Walcha Veterinary Clinic

22/12/2024

Find our Festive Season hours here! 🎄🎅

20/12/2024

With the Festive Season upon us and a few public holidays in the mix, please make sure you have enough of your pets ongoing medications and special diets from us to get through until the New Year! 🐾

17/12/2024

Stitch up in this Kelpie after she ran into something in the long grass (featuring a lot of grass seed contamination!). It is important that we remove all of the contamination (here was the grass seeds) to ensure optimal healing and no development of an abscess at the site later on. Did you know when we stitch wounds, we stitch in multiple layers because skin alone is not actually a strong layer? The muscle and subcutaneous layers do most of the work holding a wound together to allow the skin to heal.

12/12/2024

Now THAT is a bladder stone!
This is a great example of why a proper work up should be done for all ailments, not just assumptions made based on symptoms. This dog was straining to urinate, had blood in her urine and it was assumed she had a UTI. Well, that was not the case here. Dogs can sometimes create these bladder "stones" which result in the same symptoms! Had she just been given antibiotics; she would have continued to suffer the discomfort and complications from this huge stone in her bladder. A cystotomy was performed, where we surgically go into the bladder and remove the stone. She recovered beautifully and is a much happier dog now. The stone was sent to the lab for analysis and came back as a struvite stone, which allows us to manage the dog to reduce the risk of it happening again.

04/12/2024

Are you going away over the festive season❓ Dogs and cats going into boarding kennels❓ Now is the time to check they are up to date with their vaccinations! And if needing a booster, ideally it is done two weeks before the kennels, so that their immune system is ready to go! Give us a call to book them an appointment if they are due 🤳

28/11/2024

Picked up near Paraway Yards on Aberbaldie Road yesterday. Female Kelpie X type with blue collar. No chip. Very sweet but timid and exhausted so could have travelled a long way. Sore left eye but we've removed the grass seed that was in there. Give us a call if you know anything about her please!

19/11/2024

A huge THUMBS UP to the beautiful 🌟Polly🌟 for saving a life recently! Polly came in to be a blood donor for a critically ill patient. The patient had ingested rat bait and then came on heat - this meant that she was bleeding uncontrollably and going to die without serious medical intervention. Pollys blood contained normal clotting factors and of course red blood cells that the patient desperately needed to replace all of the ones she had lost. Blood transfusions are not without risk, so we had to carefully monitor her while she had the transfusion. Within hours of the transfusion the critically ill patient was up and walking again. She is home and recovering well with medication. Polly went home a hero 🦸‍♀️

14/11/2024

Over the last few weeks, we have been busy doing artificial insemination (AI) programs in cattle. From program design with up-to-date protocols, program set up and the actual AI itself, we do it all! AI is not only for studs and can have great benefits in commercial herds. 🐂

10/11/2024

This lovely girl is looking for a forever home. She is super smoochy! She has been desexed and is ready to go. Give us a call or come and meet her! Please note there is an adoption fee for these cats we rehome to cover costs of feeding, desexing and preventative care 🐾❤

05/11/2024

This lady had a bit of an interaction with a fence! After some sedation and local anaesthetic, a haircut and a clean-up, we patched her up in three layers (muscle, subcutaneous and skin). With some antibiotics and anti-inflammatories on board, she was back with her calf and in the paddock. 🐂

31/10/2024

Read our October Newsletter here! We cover Brucellosis suis and bloat. Anyone pigging or trapping and shooting should have a read.

30/10/2024

This dog has what we call a slab fracture on her maxillary carnassial tooth. This is often caused by chewing hard things (e.g. weight bearing bones, rocks, sticks etc). These fractures of the tooth often fracture the roots (as this one did). These are painful and often lead to infections. This one was removed under general anaesthetic before any further complications could arise. A great reason to be looking at your pets' teeth regularly - changes like these can be noticed early on 🦷😁.

28/10/2024

Final year vet student Alistair, Mel and Destinee recently went to an Avian Influenza (AI) training evening hosted by the LLS. This consisted of full decontamination training (seen here sporting some very fetching full PPE outfits) and an in-depth Avian Influenza presentation. It is vital that veterinarians and support staff stay up to date and current, and that is why we do continued education. 🦆🐥🦅 AI is a very real threat, and there is every chance that it will become worse with upcoming migratory events. Events like these help us to be prepared.

26/10/2024

With the recent wet weather and warm days, we are seeing a lot of lush, immature and rapidly growing legumes (e.g. clover) and grasses that are high carbohydrates and protein. This means we have to worry about two things - bloat and pulpy kidney. Boosting with a 5in1 is recommended, as is ensuring anti-bloat preparations are on hand and pasture management is in place (e.g. limiting grazing time and having straw available).

24/10/2024

Grab a raffle ticket or ten to support our local pony club!

Walcha Pony Club Monster Raffle

21/10/2024

A case of atresia ani - where something is born without a patent re**um. It is a congenital embryological deformity (or a birth defect) where the end of the intestines fails to communicate with the re**um. This lamb was a stillborn, but if animals are born alive with this defect, they cannot survive more than a few days without major intervention and euthanasia is usually recommended. This condition can be seen in any animal and even in humans!

18/10/2024

With the weather warming up, that means uteruses are too in dogs and cats. We have had a huge number of calls about mis-matings in the last few weeks! This is usually followed by unwanted litters and an increase in pyometras (life threatening infections of the uterus) being seen. Please seriously consider desexing or have a good set up to keep entire animals apart when on heat.