Tweedie & Associates Equine Veterinary Services

23/02/2025

Today marks the end of Dr Melissa’s time with us. She has been a valued vet as part of the team for the past 4 years.

She has decided the time is right for a new challenge and we offer her our thanks for the last 4 years and wish her very well for the future.

19/02/2025

Why do we perform a gastroscope?

Performing a gastroscopy on a horse instead of simply treating for gastric ulcers is crucial for several reasons:

1. Accurate Diagnosis

Gastric ulcers can have varying severity, locations, and causes. Gastroscopy allows visualization of the stomach lining, confirming whether ulcers are present and identifying their specific type (squamous vs. glandular). Without it, treatment may be ineffective or unnecessary.

2. Appropriate Treatment Plan

Different types of ulcers require different treatments. Squamous ulcers often respond well to acid suppressants like omeprazole, whereas glandular ulcers may require additional medications such as sucralfate or misoprostol. Treating blindly may lead to suboptimal results.

3. Rule Out Other Conditions

Clinical signs of ulcers—such as poor performance, weight loss, and girthiness—can overlap with other gastrointestinal issues (e.g., colitis, delayed gastric emptying, or even non-gastrointestinal conditions like musculoskeletal pain). Gastroscopy helps confirm ulcers as the actual problem.

4. Monitor Healing and Treatment Success

Without gastroscopy, there’s no way to know if the ulcers are healing or if treatment needs to be adjusted. Some horses may require prolonged treatment or changes in medication.

5. Cost-Effectiveness in the Long Run

While gastroscopy has an upfront cost, it prevents wasted money on unnecessary or ineffective treatments. Treating blindly for ulcers can become expensive if the wrong medication is used or if treatment is prolonged due to lack of improvement.

6. Prevent Overuse of Medications

Prolonged or unnecessary use of acid suppressants can have downsides, such as rebound acid hypersecretion when stopping treatment or potential negative effects on digestion. A confirmed diagnosis ensures that medications are only used when necessary.

In short, a gastroscopy provides clarity, ensures effective treatment, and prevents wasted resources, making it the gold standard for managing suspected equine gastric ulcers.

18/02/2025

Melanomas in horses.

Equine melanomas

Had an interesting conversation yesterday with a purchaser regarding Melanomas in a grey horse. Came to realise we have very different reactions to the name melanoma as we all know the human form. Main thing is it is very different in horses versus humans.

Commonly occur in several sites. Parotid salivary gland, a**s , tail or sheath. All need to be monitored and you should measure their size regularly and chart them.

16/02/2025

Good morning

Good morning, everyone. We've had a little bit of rain over the weekend, which has been great, but not quite enough to really affect things. So we are seeing a lot of lameness at the minute. A lot of it's related to feet and that's because we're not getting much hoof growth. The feet are dry, hard and we've had this long, coming up five months now, dry period where the feet have got really hard, soles are exfoliating and we're losing sole depth.
So something if you're starting to see some issues with the feet, it's a really hard job at the minute for the farriers because the feet are not growing that much. So we're using a lot of foot balance X-rays to help. We're also having to use a lot of pads at this time because of the foot balance issues and the lack of growth.
So if you've got a soreness, just have a think about what might be the cause and yeah, foot balance X-rays at this stage, this time of year, are really useful to help us set up heading into winter.

26/01/2025

Public service announcement

We are seeing an increase in impaction colics at present.

Some reading here also on our website of why and also what to be done to avoid this happening.

We are seeing a slight increase in impaction colics at present.

22/01/2025

Foot balance again

Foot balance is one of the most important things that you as an owner can keep on top of. If it doesn’t look right it probably isn’t and this is really a time when you need to advocate for your horse.

Here is a single horse presented with a foot issue. On the first image we can see that there is a negative palmar angle here - significant.

The second image is after I have removed the shoe and done a very simple trim myself. I am no farrier but removing a bit of toe from the sole and bringing back the heels makes all the difference. We can see a change of almost 6 degrees in angle change with removing very little of the foot.

