🐴One drug does not treat all when it comes to worms, your horse will need a worming programme targeted specifially for them affected by their genetics, lifestyle, age and the time of year.
🪱Approximately 80% of worms will be shed by only 20% of horses on a yard. Identifying and treating these high shedding horses means that low shedding horses shouldn’t need to be wormed on a regular basis particularly if you have good field management and regularly poo pick your fields.
🪱This is becoming more important as widespread resistance to worming drugs means that we can no longer simply use the same wormer types at the same times every year.
⚖️Whatever wormer you use, giving the correct dose is extremly important for preventing reactions to the medication and ensuring that worms with a small amount of resistance to the drug are not able to survive, using weight tapes or asking us to bring out weigh scales to your horse can make your dosing more accurate.
💩We can use a small sample of your horses faeces (a FWEC) to work out how many eggs are present in each gram of their poo. This gives us an idea of your horses worm burden. Juvinile worms and worms hibernating in your horses gut over winter will not produce so egg counts may be less accurate between late autumn and early spring.
💩Encysted redworms, pin worms, bot larvae and tape worms will not show up on a FWEC. For these worms there are specific tests we can recommend depending on your horses worming history.
This advice generally relates to adult horses, young horses ( below 4 years) are at high risk of picking up worms and require different management to adult horses. If you are concerned about worming please call the practice to discuss your worm control. We can provide a yearly tailored worm survalliance plan which can reduce the cost of regular monitoring of worming allowing us to give you personalised advice on worm control.
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Applying a foot poultice: What do you need?
· A Dressing: Animal Intex is designed for use in hoof abscesses. You can also use veterinary gamgee
· A cushioning layer: A material like softband can be useful and easier to apply than cotton wool.
· A nappy is easy toapply over these layers and can hold everything together.
· A Holding layer such as Vetwrap
· Grey “Duck” tape: create a square of this to apply to the bottom of the foot by sticking strips of tape together, apply the strips in different directions to make a thicker square of tape. This will make your poultice more waterproof and longer lasting
#equineveterinarymedicine #equinevet #horse #horsecare #veterinarymedicine #hoofabcess #hoofabcessesarenofun #hoofcare #hoof #abcess #be #prepared #horsefirstaid
Few people enjoy going to the dentists and horses are no different!
Ella wasn’t thrilled to see Becca pull up with the dental kit but a little sedation made it a calm comfortable experience for everyone!
Horses are particularly good at hiding symptoms of dental pain and issues might not be easily spotted and may have caused further damage and changes within the mouth if you wait for them to show you that they are having trouble.
A healthy horse’s teeth should be checked by a vet or a qualified Equine Dental Technician annually, some horses will have abnormal wear or dental problems which require more regular checks.
The following symptoms may be a sign that your horse needs a dental exam: dropping feed, resisting the bit, headshaking, reduced intake of hay or haylage, abnormal jaw movement whist eating, weight loss, diarrhoea, head shy behaviour, episodes of choke or colic symptoms
Using a vet for your dental exams has some benefits
- If your horse dislikes the dentist or finds it uncomfortable we can provide sedation and pain relief to make the process stress free.
- We can combine an annual dental check over with other regular treatments such as vaccinations or repeat prescription checks
- If any major dental problems are noted on examination we are able to administer any required medication and organise any further treatment required.
- We can investigate other causes if your horse is showing signs associated with mouth pain but doesn’t seem to have any dental issues
- If needed we can take radiographs and use our oroscope to provide a clearer understanding of what is happening in your horse’s mouth
#equinedentistry #equinevet #dental #happyhorse #mbgvets #vet
