Twin Pines Equine Veterinary Services, LLP

06/18/2024

While every day at Twin Pines Equine is Veterinarian Appreciation Day (because trust us, we would all be lost without them), we wanted to take moment to formally thank Dr's. Matt and Ashley for EVERYTHING they do for not only our patients and clients but all of us in the office! So happy Veterinarian Appreciation Day to you Dr. Matt and Dr. Ashley!

05/22/2024

A very happy birthday to Chelsea MacMurray! Chelsea is off today (and rightly so!) but leave a little birthday love for her here!

05/21/2024

New dentistry assistant! Such a help today. 😉

05/10/2024

Feel good Friday! Sometimes you just have to take a break from taking radiographs to get puppy kisses. 🐾

05/08/2024

We love our donkey patients every day at Twin Pines Equine, but felt they deserve a special post today as it is World Donkey Day!!! Please share all your donkey pictures with us!

05/08/2024

Many horses have diastema (gaps between teeth) and periodontal disease, which can be quite painful. These areas have to be cleaned thoroughly and treated. We use a combination of picks, probes and flushing to remove any feed material before packing these pockets. In this video, you can see us flushing out one of these diastema to make sure all feed material is removed.

05/06/2024

Some of you have heard the news, but this week we are saying a fond farewell to Dr. Chelsea. Dr. Chelsea has accepted a position with a practice closer to her home, which will be a better fit for her work/life balance. We know many of you will miss her sunny personality and attention to patient care, and we will too. We wish her all the best in her new adventure!

05/06/2024

What a lovely spring day this has turned into!

Just a quick reminder, if you haven’t scheduled spring vaccines, now is the time! Summer will be here before you know it. 😉

05/05/2024

Dr. Matt and Emily returned home this weekend after a full week in the Navajo nation. The trip was organized by Animal Rez-Q, Inc. which is a tribal organization helping to provide affordable animal wellness services directly to tribal nations for herds, horses, and pets. We were so glad to be a part of it!

We wrapped up on Friday in Tuba City AZ, which is the high desert area. It was a full day with 16 castrations and we lost count of how many other things happened that day. Most notable was the number of wild horses we handled. These horses are captured off the land, then brought in for vaccines and castrations. While very intimidating at times we still got the job done, it was hot, it was dusty and it was awesome! We had such a great team to work with and hope we can return in the future.

05/03/2024

Thursday was an early morning for a 2 hour drive to the Hopi reservation. We worked at the Hopi Vet Clinic for another full day of horse care. There was more of the same with a fairly full day scheduled. Elevation at this site was about 6200 feet!

It’s important to remember that there is very little veterinary care available for these animals. The area is so vast, and there really aren’t any veterinarians. Through this program, and incorporating students, we’re hoping this changes in the future.

05/02/2024

Day 3 we worked in the shadow of monument valley in Kayenta. We had some missed slots but still got a lot of work done. Hot, windy conditions made it difficult at times, especially when trying to do surgery!

05/01/2024

Fort Defiance was a shorter day but no less exciting. We were castrating some wild Mustangs, Emily practiced her catheter skills and Dr. Matt helped out the farriers and got to play Spider-Man. Long drive today and tomorrow with lots of horses on the docket.

04/30/2024

Yesterday we spent the whole day at the Lukachukai Rodeo grounds. We gelded 13 horses, vaccinated and dewormed 60, performed about 25 dentals and a whole bunch of trims. We were welcomed back to where we are staying with a hot meal and cold showers! Today we’re off to Fort Defiance for round 2.

04/29/2024

Be sure to check out our friends over at Flemings Feed for some great deals this show season!

Savings Alert!
We are partnering with Flemings Feed again this year! Stop in at Flemings Feed to save on grain, shavings and more. This is limited to SNEHA Members only!

Please reach out with any questions!

04/28/2024

Wait, that’s not Connecticut!! Dr. Matt and Emily travelled to Arizona this week where they’ll be working on the Navajo and Hopi reservations. A group of 30 plus people including vets, techs and students will be performing vaccines, farriery, dentistry, castrations and whatever else these horses need. Stay tuned and we will try to update you throughout the week!

04/26/2024

As we wrap up veterinary receptionist week, we'd like to take a moment to recognize our AWESOME office staff.

First off, a special welcome and introduction to Hana, who joined our team about a month ago as a Client Service Representative. She's been taking care of most of your phone calls, email requests and ALLL of the other things that go on in the background to keep an equine practice working smoothly. Hana has experience as a barn manager and has a degree in Equine Studies, so she is well versed in the concerns of horse owners. We've been thrilled to have her join our team. So leave a special welcome for Hana!

Next we have "Office Chelsea" who has been with our practice for almost 3 years now! Chelsea has been part time since having her baby but don't worry, she's still heavily involved! Once Hana is fully up to speed Chelsea is going to transition to a role as Office Manager (which we are very excited about!). We appreciate Chelsea for her upbeat attitude, attention to detail and excellent costumer service. She is definitely part of the "glue" that keeps this practice together, and we're so happy to have her here. Leave some love for Chelsea here too!

So three cheers for our office staff, we (very literally) couldn't do it without you!

04/22/2024

Dental case of the day - a really good example of why a complete oral exam is so necessary!
This horse was recently acquired with an unknown history, and has been having some issues under saddle. Specifically, he's been balking at going forward, bucking and occasionally rearing.
Oral exam revealed significant sharp enamel points on all arcades as well as sharp caudal ramps on the last lower cheek teeth - including a deep ulcer in the tongue next to the sharp ramp on the right side.
Is this definitely the cause of his behavior? We aren't sure yet! It sure wasn't helping! Time will tell. We reduced the sharp points and ramps, and we're giving it a few weeks for his mouth to heal, and then we'll see what he does.
Without a full mouth speculum and a thorough visual exam, it is very easy to miss these types of lesions. They are too far back in the mouth to see with a "quick peek at the teeth".

