Equine

Equine Veterinary Inspections Pre-purchase examinations; we offer 2 stage and 5 stage vettings on horses. Horse health scheme; for a set monthly fee the horse health scheme provides you with routine dental work, worming management, vaccination, weight check and an annual health check. If you join up to the horse health scheme we monitor the actual worm egg count in your horse's dung to enable you to worm only when it is needed saving money in no time.  It also means you can have a dental, vaccination, health and weight check done routinely in one visit. Please click on the above link for  more information.

• We can carry out full investigations for lameness at your yard. We will use trot-ups, flexion tests and local anaesthesia nerve blocks to work out the location of the cause of the lameness where necessary.
• We have a portable x-ray machine and good quality ultrasound machine to visualise the cause and severity of lameness if possible.
• We can then use treatments where appropriate to treat the lameness or refer to specialist surgeons if needed.
• The ultrasound scanner means we can visualise any lesion in your horse's tendons causing lameness and then monitor how well it is healing during recovery so we can adapt the rehabilitation programme accordingly.

We offer scanning for pregnancy diagnosis and blood tests for pregnancy. This can be done from 16 days after serving. Scanning is important to allow us to see if there are twins present as this will often lead to abortion of both. Scanning at day 30 enables us to be sure that there is a viable foal. This is important because if the developing foal has died the mare's uterus develops by day 35 so that she cannot get pregnant again that year.

Emergencies 

• Colic; if your horse is showing signs of colic (kicking its belly, continuous rolling, sweated up, flank watching, stamping, teeth grinding, pacing) we will come at any time of day to carry out a full clinical examination and give treatments as needed. 97% of colics can be treated by us using particular drugs/therapies but 3% will be beyond the capability of medical treatment at which point we may need to refer you to specialist surgical facilities. If this is the case it is important that we do this as early as possible to give your horse the best chance of recovering which is why we get to you as quickly as possible if your horse is showing any of the above symptoms.
• Choke; this is where your horse gets something stuck in its food pipe. Signs of this include drooling, coughing, extended neck and they can become very stressed which is why we respond quickly. We will often treat just with drugs to begin with to relax the muscle and allow the obstruction to pass. If this fails we can then use more intense therapies such as flushing the food pipe to try and pass the obstruction down to the stomach.
• Wounds; the most serious wounds are often ones that look less serious but are on the lower legs where the skin is very close to vital structures.  It is important we diagnose these fast to give the best chance of complete recovery.
• Severe lameness

All these scenarios and others can be very stressful for both you and your horse which is why you need the vet at the other end of the phone to offer advice and a visit if needed.