All Bets On Veterinary Services

06/12/2025

Absolutely great responses! There are many reasons you might see these but the most common are:

SLEEP DEPRIVATION: Horses spend majority of their daily sleep standing but can only achieve the required REM sleep while laying down. Horses that refuse to lay down for reasons such as pain, uncomfortable surroundings (single horse that lives outside, small stall, uncomfortable with herd mates etc), or weakness with a questionable ability to get up after prolonged down time to name a few, will fall into the deeper REM sleep while standing and fall. This leads to constant abrasions on the front of the fetlock or knee. Contrary to popular belief, narcolepsy is relatively rare in horses and usually not the cause of falling. Treatment for this is fixing the reason they wont lie down, so often extremely difficult to resolve. These will often be apparent all year round.

SUMMER SORES ((habronemiasis): These are chronic wounds that often appear on legs, face, or sheath. They are due to house or stable fly depositing larvae of the stomach worm into previously broken skin/ wounds and the larvae causing an inflammatory reaction due to the inability to complete their normal life cycle. Normally, the flies deposit the larvae around the lip area, the horse ingests the larvae, and they complete their life cycle in the stomach. You often will notice small, yellow, gritty granules when cleaning summer sores which is characteristic of these wounds. These can be small or quite extensive and often the more extensive are confirmed through biopsy. Treatment includes many options including ivermectin, steroids etc and is usually at the discretion of your veterinarian due to severity. IMPORTANT: these often will spontaneously regress in the winter and reappear in the summer. If in ge***al area, these will often cover up underlying and deeper reasons for the lesion (i.e. Squamous cell carcinoma) and the biopsy must be deep enough to get underlying tissue to diagnose properly.

Like many of you mentioned, you can get guards or wrap while the horse is in the stall and fly spray and proper wound care if important for prevention of summer sores. Wounds actually heal better COVERED which will also prevent those pesky flies from depositing larvae. Good fly control around the farm is also crucial. If you notice these, talk with your vet about potential ways to you might be able to resolve them.

Like this type of post? Let us know! (and of course a picture of the practice name sake)

06/03/2025

See these wounds on your horse’s fetlocks on a regular basis?

TELL US what you think they could be caused from.

We will post our thoughts next week.

05/05/2025

REMINDER: the practice is closed from 5/4-5/10 as Dr Laura is out of the country. Texts will be answered on a as needed basis and calls and emails will not be answered until
5/11

05/02/2025

Finding these types of scabs/rub marks/tiny wounds/ whatever you may call it on your horse?

They’re usually from ticks and tick bites and you may want to give your horse a good look over and take them off. Have one that keeps rubbing the same spot and it’s crusty and gooey? Check underneath the scab for a dead tick still hanging on.

Surprisingly ticks are active at 37 degrees and up so take easy preventative measures against Lyme disease and anaplasma by fly spraying (unfortunately a lot of those natural sprays/ essential oils etc are not strong enough so get a good commercial brand) and swat around the face and ears if that seems to be the hot spot. You can also apply fly spray by spraying a brush and rubbing the face and don’t forget the tail as they love to climb up those dangling hairs.

03/14/2025

03/10/2025

Spring specials for the month of April! As you all know, we're big on making diagnostics and procedures affordable because we want you to give your horse the care it deserves and it's the benefit of being a small practice without the overhead so we can!

Please take advantage!

03/01/2025

It's about to be spring vaccine season and we like our clients to be informed of what is being given and why because, after all, you as an owner do have a say in the decision of what your horse receives. Here's a small snippet of some common vaccine info:

Core vaccines:
Rabies, Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE), Western Equine Encephalitis (WEE), West Nile, and Tetanus. These vaccines have been deemed the necessary vaccines for all classes of equids. So yes, even if your horse lives alone and never leaves the property they should be vaccinated for these EVERY YEAR. If there is an outbreak of some of these diseases it is common to revaccinate within a year to offer better protection, especially in our older horses. Horse to horse transmission is not necessary for any of these diseases. EEE, WEE, and West Nile are contracted through a bite of an infected mosquito, tetanus lives in soil and can be contracted through a wound or puncture, and rabies is contracted usually through a bite of an infected animal as it is shed in the saliva.

Risk-based Vaccines:
This is not a comprehensive list, but the most common in our area are: Flu/Rhino, Potomac, Botulism, and strangles. The decision to give these vaccines should be based upon lifestyle and home environment. Some examples include giving flu/rhino twice yearly (or more) to horses that regularly travel, horses that live in boarding barns or have friends that commonly travel, or if their owner is commonly in contact with multiple horses at different locations. Potomac is often given to horses that live in an area that Potomac has been reported, live near any water source (ponds, rivers, etc), or live in a very wet area. Botulism is often given to horses that are fed round bales or as a safety precaution as they can contract botulism from wounds. Strangles is often given to show horses or horses that live in areas with common outbreaks (i.e. a barn that often hosts horses from auctions). It should be noted that strangles vaccine SHOULD NOT be given at the same time as any other vaccine.