04/21/2024

Here's the answer to yesterday's ECG! If you said arrhythmia, you are correct! More specifically, this horse had Atrial Premature Contractions (APCs). The extra beat could be heard when listening to the heart, so we threw the ECG on to see if we could determine what it was.

In the ECG, the extra beat is circled in blue. I've added dashes to show the reduced amount of time between beats (TP interval). The beats on the right are normal. (If I had included more lines of the readout this may have been more apparent.) We know this is an APC because there is a small P wave, the tiny bump at the left of the entire complex. If the P wave wasn't there, we would be dealing with a different type of arrhythmia.

As a note, APCs can occur in horses without detriment, as long as they do not occur in a series. If this happened, it could lead to further arrhythmias such as atrial tachycardia, which is not good! But for now, we'll monitor this horse, but we don't have significant concerns at this time.

04/20/2024

As promised, here's a little ECG we took on farm. Can you see spot the issue?

04/19/2024

Heart issues are more common than we think in horses, but sometimes what we hear can be benign or just a variation on normal. If we do feel an arrhythmia may be present, we can run an ECG on farm using our cell phone! We can then either interpret it ourselves or send it to a cardiologist for further review. Stay tuned for a recent ECG and we'll see if you can guess what's wrong!

04/08/2024

TPE and friends are ready for the eclipse!

04/05/2024

We get a lot of questions about back pain and "kissing spines" - here is a great example of conservative management.

This patient was diagnosed with "close" dorsal spinous processes and back pain in 2022, and there was enough radiographic evidence of "early kissing spine", coupled with his clinical signs, that we thought the radiographs were clinically significant. We instituted conservative management - shockwave therapy, gabapentin, chiropractic/acupuncture, and recommended physical therapy to strengthen his core and help round his back. Saddle fit was also adjusted.

Yesterday we rechecked the back radiographs just to see where he was, since his back pain has been pretty under control. The first image is from 2022, the second image is from yesterday. We noted a mild improvement in the position of his dorsal spinous processes! There is MORE space between these DSPs, not less.

We tend to think of "kissing spines" as a chronic degenerative issue, but doesn't always behave that way. We can improve the comfort level of many of these horses with physical therapy and other non-invasive techniques.

04/03/2024

The eclipse is coming up, and we're excited around here! We're starting to get questions about our equine friends - do we need to be worried about horses (and other animals) being outside without eye protection during an eclipse?

The short answer is no. Staring at the sun during an eclipse is really only something humans do. 😉

So what can you expect for your horses? If it's a bright sunny day, your horses may experience the darkening of the eclipse with a bit of worry, the same way they might experience an impending storm. They may start thinking it's becoming evening, and come up to the barn for food. They may become agitated. But in general, they should be fine.

Here's a picture from the last time we had a near-total solar eclipse in our area, in 2017. Molly, Dr. Matt and (then extern, now DVM!) Nick all needed eye protection to view the eclipse. The horses... didn't seem to care. 😎

03/29/2024

Today we took our team to see some of our favorite patients, who were very good sports about letting us practice some techniques and procedures. Dr. Matt instructed us on palatal root shots for dental radiology, our techs had instruction and practice taking hoof balance and hock radiographs, they practiced bandaging, blood draws and restraint techniques, and palpated landmarks for joint and nerve block scrubbing. All in all it was a great day, we all learned important skills! These training days are great, thanks to the Brown sisters for volunteering their horses and farm!

03/28/2024

We do a fair number of enucleations at TPE and we have this discussion every time. We highly recommend NOT placing an implant after removing an eye, and this is exactly the reason why.

03/22/2024

Today we celebrate Emily's 3 year anniversary with Twin Pines Equine! Emily continues to be a delight to have in our practice. Trust us, she loves your ponies as much as you do. (And some of them she may be plotting to take home with her, so keep an eye on your donkeys.) If you have a moment, leave some love for Emily!

03/13/2024

Last call for Wellness Enrollment for 2024! It ends this Friday, March 15th. Call the office or follow the link for more information.

Our wellness program now includes 4 plans designed for horses with varying needs: Basic, Performance, Senior, and a new addition, Dental. In these bundled, discounted plans, we include thorough examinations, dentistry, essential vaccinations, and laboratory tests. These plans allow you to lock in a....

03/08/2024

We just received word that a horse that had been recently imported into Windham County has tested positive for EIA (Equine Infectious Anemia). At this time it has been reported that the barn has been placed under quarantine and there is no immediate risk to the surrounding area. We will keep all updated as we learn more.

A horse in Windham County that was brought into the state has contracted Equine Infectious Anemia, an infectious and potentially fatal viral disease, according to the state Department of Agriculture, and there is a multistate investigation to determine the source of the infection. State Veterinarian...

03/06/2024

A great time last night as Dr. Chelsea finished off our winter lecture series for 2024! Another full house. Big thanks to Boehringer Ingelheim Equine Health for sponsoring a fabulous meal from Rubino’s Full Circle in Griswold. Our rep from BI gave away a cool speaker loaded with music that has been show to positively affect a horses’ mood. And Congratulations to Bryan who won our Basic Wellness Package! Thanks everyone for another successful season of lectures!