Vectis Equine Vets

21/03/2025

🌟MEET THE TEAM🌟

We've had two new vets join us at Vectis and whilst some of you will have met them, we thought a post was needed for a proper introduction!

Izzi joined the team back in July and has been enjoying the island life, meeting lots of lovely horses and their owners. She completed her veterinary degree at the Royal Veterinary College and whilst there enjoyed being a member of the polo team and spending time seeing practice at multiple referral hospitals in the UK. Izzi particularly enjoys diagnostic imaging such as x-raying, scanning and endoscopy. In her free time she is often seen in the countryside with her horse, Toby or at Chessel Cafe! 🍰☕️

Freja became a member of the team in January, having come from the much sunnier Zambia. During her time at Edinburgh University studying veterinary medicine, Freja was a member of a range of societies from scuba club to the Southern African society. Back at home she's competed in show jumping and vaulting! In particular, Freja enjoys many aspects of equine medicine including ophthalmology and cardiology. In her free time she's been exploring the island and aiming to go to a different beach every weekend 🏖️

We’re thrilled to have both Izzi and Freja as part of our team, be sure to say hello next time you see them out and about! 👋🏼

05/03/2025

Castration season is here 🍒

Last week vets Kate & Izzi along with final year student Siobhan performed the first castration of the year on the adorable Skippy!

🐴 Due to Skippy's tiny size we performed the castration under a general anaesthetic instead of the standing technique used for bigger horses and ponies

💉 Skippy had a catheter placed in his jugular vein so we had easy intravenous access to administer sedation and the medications we use to put him under anaesthesia

💉He also received an injection of flunixin for pain relief alongside a tetanus anti-toxin and will be on a short course of phenylbutazone to help with any pain and inflammation

☀️ Skippy enjoyed a lovely nap in the sun whilst the procedure was performed and woke up feeling like a new man

If you have a c**t needing castration this spring and have any questions regarding the process please give the office a call to chat with one of the team
☎️ 01983 533799 ☎️

26/02/2025

💉Flu Vaccine Amnesty 💉

Have your horses' flu vaccines lapsed or do you have a new horse that needs to start their course?

🎉 Luckily we are able to bring back the flu vaccine amnesty from 15th March to 15th April this year! 🎉

In the UK we strongly recommend all horses are vaccinated against equine influenza and tetanus. If you are not sure about vaccinating your horse here's some important information you should know:

🦠 ALL horses are at risk of equine influenza, not only is the virus airbourne but it can be transmitted on clothes, grooming kits, feed buckets and other equipment

🦠 Whilst your horse may not leave the yard, if there are others that go to competitions or hack out with their buddies, there is still a risk of flu being brought back to the yard as influenza can travel up to 2km in the air.

⭐️With our flu amnesty your horse will receive their second vaccine free ⭐️
(Please note, a visit charge will still apply)

📞 Please call the office on 01983 533799 if you would like to get booked in or have a chat with one of our vets for more information.

A team of experienced equine vets providing veterinary services to horses, ponies and donkeys.

12/02/2025

🐴 Horse Health Club Members 🐴

Your worming boxes are in the office ready for collection 🪱 💩

31/01/2025

We want to say a HUGE thank you to Pip Smith at Isle Horse Transport for always being there when we need her, even in the middle of the night!
You are a hero 🦸‍♀️ 💪🏼

16/01/2025

Worming update.

Our previous worming posts have attracted lots of discussion so here is a New year's refresher on our current guidelines.

We are not currently running faecal worm egg count samples as the weather has been cold recently meaning worms are unlikely to be reproducing and therefore looking for eggs is not a reliable form of checking for parasite burden.

In recent years we have recommended treating once a year in January with moxidectin to kill encysted larvae. However updated guidelines suggest that this is not necessary. Reducing our unnecessary use of moxidectin will help prevent resistance build up in worm populations and help keep it as an effective treatment for the future. Instead of blanket treatments, guidelines show that we can instead perform a risk assessment on individual animals taking into account age of the horse, whether their worm egg counts have been low through the rest of the year, whether faeces are removed regularly off the pasture and whether there is a lot of change in other animals they are turned out with, particularly young (< 5 years old) or more senior (>25 years ).

For our health club horses instead of providing one moxidectin wormer per year, for those that are deemed low risk and don't require a moxidectin treatment, we will be substituting this with an equisal tapeworm saliva test to check for tapeworms. This is something we can't check with our normal faecal worm egg count.

For horses in the health club we are currently reviewing all worm egg count results from last year and will be contacting owners individually to complete a risk assessment and let them know when their tailor made annual worming box is ready to collect.

We are also putting together a talk on worming to be presented at yards to help everyone understand new guidelines and best practice for your horse. If you would like to be added to the list of yards who would be interested in having one of our vets come to talk with you please comment below or ring the office so we can add you to the list.

Published guidelines can also be found here for more information:
https://canterforhorses.org.uk/guidelines/

03/01/2025

New Year is always a time for change and for us it starts with a goodbye as Georgia heads off to her new job on the mainland. Georgia came to us as a new graduate and 18 months later leaves having thrived and developed into an amazing first opinion vet. She is moving to continue her career at a sports medicine practice nearer to her partner and family.

