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Effect of Acute Exercise and Aerobic Conditioning on the Faecal pH of Horses
Author(s) -
Almeida MML,
QueirozNeto A,
Costa M,
Ferraz GC,
Lemos MEG
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
equine veterinary journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.82
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 2042-3306
pISSN - 0425-1644
DOI - 10.1111/evj.12267_12
Subject(s) - conditioning , horse , medicine , analysis of variance , feces , repeated measures design , anaerobic exercise , zoology , treadmill , physical therapy , biology , paleontology , statistics , mathematics
Repeated monitoring of faecal pH may be useful in detecting the effects of exercise and conditioning on the fermentative activity within the large intestine. This study investigated the effect of a maximal incremental exercise test ( MIET ) and aerobic conditioning on the faecal pH of untrained horses. Methods Fourteen equines were randomly divided into two experimental groups. The control group consisted of 7 horses that remained untrained. The second group underwent physical training (n = 7). The trained equines underwent two MIETs , once before and once after exercise conditioning. The conditioning period lasted 6 weeks and consisted of 3 weekly sessions of exercising on a treadmill at 70% of lactate threshold. All horses were fed the same diet. To evaluate the effect of exercise on faecal pH , stool samples were collected before and 48 h after the MIETs (before and after training) for determination of fecal pH . To determine chronic effects, weekly stool sampling was performed at 0 (immediately before), 7, 14, 21, 28, 35 and 42 days of training. One‐way repeated measures ANOVA followed by Dunnett's test, the paired t‐test ( MIET ) and the unpaired t‐test were performed for comparisons between the groups at the different times. Results Faecal pH decreased from day 28 in the trained horse group compared to controls. pH values were 7.57 ± 0.10 and 7.27 ± 0.24 (before) and 7.97 ± 0.14 and 6.75 ± 0.15 (after) for the control and trained groups respectively. There was no change in faecal pH after the MIET . Conclusions It appears that physical conditioning reduced faecal pH of horses. Ethical Animal Research The Ethical Principles in Animal Experimentation adopted by the Brazilian College of Animal Experimentation was approved by the institutional animal care and use committee of the university ( CEUA , Process: 016842/13). Sources of funding: FAPESP ‐ Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (Process 2013/14703‐3). Competing interests: none.