Clinical comparison between standard diet and enteral formulation in equine after laparotomy

Abstract

Horses submitted to inadequate nutritional management may develop colic syndrome, an illness which, depending on the cause, can be resolved through clinical or surgical procedures. The postoperative nutritional support aims to preserve the patient's tissue and cellular function, ensuring the functioning of their immune system and healing, but both its lack and excess can harm the recovery, and hyperglycemia has been related non-survival in equine during recovery. The aim of this study is to evaluate blood glucose and voluntary intake of an enteral complete formulation against the equine postoperative nutritional requirements compared to the standard diet. Eight horses selected to surgery of the large colon segment, divided evenly and alternating between Enteral Complete Formulation (EF) and Standard Diet (SD), will be induced 12 hours after procedure. The diets will be divided in 4 daily meals, EF animals will receive during 3 days gradually larger amounts (500 g, 600 g and 750 g/100 kg of bodyweight BW), and the SD animals 1.5% of their BW of Tifton 85 hay as dry matter, complemented with small portions of commercial ration, not exceeding 1 kg/animal/day. Blood samples for glucose will be collected in the pre and immediate postoperative period, on fasting, 20 minutes and 3 hours after the first daily meal, during 4 days. The results will be compared between the times of each group and between experimental groups. The amount of food ingested by each animal will be observed, seeking to establish whether the introduction of an enteral formulation modifies the amount of total energy and crude protein intake and glycemic response in animals during postoperative period of colic in comparison to the standard diet.