Georgia will never be forgotten by the team for her tendency to attract disaster, with seemingly endless out of hours calls, being regularly involved in fire brigade rescues, pulling horses out of rivers, catching escaped horses galloping up roads and all other manner of shennanigans! She always approached this with a smile and a compassion that made her an immediate hit with our clients.

I'm sure you will join with us in wishing her all the best for the future and a huge thank you for everything she's done for the islands horses. Georgia we'll miss you!!

16/12/2024

Reminder:
💊 If your horse/ pony is on any medication or requires a prescription, and you need some to see you through the festive period - Please get in touch before Thursday ☺️

This allows us to get it checked and ready for you to collect before the office closes for Christmas 🎄🎅🏼

The office opening hours are:

⭐️ Christmas Eve - open until 1pm.

⭐️ Christmas day - Wednesday 1st January is emergencies only. The office will be closed.

Normal service resumes Thursday 2nd January.

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a happy and healthy 2025 🥳

From us all at Vectis Equine Vets.

(Photo of gorgeous Toby 😍 owned by our lovely vet Izzi)

12/12/2024

🦷The importance of routine dentistry🦷

The absolutely scrumptious Hobbs was seen by Izzi in October for (what was meant to be!) a routine dental. Hobbs showed no signs of discomfort with his mouth, he was eating and being ridden with no problems.
However, when examining his mouth, he was found to have a slab fracture of his 206, the first cheek tooth on the left side of his upper jaw. Whilst this wasn't causing signs of pain or discomfort for Hobbs at the time of examination it's likely the tooth may have become infected or started to be painful if left in his mouth.
As fractured teeth can be challenging to extract, Hobbs was referred to Tom McGinely from Liphook Equine Hospital. Tom treated Hobbs at home and was able to remove both fragments of the tooth with the root attached.

Hobbs needed a couple of weeks without a bit in his mouth but has been recovering well! We thought this would be a great story to share with you all to demonstrate how important those routine dentals are. We speak alot about signs of dental disease to watch out for but sometimes our horses give us no indications - especially ponies and donkeys who are often very stoic.

Keep up with those annual dental checks! 🗓

02/12/2024

On this day 14 years ago we had lots of snow! Enough to make a snow vet!

Anyone dreaming of a white Christmas??

22/11/2024

👩🏻‍🚒 River Rescue 🌊

Last Friday, Sonny and his owner were enjoying a peaceful hack along a cycle track in Alverstone when an unexpected fright caused Sonny to spook. Unfortunately, both Sonny and his rider ended up falling into the adjacent river.

Georgia was called to the scene to assist with Sonny's rescue. The riverbank was lined with thick clay, which made the rescue extremely challenging - horse, rider, and even Georgia found themselves sinking and struggling to get out. A tractor was brought in to help dig out the bank, however after a few attempts, Sonny was losing energy, prompting Georgia to call for additional support. Within minutes, members of the Island’s Fire Brigade arrived to provide much-needed assistance.

To prepare Sonny for a safe rescue, Georgia administered sedation and after approximately 20 minutes of teamwork and effort, everyone was safely out of the river—muddy but thankfully in one piece!

Back at home, Sonny was treated for hypothermia and superficial wounds with pain relief, warm fluids, and electrolytes. Later that evening, Sonny began to spike a temperature and had wheezing over his lungs. Georgia treated him for a suspected pneumonia. We are thrilled to report that Sonny and his owner have made a full recovery!

In light of Sonny’s adventure, here are some quick tips for handling emergencies:

🧘🏼‍♀️ Stay calm: Easier said than done, but your demeanour can greatly impact your horse's state of mind
📞 Call your vet: We’re here to help, experienced in dealing with similar situations and can offer guidance on whether emergency services need to attend
🗺️ Location: we tend to all carry phones with us these days but having an app like what3words can be really helpful, particularly in remote locations.

🐴 On reflection, Sonny admits he may have overreacted to what he thought was a horse-eating bush. Aside from a bit of embarrassment, he has kindly allowed us to share his story to raise awareness about staying prepared for emergencies.

19/11/2024

☎️ PHONES ☎️

As we've recently had some new clients and some who haven't had to use our out of hours service before we thought we'd give everyone a reminder on contacting us!
There is a vet on call 24/7 for emergencies, we are always here if you need us.

🚨In the case of an emergency always call the office phone 📞 01983 533799 📞

The office is open Mon-Fri 8.30am - 5.30pm during this time the office phone is manned by our lovely reception team Sian & Baylee.
At 5.30pm we go into out of hours service and the office phone is changed so it automatically diverts to the vet on calls mobile, if it's a Friday this continues through the weekend.
Sometimes if you call around 8.30am / 5.30pm when the phones are changing you might not get through immediately, just allow a minute and call again.

📱The vets all have a work mobile which is on during working hours (8.30am-5.30pm) and if they are on call it remains on, if they are not on call or on holiday then the mobile is often switched off.
If you have an urgent query or wish to talk to a vet, please call the office first rather than a vets work mobile.

📹There is an office mobile number which if we need photos or videos we will give to you to send through for vet assessment, this is only monitored during working hours.

