ABSTRACT
Nutritional myopathy is a degenerative disease caused by the dietary deficiency of selenium and/or vitamin E that can affect skeletal and cardiac muscles. The objective of this study was to report the occurrence of nutritional myopathy in two Thoroughbred young horses, raised in pastures with low forage availability and no mineral supplementation. From a herd of nine animals of different ages (five adult mares, one three-month-old nursing foal, one mule and two 16- and 17-month-old horses), only the last two were affected. Clinical signs were lateral or sternal recumbency, tachycardia, tachypnea, dehydration and muscle pain. Presumptive diagnosis of nutritional myopathy was made associating clinical signs and epidemiological data. Animal 1 was euthanized five days after the first evaluation due to clinical signs gets worse, and animal 2 recovered with the established treatment. Diagnosis was confirmed with complementary exams, necropsy findings and levels of hepatic selenium. This paper alerts to the risk of nutritional myopathy occurrence in horses, mainly young animals, which are not ingesting good quality hay or green forage and do not receive appropriate mineral supplementation.
Keywords:
Vitamin E; selenium; young horses; muscle
