Would you breed a mare with a diagnosis and confirmed recurrent uveitis?

[cherham]

I have been contacted by a close friend that has offered me her extremely well bred Hanoverian mare (just 5 years old) that is now experiencing her 3rd occurrence of this disease in just over a year. It can be managed however with proper drugs and diligent maintenance but the owner just does not want to put a lot more money into further training with this mare if these flare ups continue to disrupt her training and showing aspirations. The mare is in training now with a top pro and very expensive training prices to match. When the flare ups begin she looses about 3 weeks training time until recovery.

Obviously she wants to keep the mare to be comfortable and happy as long as possible but a show career at this point seems a mute point sadly.

I am uncertain whether their is a genetic component at work here or not. Obviously I would not wish to continue a bloodline that carries this. She is a dark bay, almost black. Fully registered Hanoverian with direct German bloodlines. .

Is it worth the risk to try and breed her. What if she has a flareup while in foal. What may the drugs given to the mare affect the foal.

Any thoughts guys?

[Highflyer]

I don’t know if there’s any evidence of a genetic component, but I wouldn’t touch a horse with it. It is really awful to deal with-- brutal for the horse and miserable to treat.

[exvet]

My mare was diagnosed with uveitis due to leptospirosis after she had her first foal. She had 4 more healthy foals, the youngest is close to 8, without any signs of ocular disease. She did go blind in both eyes but was able to carry foals easily and was a good mom. The last two had bells put on their halters to make it easier for the mare. She had one flare up prior to going blind and while pregnant that required treatment. Fortunately the pregnancy was a normal one as was the foaling.

[JB]

Uveitis can also be caused by parasites, and in particular, neck threadworms. Do the flares coincide with any use of ivermectin or moxidectin?

[cherham]

Leptospirosis has definitely already been ruled out. She has always been on a regular worming and vaccination schedule and I don’t believe there is any correlation there. 3 Vets (including a specialist in equine ophthalmology) have now confirmed the diagnosis. She is scheduled to have her eye removed shortly and has been given a 50/50 chance of losing the second one in the future. Its a big gamble to take on a horse for breeding as we all know but just not sure if this condition will make it that much more difficult to deal with. Exvet you have given me some excellent advice though and hope that this mare will be able to carry and raise a foal.

[MysticOakRanch]

I leased a mare a few years ago that had uveitis. She was “98%” blind.i did some research and got an opinion from a specialist at the University, who said there is no genetic component other then certain breeds are more susceptible. Appaloosa is the main breed at risk. Warmbloods are not a susceptible breed. So the bigger question is can you manage the REU? The mare I leased never had another episode.

[cherham]

This would not be a lease but a life long home if I decided to pursue. I am familiar with the condition having had another horse here years ago with the condition. I keep all the med’s on hand and ready when needed. I am OK with that part. I was just uncertain whether being in foal and should a flare up occur any medications that I might have to give the mare would affect the foal. It seems not likely from what I have read so far. If this mare does go totally blind in the future I will be OK with that if the mare is OK with that. I can make safe arrangements on my farm to accommodate.

[vineyridge]

If she only gets it in the one eye, removal ought to solve that, shouldn’t it? ERU is an autoimmune disease that can be triggered by many different things from lepto to an eye injury that starts the autoimmune process.

Do you know if she had an eye injury before the ERU started?

I did find this scientific study as the first result from my search for “ERU warmbloods genetic”. It claims to have discovered the risk loci for ERU in German Warmbloods. Without reading it I can’t say what it specifically says, but there IS a risk loci in German Warmbloods. It asserts:

Several studies indicated prevalences of ERU in Western Europe horse populations from 3 to 15% [7]–[10].

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/art…l.pone.0071619

If you really love the idea of this mare and breeding her, perhaps you have a test done to see if she carries that particular risk loci. Then you’d know if she could pass it on to her foals. Since the study was done in 2013, perhaps a test has already been developed.

I should mention that there is some incredibly interesting stuff on equines in PLOS, and it’s all free.

[cherham]

When my friend contacted the breeder of this mare (a VERY well established and renowned Hanoverian breeder in NA) his first response was “just take the eye out”. That always gave her reason to believe he was somewhat familiar with this condition and perhaps had known about it in her bloodline. Not right of course… the eye is scheduled to be removed on Monday. From there I guess we see how the mare copes…thanks for everyone’s comments.

[Trak_Eventer]

I agree with take the eye out. My old pony mare had it in both eyes. She ended up going 100% blind. Since it was in both eyes, we couldn’t remove. Though, she lived several years totally blind and happy in a field with a friend. We had put her down in her mid 20s once her friend passed away as he was her eyes. But, yes, take the eye out