Clinicopathological and microbiological findings associated with wounds in Nigerian horses

Abstract

Horses are usually at risk of physical injuries/wounds because of their typical flight and fright temperament. These wounds are readily infected because of the nature of work they do. This study was a 6-month survey of wound infections of horses at the Obollo-Afor Horse Lairage, Udenu Local Government area, Enugu State, Nigeria. Two hundred seven horses were sampled. They were physically examined, and those that had wounds were purposively selected for further study. Blood samples were collected from these horses that had wounds for haematological and serum biochemistry evaluations. Sterile swab sticks were used to collect samples from the wound edges after disinfection for microbiological examination. This showed that out of the 207 horses sampled, 21 had wounds. The horses with wounds had significantly (p < 0.05) higher total leukocyte, band and segmented neutrophil, basophil and monocyte counts, serum alanine aminotransferase activity and globulin levels, than the apparently healthy horses. They also had significantly (p < 0.05) lower serum albumin levels than those without wounds. Staphylococcus aureus was isolated from all the 21 horses with wounds while Escherichia coli were isolated from 19 of them. These two organisms were resistant to commonly used antibiotics (ampicillin, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid combination and tetracycline) but were sensitive to ciprofloxacin, ofloxacin, gentamycin and chloramphenicol. Wound infections in the horses studied were associated with leukocytosis, neutrophilia, monocytosis, basophilia, hypoalbuminemia and hyperglobulinemia, and that Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli were the pathogens associated with wound infections in the horses.

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