18/11/2024

A very important message! Please get that high vis on!

It’s that time of year where being visible on the roads is imperative. If you have don’t so already, it’s a good idea to check all your lights, tyres, oil etc on vehicles as it gets darker and the roads may become slippery.
This extends to all road users - cyclists, runners, horse riders etc. Road safety is important for so many obvious reasons and you are putting yourself at risk by not taking some easy simple steps that can prevent accidents.

I have horses and am fortunate that I don’t frequently have to ride on roads (no I’m not going to entertain the ‘horses/cyclists don’t pay road tax comments’ so let’s refrain from mentioning it 🙃), however when I do, I make sure me and my horses are lit up like a Christmas tree 🎄

High vis can make a real difference to allowing other road users time to see you. I was passing a couple of riders a couple days ago who were out around dusk. Without their high vis, I wouldn’t have seen them as quickly as I did. This extends to all other vulnerable road users too. That one piece of fluorescent can quite literally save you life. Equally if you have an accident, it may assist in you being located quicker.

Glow big or go home 🔦

PC Champney

14/11/2024

🚨PUT DOWN THE PRAMOX🚨

This is your yearly reminder to put that pramox away (for now)!

🪱Equest Pramox contains both moxidectin targeting encysted redworm and praziquantel targeting tapeworm.

🪱The most important fact about redworm is that when temperatures are consistently 5 degrees celsius and below they burrow into the gut wall, become ‘encysted’ and their activity dramatically slows down. This is when we want to use moxidectin as the worms are more susceptible. With temperatures currently very mild for November we are nowhere near reaching for the pramox and you will be wasting your hard earned pennies!

🪱Before worming with pramox we’d also encourage owners to perform an equisal test for tapeworm, horses and ponies with a negative result will only need deworming with moxidectin and will not need pramox which includes praziquantel.

Wormer resistance is an ever increasing problem for our horses and ponies, there are only 5 licensed drugs to treat equine parasites in the UK and no new ones on the way so far. Using these wormers with little care will lead to no drug being effective, ultimately causing untreatable parasite problems which would be a disaster!

To tackle the problem we highly recommend doing regular worm egg counts on your horses and ponies to confirm if the use of a wormer is necessary.

For those wanting to know more about worming resistance and how you can implement sustainable equine parasite control, the canter guidelines are a very useful resource.
https://canterforhorses.org.uk/horse-owners/

This is the yearly programme we’d recommend everyone follow:

🟢 Spring - Worm egg count
🟠 Summer - Worm egg count
🟤 Autumn - Worm egg count & saliva test for tapeworm
⚫️ Winter - depending on risk, blood test for encysted red worm or treat with moxidectin (only once the temperature consistently drops!)

💩Samples for worm egg counts can be given to any of our vets or dropped into the office/collection box outside with a clear label. (We only need 3g of poo).

👯‍♀️We do a discount for whole yard worming plans so please do get in touch if you would like a vet to formulate a plan for you.

09/11/2024

Just Baylee being brilliant as usual! 😍

04/11/2024

It has been a few months now but we are still in love with our new office signage from Signpost Express who did a great job creating and fitting to the building.

Always feel free to drop in to the office during the week to pick up prescriptions, ask for advice or just a chat with the team.

16/10/2024

Let’s talk teeth! 🦷

Firstly, here are some facts about your horses / ponies teeth

🌱Like humans, horses have baby teeth, also known as deciduous teeth, that fall out to then be replaced by their permanent adult set of teeth (though, we are yet to confirm the presence of the pony tooth fairy 🧚🏻)

🌱Horses have hypsodont teeth meaning not only do they have a structure suitable for eating grass and hay (and carrots) they also continuously erupt throughout their life.

We recommend having your ponies teeth checked at least every 12 months. Whilst you may not be noticing any problems with their teeth, equine species are prey animals leading them to be stoic when it comes to pain.

As horses teeth were designed for them to eat rough forage, due to the softer hay and grass that we keep them on, they are prone to getting sharp enamel points that would normally be worn down by the grinding of rough forage in the wild. During a routine dental we rasp these points down to prevent sores and ulcers in their mouth. We also carry out a through exam to check for caries, food packing and any other abnormalities.

We strongly recommend getting your horse or pony a dental examination if

🦷You’ve noticed a drop in weight but have not changed feeding routines

🦷You’ve noticed signs of quidding (dropping food from the mouth)

🦷Your horse/pony is showing signs of discomfort with having a bit in their mouth

🦷You have a young horse who is about to be backed

🦷Your horse/pony is having repetitive choking or colic episodes

At the practice we have 4 vets all able to carry out dental work, along with excellent equipment including our very exciting new oroscope. The oroscope is essentially a camera that we can pop into your horses mouth so that we (and you!) can have a good look in any mouth where we might suspect issues such as a fracture or diastema (gaps between the teeth). The team are very excited to put it to good use.

Please get in touch if you’d like to book your horse/pony in for a dental, especially if they’re due for an annual vaccination soon as these can be done at the same time. Don’t forget, our horse health club prime and unlimited packages include a routine dental examination and rasp.