Want to know more about any of these diseases/ vaccines? Let us know and we will gladly post an informative post to help with any education.

02/12/2025

ANNOUNCEMENT 📣

Due to increasing costs of some products it no longer makes sense for us to carry them on the shelf as we can’t compete with the online prices. Sometimes it costs us more to get them than what the online pharmacy is selling them for. You will now have to order these medications through online pharmacies: (farmvet valley vet and chewy all already have the practice on file)

1) equioxx
2) prascend

We will not be adding a script fee to any online orders (honestly probably ever) and WE WILL still be carrying GENERIC equioxx (firocoxib)

02/10/2025

Congratulations 🎉 to our spring raffle winner Kim!

Kim will receive one free farm call and in this case a monetary credit of one CoreEq (all equine core vaccines) vaccination to her account since she is a sheep/goat mama. Pictured is Kim with all of her beloved sheep.

Be sure to check our emails and be on the look out for our next raffle opportunity!

02/05/2025

Ever wonder where the name of the practice came from? Well you're in luck cause we're about to tell you!

All Bets On was inspired by Dr. Laura's broodmare Bet On Pink as she's the reason for starting the company so naturally she named the practice after her. Simple right?

Today happens to be Pinks birthday so it seemed fitting to tell you all and wish Pink (pictured below) a happy 20th birthday!

01/25/2025

Mandy hopes everyone matches her energy this weekend and gets some rest and relaxation. Enjoy the coming warm up!

01/13/2025

So we talked about feeding our old horses but what about our metabolic/laminitic/PSSM horses?!

Read below for more of Dr. Laura's thoughts and go to strategies for some of her very favorite, and often difficult to manage, horses and ponies (Another long one, sorry)

1) Take a look at your hay. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be common practice here in the northeast that hay suppliers take the initiative and test their own hay (shoutout to the midwest suppliers), but knowing your sugar and starch content is pretty important so test if you can. This is a deep, dark worm hole, but lets hit the basics for the situations where you can't test your hay. Try and get a mature first cutting hay. Here's the kicker, if we're talking about Non-structural carbohydrates (NSC), which in simple terms is your starch and sugar combined, the cutting number doesn't guarantee a low NSC. Meaning a 1st cutting hay can absolutely have higher NSC than a second cutting. NOW, what first cutting is usually guaranteed to have is lower calories, which is why it is usually still recommended to those metabolic and laminitic horses/ponies because they are usually overweight. Getting their calories down can help them lose weight and regulate their insulin better. If you have older horses with not great teeth, you can either supplement their 1st cut hay with some soaked hay pellets (Standlee does actually have an NSC on their bags) if they need the extra fiber/calories or you can buy a softer 2nd cut with the knowledge that you may have to soak the hay.

2) Soaking. What does it do? Even though it is popularly done for long periods of time, soaking hay is not a great long term solution. Soaking will FOR SURE remove potassium, magnesium, phosphorous, and 30-40% of water soluble carbohydrates (WSC) when soaked for the standard 30-60 mins. There are some research studies out there that do say some starch and protein is removed, but there have been others that say they are not, so for now we will go with what's for sure removed. So whats the big deal? Soaking long term can lead to dietary imbalances especially in vitamins and minerals, so we often have to replace them in the diet in other ways.

3) Ration balancers and grains. These horses and ponies need to stay at 10% NSC or under and preferably 4% or less starch and often do not need extra calories aka complete/concentrate grains are out. Now what about a ration balancer? Unfortunately most true ration balancers do not meet the criteria needed for these types of horses, as their NSC and/or starch content are way too high (I'm talking about you Purina Enrich). So instead I recommend feeding a vitamin/mineral supplement with no additional iron and often these are pelleted so you can get away with feeding just that if you need no other calories. (Madbarn Amino trace is a favorite).

4) Other supplements. If weight is needed, I will increase hay before anything else especially if I know the NSC. If I need additional supplementation beyond that, then I will reach for a fat supplement and often an easy one is any omega 3 rich oil. Be careful with supplements that are pelleted as they often have hidden sugars/starches you wouldn't think to check for. For the very few skinny insulin dysregulated/laminitic horses, this is one of the only times a complete feed with an appropriate NSC can be recommended strictly for the caloric content. Lastly, often these horses do not get fresh grass, so I do like additional vitamin E in their diet to maintain normal neuromuscular function and to scavenge free radicals. Remember, Vitamin's A, D, E, and K are fat soluble so you can overdose them if you feed them excessively since they are stored in the fat and not expelled with the urine.

Each horse or pony is different, if you have any questions on what you're feeding yours feel free to reach out. Know a laminitic/ metabolic/PSSM horse owner feel free to share the post with them!

Disclaimer: We are not endorsed by any products mentioned in this post but this post is sponsored by another one of Dr. Laura's unsatisfied rule followers pictured below.