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[baileyholc]

New Question.

What is HYPP and IGg?

[paintedhorizon]

HYPP is a genetic muscular disorder causing muscle weakness and tremors, sweating and difficulty in breathing. Can be traced back to the Quarter Horse stallion, "Impressive". Only Impressive bred horses have it.

IGg is antibodies

[GeorgeGuns]

IgG stands for Immune Globulin. Its not exactly antibodies, its the stuff that the body needs to make antibodies. Now when a foal is born, its intestinal lining is very receptive to absorbing IgG and antibodies from the mother's colostrum, but only for a short time. Within a day (I for get exact hours) the intestine matures and closes off to these, plus the mare's milk changes to real milk at about the same time. IgG testing is an easy way to see if the foal got enough colostrum - if the IgG is in good amount, then whatever the mare has antibodies to should also be in good amount.

[Abejita]

this is also why you should strive to have you mare vaccinated around 45 days before foaling date ,so her colostrum had the antibodies. A mare can have colostrum..but it is not always GOOD colostrum.

[baileyholc]

OH, I get it. Hypp can skip a generation? I know of a few paints and decindents that are out of Impressive . I don't know if they are carriers but I have not seen any of this in them (muscle weakness and tremors, sweating and difficulty in breathing)

IgG is a good thing?

[Heidi]

HYPP cannot skip generations. I think that if the horse has hypp they either are carriers (one copy of gene) or exhibiters (two copies of the gene) of the disease. A horse must receive a copy of the hypp gene from EACH parent to show the adverse physical affects of the disease.

IMO, testing is important to prevent breeding two hypp horses that could create a foal that could inherit both genes for full blown hypp manifestation. Same as testing paints for LWO (lethal white overo).

IgG is not a good/bad thing in and of itself, it is a test for those immune globulins to see if the foal was able to absorb enough from the mare's colostrum. Very good if the foal absorbed enough, not so good if the foal did not absorb enough.
Heidi

[motorgypsy]

With HYPP an individual with only one gene can have symptoms because we had a cute medicine hat filly at our barn who had a couple of episodes and she had only one gene. The ones with two genes are the ones that can have really bad problems. If neither parent has it, the foal won't so if the Impressive bred parents are negative you don't need to worry about the foal even though it is Impressive breeding.

The IgG level needs to be up to a certain level for the foal to be able to fight off disease. You can buy the test but you must be able to get blood from the foal which isn't easy if you don't know what you are doing. Our friend who was an EMT did all her own horses and vet tecs can do it also but it is critical to do it within the first 24 hours uless you just want to buy the supplement and give it without the test.

[Heidi]

Ah-ha! So it doesn't really matter if they have one or two copies of the gene, other than two copies guarantees passing it. What seems to matter is the positive/negative factor of the hypp gene. Positives exhibit/pass the symptoms and negative does not?
Heidi