; Kumar et al 2005 ), health status and sub-clinical disease (Rose and Hodgson 1994 ; Petrov et al 2011 ; Kalai et al 2012 ) work or exercise (Piccione et al 2001 ; Zobba et al 2011 ; Kedzierski et al 2009 ; Miranda et al 2011 ) and pregnancy (Harvey et al 1994 ; Orozco et al 2007 ; Satué et al 2010a , b ; Farooq et al 2011 ; Okonkwo et al 2011 ; Aoki and Ishii 2012 ).…”

Eosinophils of the horse: Part I: Development, distribution, structure and biochemical mediators

“…In spite of their presence in fetal lymphoid tissues, eosinophils are not detected in the peripheral blood of the fetus or the newborn foal. Eosinophils make their first appearance in the peripheral blood of the foal at about 1 week of age, and numbers increase significantly over the first 3 months to 1 year of life (Harvey et al 1984;Becht and Semrad 1985;Cebulj-Kadunc et al 2003;Uluisik et al 2013).…”

Age-Related Developmental Clotting Profile and Platelet Aggregation in Foals Over the First Month of Life

“…Some aspects of foals' physiology during postnatal period including endocrine [4], metabolism [11], biochemical [11,12], and hematological [12,13] profiles were investigated. Few studies dealt with modification of clotting profile in healthy newborn foals [6,10,14], whereas, to our knowledge, no research on platelet functional activity in equine species are reported during the early postpartum period.…”