Three Moors Veterinary Services

19/06/2025

🥵 This is so important!! 🥵 🔥

Why do you think we shear sheep 🐑!

If you have a thick coated dog, consider clipping them. It DOES NOT affect the coat re growing. I clipped my old Labrador out every summer and she grew a normal winter coat.

Share and spread the word. Keep them off tarmac and in the shade and cool

🐕HEATSTROKE IN DOGS🐕

We've been banging on about this for years! HEATSTROKE is a MEDICAL EMERGENCY! Fortunately, now more and more professionals are communicating the same message!

Whilst the need for rapid cooling with COLD water (1-15°C) has been recognised for decades in equestrian and human medicine, the dog world has lagged behind, and very poor information still circulates. e.g. "cool the paws", "cover with wet towels", "avoid cold water as it will cause shock"

THE KEY MESSAGES ARE............

💦"WET THEN VET"💦

💦"COLD WATER IMMERSION" (1-15°C)💦
(If you can't immerse, keep pouring ANYTHING COLD over the dog - hose, soft drinks, milk, etc)

💦Dogs die of heatstroke because they were NOT COOLED QUICKLY ENOUGH, NOT BECAUSE THEY WERE COOLED!

♨️RISK FACTORS FOR HEATSTROKE IN HOT WEATHER♨️

♨️Large dogs
♨️DOUBLE-COATED breeds
♨️Brachycephalic breeds
♨️June, July, August (UK)
♨️Exercise, being outdoors, left in cars

EDIT: - If a dog is PANTING, it's struggling to control its body TEMPERATURE! 💦HOSE IT TO COOL IT DOWN!💦

❤️PLEASE SHARE - Spread accurate information; potentially save a dogs life!❤️

CHECK OUT FREE RESOURCES HERE: https://askanimalweb.com/managing-dogs-in-hot-weather/

Welfare in the Heat: https://askanimalweb.com/heat-welfare/

If you don't believe me, look at the research: Beard S, Hall EJ, Bradbury J, Carter AJ, Gilbert S, O'Neill DG. Epidemiology of heat-related illness in dogs under UK emergency veterinary care in 2022. Vet Rec. 2024;e4153. https://bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/vetr.4153

18/06/2025

Best thing about being self employed is I get to spend downtime with these 😍 🐶 🐴
Barley is loving her walk in the woods (essential on a warm day) and Uisce is growing fast and being cheeky 🥰 but leading well ready for some shows in a month or so 🤩🎉

04/06/2025

⭐️ Laminitis Watch ⭐️

With the changes in climate and growing season, laminitis is a year round problem in the UK and needs to be a consideration at all times.
But being in the growing season (spring/summer) can be a high risk time especially with bouts of warm weather and rain.
Laminitis is often a result of an accumulation of number of risk factors rather than just an ‘overweight pony’

High risk equids are warmbloods, native ponies and overweight cobs.
Any horse or pony which has had a previous episode is at a higher risk as even if they appear fully recovered we know damage within the foot capsule causes permanent change.

Concurrent metabolic disease is also a high risk factor, with both Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS) and Equine Cushings (PPID) contributing to the risk. EMS is seen in lean ponies with uneven fat distribution (as well as obese ponies) and results in high circulating insulin and altered glucose levels. PPID means circulating steroid levels are increased due to the damage caused by a benign growth in the brain. Both these metabolic changes can lead to changes in the laminae within the hoof capsule.

Management changes
•Weight
Most of the UK’s pony population is overweight, the media images of successful show ponies does nothing to help us realise what a healthy equid looks like. Muscle is not soft like fat-so any areas where you can easily push your finger in (gently!) is more than likely fat. The common places are shoulders and over the rib cage. Ribs should be easily felt and often just visible when the horse is moving. The crest fat is often firmer but still an area where fat is deposited.
Many feed companies have portable weigh bridges so club together with others at your yard and get your ponies weighed. Your vet can also help with condition scoring, a scale used to help you monitor your horses condition long term.

