Review Article The Domestic Livestock Resources of Turkey: Occurrence and Control of Diseases of Horses, Donkeys and Mules Q27 Orhan Yilmaz a, 1 , R. Trevor Wilson b, * a Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Igdir University, Igdir, Turkey b Bartridge Partners, Umberleigh, Devon, United Kingdom article info Article history: Received 2 January 2013 Received in revised form 19 April 2013 Accepted 14 May 2013 Available online xxxx Keywords: Animal health services Notifiable diseases Zoonoses Glanders Serodiagnostic tests Turkey abstract Horses Q26 , donkeys, and mules have been important in Turkey for agriculture, transport, and the military for hundreds of years. Equids number more than 0.5 million in Turkey. Most horses are local types but emphasis is now on Thoroughbreds and Arabians for racing and competitions. New roles have not materialized for donkeys and mules that continue to perform their traditional activities. Disease control is assured mainly by public services acting within laws governing diseases and welfare. African horse sickness, glanders, dourine, equine infectious anemia, vesicular stomatitis, equine encephalomyelitis, anthrax, and rabies are notifiable diseases but none of the mainly equine diseases has been reported in Turkey for many years. Several zoonoses, including toxoplasmosis, brucellosis, listeriosis, and Rhodococcus infections, have been identified by serodiagnosis over wide areas, but animals carrying antibodies rarely exhibit clinical symptoms. Among other diseases in Turkish Equidae are piroplasmosis, respiratory infections, contagious equine metritis and equine influenza. Other viral and bacterial pathogens have been identified in isolated investigations. Internal and external parasites are a major cause of economic loss. Much research on equine diseases has been undertaken in the last decade of the 20th and first decade of the 21st centuries, perhaps because of Turkey’s possible accession to the European Union and the goal to harmonize identification and control procedures and also because of the country’s increasing participation in international equine events. This paper reviews animal health services and provides a bibliography of more than 100 references covering horse, donkey, and mule diseases in Turkey. Ó 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction All domestic equids are ancient components of Turkey’s guild of domestic animals. They were important in agri- culture, transport, and military economies for hundreds of years. In common with much of the world in the 21st century, however, Turkey’s equines have lost much of their status as mainstays, in particular, of the rural economy, and have been replaced by mechanical means of power and transport, but they are still found in all 91 of Turkey’s provinces (Fig. 1). New roles have not been found for donkeys and mules, but with progressing affluence and leisure in Turkey, there has been a shift in the horse pop- ulation from “working” to “companion” status, especially for Arabian and Thoroughbred types. These breeds are being increasingly used for racing and competitive events both locally and internationally. A World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) report of 2002 considered that generally the legislative framework covering animal health and welfare in Turkey was “by and large” adequate but that its implementation was often lacking. As Q2 an aqui candidate to the European Union, * Corresponding author at: R. Trevor Wilson, Bartridge Partners, Umberleigh, Devon EX37 9AS, UK. Q 1 E-mail address: trevorbart@aol.com (R.T. Wilson). 1 Present address: Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agricul- ture, Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Canakkale, Turkey. Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Equine Veterinary Science journal homepage: www.j-evs.com 0737-0806/$ – see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jevs.2013.05.003 Journal of Equine Veterinary Science xx (2013) 1–10 REV 5.2.0 DTD  YJEVS1579_proof  8 June 2013  9:07 pm ce 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123