AQHA Offers Genetic Disease Testing Kit

To give owners more information about their horses and assist breeders in choosing the best animals to use in a breeding program, the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) is offering a panel test for five genetic diseases.

Horse owners can order the test kit from AQHA to find out if their horse is affected by glycogen branching enzyme deficiency (GBED), hereditary equine regional dermal asthenia (HERDA), hyperkalemic periodic paralysis (HYPP), malignant hyperthermia (MH), or polysaccharide storage myopathy (PSSM).

The kit will include instructions about how to provide a tissue sample for testing and how to send the sample to the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory at the University of California at Davis. The AQHA will notify owners about the results of the test and will put the results on the certificate of registration for each horse.

Cost of the test is $85.00 for AQHA members and $125.00 for nonmembers. The kit can be ordered by calling 806-376-4811.