•Exercise
Increased exercise (only when sound and not during active laminitis, most cases need stabling for a minimum of 4weeks to allow the inflammation to settle)
Walking out actively in hand or lunging to increase breathing rate will help aid weight loss. You can use a heart rate monitor to ensure training at the right intensity

•Nutrition
Low calorie and high fibre feed to reduce fat pads and reset the metabolism.
Careful feeding, it is worth avoiding sugar based feeds and most overweight ponies only require a feed balancer not a complete feed. There are some excellent low calorie feed balances available.
Avoid rye grass forage, either grazed or fed preserved as hay or haylage. It is designed as a feed for high yielding dairy cattle and completely inappropriate for most horses and ponies.
Test both grazing land and forage regularly so you know what supplements are actually needed.
Soaking good quality meadow hay for 12 hrs will reduce soluble sugars and help aid weight loss.

•Farriery
Remedial farriery (qualified trimmers and farriers included here) only with recent xrays as unfortunately no-one has X-ray vision so cannot predict the internal foot changes without it!
For acute episodes frog support can be needed, this can be provided by pads, shoes or an appropriate deep bed depending on the situation and is best assed by your vet and foot care specialist.

•Medications
There are some drugs that can aid weight loss in equids but must only be used in conjunction with blood tests and monitoring. Your vet can discuss what may be appropriate for you in more detail.

•Analgesia
Bute and paracetamol are very useful for pain relief and can be used in combination with other drugs if needed. Again speak to your vet for the correct dose and usage; as it can cause a fatal colitis if used inappropriately.

Please give me a call to discuss your horse or pony.
With over 20 years experience of dealing with laminitis plus my extra medicine certification and master’s level training you won’t regret it 🙂

07483 831763



Photo credit to Emma Humphrey-the grass is only 3 weeks apart in mowing!

27/05/2025

💗💙💗 he finally has a name. Thank you all for your suggestions 🤩

Uisce Damhsa
(Phonetically Ish-ka dow-sa) 💙 🦄

25/05/2025

Fantastic day giving back to my local riding club, I’ve been a XC jump judge for the ODE for the past few years and it’s always great fun.

Also great to see clients doing so well 🤩 Well done Theo and Lofty

22/05/2025

Placentitis

This is a very worrying condition of pregnant mares. It is an infection in the placenta. If it occurs early on in pregnancy it can be disastrous as it can affect the fetus causing issues such as premature birth. It can happen in 3-7% of pregnancies.

My mare started showing signs with a vulval discharge at day 328. She was otherwise bright and well. Treatment of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and hormones were started immediately.

I scanned her to check the placental health, the placenta and uterine width were within normal limits for the stage of pregnancy. I also checked the health and viability of the foal.

The mare was monitored closely for impending parturition and at day 330 she started waxing up. Monitoring was important as placentitis can lead to issues such as early placental separation at birth, known as a red bag delivery (placenta previa). This a true emergency as if the allantoic sac isn’t broken immediately the foal may be fatally starved of oxygen.

Thankfully the prompt veterinary intervention and treatment of placentitis was successful and the mare took the pregnancy to term and naturally foaled a stunning c**t at day 335.

If you need help or advice please feel free to call. Speaking to an experienced equine vet that understands all aspects of breeding from both a personal and veterinary perspective can be invaluable 😃

07/05/2025

Equine worming

🪱 This is a complicated topic made more so with the increasing amount of resistance we are seeing to the current drugs we have available. The move is towards strategic use of the drugs rather than blanket treatment 2-4x a year as used to be recommended.

🐴We know 80% of the parasite population is carried by 20% of horses and these horses are the ones we need to target and treat. Horses with low burdens that are low risk are best treated less often so they can be used to reduce exposure of the parasites to the drugs in the equine population.

Here at Three Moors Vet Services all samples are examined and reported by a highly experienced Equine Veterinary Surgeon with an Internal Medicine Certificate, not lay staff who may or may not be properly trained and certainly cannot ensure they don’t miss other factors or parasites that can be seen at different times of year!