Taking balance X-rays is so important and often it can be forgotten or neglected depending on what is going on. You don’t need to complicate things you just need to keep it simple and balance the foot. Nothing more or less and you can see the difference.

So please 🙏 don’t forget about foot balance with your horses.

23/12/2024

Merry Christmas to all our clients from all the team.

We wish you a happy Christmas and safe Christmas and new year.

In the event of an emergency please call the clinic on 0359775250 and select option 3 for the on call vet during this period.

24/11/2024

Ross River Virus

Good morning. We've been notified that in the local area, there's been a diagnosis of Ross River disease already this year. So what is Ross River virus? It's a virus spread by mosquitoes, and it's something as horse owners, we need to be aware of. Horses can present with very nondescript symptoms, and it's really important just to exclude other things before we jump to the Ross River diagnosis because they can be a crossover, a very big crossover between some of the symptoms we see for Ross River virus and what we see for other conditions such as laminitis, peritonitis, colic, enteritis. There's so many things there is a crossover. So for more information, please visit our website or watch the video. Thank you very much for your time.

https://www.tevs.com.au/tevs-blog/ross-river-virus-in-horses

11/11/2024

Refer or not

One of the things that we often get asked about is when do we refer? When do we not refer? Some things are really clear cut, like a bad wound that needs surgery or colic surgery, those are real black and whites. Where we have more of an issue is the medical management, medical cases that we might think, when do we refer? When do we not refer?

Sometimes that's when it comes down to a decision process on what we can do on farm, what we may need for the horse, what we feel is the most advantageous for the horse, and to get the best outcome. IV fluids are very hard to administer on the farm. It's really hard to hook them up, get them going, and then to monitor them. They need to be monitored constantly because they can suddenly kink or something can come loose, and we get air running into the bloodstream, which is not going to be ideal. It's going to potentially kill the horse.

These are all things that we have to really consider when we start to talk about referrals. It's often a process we discuss with you. We think it might be better. It might be even cheaper, believe it or not, than us coming back 4 or 5 times a day to administer oral fluids. It might be cheaper to have them in the hospital where that can be done very easily. You just have to consider this, and it's often a discussion process of where we think is the best place to manage the horse to get the best outcome.

07/11/2024

Beautiful blue skies

The sun has definitely arrived on the Mornington Peninsula. 32-degree day yesterday and beautiful blue skies looking ahead. What an awesome time to be around and to have horses, but this brings with it its own fresh set of challenges.
Obviously, we still have grass growth and concerns with laminitis, but the next thing we're going to have to deal with is sore feet. The ground's going to get really hard, so any horses that have had a history of foot imbalance issues or thin soles, now is the time to be proactive so we don't have to miss any work, and we don't let any pain or inflammation build up in the feet.
So if you have a query or question, just think about it. Have you had a history of foot problems? Do you need to consider foot pads? Do you need to get rebalanced X-rays? All those things are really important, so just have a think about it now. With these beautiful blue skies, we can hopefully avoid having lameness issues.
Hope you have a great day, and we'll speak soon.

20/10/2024

Watching Grass Grow

It's like watching grass grow at the minute. We've had a perfect storm of a great rain event last week and then beautiful blue skies and high temperatures predicted this week. So, it's really important that you be sensible now with any horses that are at risk of laminitis if they've had a previous episode, or if we're being honest, they're slightly overweight. It's really important now to be proactive and start locking horses up.
If you have a horse that's had previous insulin issues, please reach out to us. We will be able to help you, and we'll be able to manage that. We may need to recheck it. If you've had laminitis issues in the past or you feel the horse is not willing to go forward, check for the feet. Check if we get any inflammation in the feet. So it's really important to be careful and sensible nowadays. And if you have a query, please reach out.

10/10/2024

Sugars in Grasses

We all talk about it but do we measure it? Went off on a tangent the other night when thinking about the quality of soil and forage testing ( my inner farmer).

We can test for sugar content in grass actually surprisingly easily. So we came up with a simple way to test out place versus a clients property. There was a five fold difference in the sugar content of the grass.

06/10/2024

Laminitis prevention.

