West NIle and Coat Color

West NIle and Coat Color

Susan Allen
Susan Allen

 

I’m Susan Allen welcome to Friday’s Open Range. Ever been outdoors with people and noticed how some end up mosquito bait while others aren’t bothered at all?  I’ll be back in moment to tell you that the phenomena is no different within  the equine species. When my kids were little each of us had camp names, I was dubbed “Skeeter” because it was a standing joke in our family that mosquito’s didn’t find me tasty, while they considered my husband a delicacy . In the horse world it is kind of the same deal and with fears of West Nile it is nothing to laugh about. Researchers from the Western College of Veterinary  Medicine in Canada have discovered that light colored horses; grays, whites, palominos, buckskins and duns are at a higher risk of dying from West Nile than dark colored horses; (browns blacks and sorrels.) What’s odd though is that the darker horses are infected more often with West Nile but typically recover. Light colored horse were nearly five percent more inclined to die or be euthanized from the virus . Why would that be? Well researchers aren’t sure but the study suggests that that there might be a genetic link between the horse’s  immune system and its coat color.  Makes me wonder how my blue roan would fare in the wild being silver in the summer by theory she wouldn’t attract as many mosquitoes and when she turns black in the winter she’d have better odds at surviving. I’ll never know because a West Nile vaccination is cheap insurance.
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