🪱 It is important to ensure the correct weight dose of drug is given, both checking the weight of the animal and setting the syringe to the correct dose.

🐴We recommend worm egg counts are utilised to identify the population of horses that needs treating. They are beneficial even in young and older horses that are naturally at a higher risk from parasite infection.

🪱 Timing of worm egg counts is important;
March/June/September
Collect samples ideally within 12hrs of defaecation, pick from 5 different faecal balls to a total 25g weight (fist sized)
Ideally keep cool or refrigerate until processed and drop off to us on the same day

🐴If a high worm egg count is identified then we recommend a follow up sample is processed 4 weeks later to monitor effectiveness of the drug and resistance levels.

🪱 WEC Results
High risk horse >250 epg due treatment
Low risk horse >500 epg due treatment

🐴Tapeworm infection used to be thought to be an increased risk factor for spasmodic and small intestine impacting colic but this has been disproven more recently.

🪱 Tapeworm and encysted small redworm infection can now be diagnosed with saliva testing (there are many limitations to the tests but it is the best available at this current time) Testing in the Autumn time is the best for both to plan Winter treatment.

🐴Young Horses
1-5 years old are less immune to parasites so need more care. Ideally high level paddock care; remove dung at least twice a week, rotate paddocks and do not use the same grazing every year. Regular worm egg counts and use an extra dose in the springtime if overwintered on pasture.
If high risk (many youngstock around) then test biannually for tapeworm.

🐴Foals
Due to a naive immune system they require a higher amount of regular treatment
2-4 months old treat each month.
6-12 months can do worm egg counts every 3 months and treat as needed.

This is a brief overview of a complicated topic! For a more in-depth chat or to get the address to send samples to, message me 😃🐴 🪱

29/01/2025

It happens to us all -even Equine Vets!
Despite doing very well with her rehabilitation and looking amazing 🤩 when I started to increase the work in the arena Lettie just wasn’t comfortable. She was showing classic signs of pain; less forward off the leg, wanting to canter not trot and being spooky at very little
After consulting with Gillan Tabor who confirmed localised soreness I re radiographed her back and have remedicated T14-16.
We are now building the work back up to see the effect this has had. 🤞 for success

24/12/2024

Happy Christmas 🎄 to you all 🐴 🦄

Looking forward to 2025 🎉

From Orla and Juno 🤩

20/12/2024

Please be aware! It’s illegal and you just don’t know what’s in any medicine you import.
Even if you have the best of intentions for your pet 🐴 🦄 🐱 🐶

💊Veterinary Medicines Directorate Seizes over 13,000 Unauthorised Horse Medicines Being Sold Illegally Online💊

The VMD, working with Border Force UK, has seized AbPrazole and Absucralfate, medication for equine gastric ulcer treatment manufactured by Abler PTY Ltd (a company based in Australia), after they received intelligence that these products were being illegally sold and imported into the UK via an equine Facebook group and via Abler’s website.

The VMD has reminded horse owners and equine vets that:

🐎 it is an offence to advertise unauthorised products online
🐎it is an offence to import unauthorised veterinary medicines into the UK.
🐎 it is an offence to administer unauthorised medicines to your horse, and this will also invalidate your insurance
🐎 the ingredients of unauthorised veterinary medicines may be unknown, and could therefore pose a risk to animals

Animal owners, vets or any member of the public are able to report any suspected breaches of the VMR via our anonymous online reporting form: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/report-illegal-animal-medicines

04/12/2024

Equine dentals £65 including sedation if needed!

No visit charge for 4 or more horses on the same yard.

Experienced advanced equine dental work. All remedial work including dental extractions and xrays possible.

I cover Devon and Cornwall.
Mainly booking for 2025, odd availability left for 2024.

Three Moors Vet Services - Dental Services - Dr Zoe Marsh BSc(Hons) BVSc Cert AVP(EM) MRCVS - Equine DentistExperienced Equine Veterinary Surgeon available...