This video was recorded last week but nothing has changed. We need to be aware of what we are feeding now. Grass is starting to grow and have a higher nutritional value.

If your horse is an EMS horse with elevated insulin in the past we need to make sure we stay on top of this management. Extra exercise at this time is good for the horses also. We have to be proactive in our management to prevent laminitis.

01/10/2024

Management of the older horse part 5

We hope you have enjoyed the series on the older horse. They are a very interesting group of horses that require careful care and attention. Also some unique management issues.

The take home message is that each individual is different. One 18 yr old horse is not the same as the next. They all require different levels of care. Equally we as owners need to be realistic of expectations of them. What are we wanting to get out of this? Being honest will help you assess the situation best.

18/09/2024

Management of the older horse part 4

Welcome to the next in the series on the management of the older horse. This is something that's more management rather than veterinary treatment, but it is something that we've become very aware of as we recently added a new older horse to our farm, and the result was that we had some challenges to deal with along the way. It's important to address those and understand some of those challenges that you may face.��One of the biggest challenges we find with older horses is changing their environment. Often, they've come from a home where they may have been there a long time and they've been used to the setup, and we've changed them. We may have brought them to an adjustment center or to a new farm. So it's really important to consider the management of those horses and to give them time to settle in and also be flexible in how we're going to manage them and understand that they may be a little bit older, a little bit set in their ways, and so we have to be a little bit reactive to them and their needs.��The other thing we need to consider as well is the workload we do with these horses. Have these horses been in full work before you've got them? Some may have, some may not have. So it's really important not to suddenly increase the workload, but to give them time to settle in and allow them to develop.��Thank you again for listening and watching, and we'll be back in the final to summarize everything that we need to consider to managing of these older horses. Thank you once again. Bye.

12/09/2024

Welcome to the third part in the series

Part 3 of the older horse series. In this series, we're looking at the older horse. In this part, we're looking at medications and management of Cushing's disease and equine metabolic syndrome, and how that will affect you as an owner managing your horse.��We have to consider this as a real possibility. You may have to manage laminitis risk with equine metabolic syndrome horses that have high insulin levels, and equally the Cushingoid horse or pony. This is maybe more relevant to pony owners, but equally as relevant at times to the older horse owner.��Hope you enjoy the series, and we'll be back next time with some management considerations for the older horse.

10/09/2024

Welcome to the 2nd part in our series on the management of the older horse. Now that you've purchased this older horse, we need to keep it sound, because that's often one of the biggest causes of retirement for an older horse is lameness issues. When we look at an older horse, we have to consider the fact that there's often more than one joint causing a problem, and there are multiple joints.

We've talked about joint management in the past. Often with these horses, instead of going straight to a specific joint, most of the time we will actually try and do a general horse treatment. With this, we'll be considering drugs like Pentosan or even Zycan, which is equivalent to Adequan for people based overseas. It's great to have these products available. We use them quite intensively for these older horses. We will do a loading dose and then we'll do a maintenance plan for them.

Once we've got that under control, we may add in specific joint treatment. But generally, we will look at the entire horse. Once we've got that, then we'll schedule a re-exam to have a look and see if there are any specific joints we need to manage.

Thanks again for listening. We'll be back again in the next day with management of some of the metabolic conditions we need to consider with managing these older horses.

09/09/2024

The older horse part 1

Welcome. Let's talk about the older horse. We're seeing this growth in the population of our horses. They're now 15, 16, 17, even early 20 year olds competing, and these bring with them their own challenges. It's great to see these older horses doing a great job for people, but they do present some veterinary management issues and some also general management issues.

In this series, we're going to look at the older horse and how we manage those horses, but starting point is your prepurchase exam. It's really important with these older horses. They will not pass. We know they will not pass, but we do know we need to work out what we need to do to manage them. So there's no such thing as pass or fail. Remember, we're just looking at an assessment to see what we need to do.

It's also really important to be very honest with us at this point in time because we want to know what's your requirement. What do you want this horse to do so we can match that horse to you to see if it's going to fulfill your needs and also be kind to the horse.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the series, and we'll be back again shortly.