Equine Seminar

This weekend my vet clinic hosted a free equine seminar. In the morning they covered Equine chiropractic and acupuncture then in the afternoon they covered lameness issues in horses. Over lunch they had table topics, where you could pick a table with different vets and Vet techs and they would answer any questions about the topics that were assigned to the table. Those topics were emergency, ulcers and teeth floats, chiropractic care, and western saddle fit. First off I must say that I am so grateful that I have access to extremely high quality equine veterinary care located as close to me as it is. The clinic is located only 16 miles from our farm. Not only is the clinic filled with top of the line equipment, the staff is unbelievable. The vet that worked on Piney when I brought him in specializes in equine gastrointestinal and orthopedic surgery as well as emergency and critical care.  People haul their horses to be seen by her from all over the country. So I really can rest easy knowing that he was seen by the best. Obviously she would have done an amazing job had we gone with the surgery route, but her advice was that he probably wouldn’t have pulled through the surgery so I took her word on it.

Chiropractic demonstration.

The first session was very interesting. Obviously a lot of horses can benefit from having their bodies adjusted. My horses have seen a chiropractor more than I have. Typical right? Someone had asked if horses turned out 24/7 are more likely than horses stalled at night to need to be adjusted. And of course a stalled horse is going to need more adjustments than a horse that is able to move freely at all hours of the day. A body that is standing in one position for long periods of time is going to become more sore than a body that is able to move. The vet made a good point and used us sitting as an example. He said that we had been sitting for long time and he said that most of us were probably starting to feel a bit sore in some places. I know I was starting to get sore in my sits bones. A horse is the same way. He also said that horses that they see most often needing adjustments in their pelvises are barrel horses. I have a feeling that Pistol will be having himself a nice visit soon to get adjusted as well as having himself scoped for ulcers.



vet stuff

 

After the morning’s session we were able to tour the facility before lunch. I must say I was more impressed than I thought I would be.  I had only been into a couple parts of the equine clinic. The main part is the big open examination area. They have stocks where they can perform different tasks, the room is big enough where they can check horses for lameness at the walk. They have stalls located in the room connected to the big exam room. I think there were 14 stalls. The barn is heated and air conditioned depending on the time of year. Behind the barn area is an indoor round pen with shredded tire footing. They use that area to do their lameness examinations and will have the horse lunged or ridden both ways so they can try and figure out what is going on. There were two additional stalls located back there as well.

A row of stalls. The door on the left goes
into the recovery room.

"Piney's" stall, I drowned the clinic with my tears when I looked at it. JK. I actually held up pretty well. I only died about 1 time and didn't actually shed any tears.

The surgery and recovery rooms were connected to the barn area and the big exam room. If a horse was brought in for surgery, they would be sedated in the middle room and then hoisted by a lift and brought into the surgery room. After the surgery the horse would be brought back to the padded recovery room where they could come to and not have to worry about getting hurt when they tried to get back up. The floor was super squishy and I enjoyed walking on it. I did ask one of our favorite vets about what happens to the horses that they put to sleep. I jokingly asked if they chopped them up with a chainsaw to get them out. The laughed and said they didn’t do anything like that, but he did let me know their process. He said they don’t usually tell people because it’s usually easier if they don’t know. It was exactly how I imagined it was done.

I've never actually seen an equine surgery room up close before. It was really cool!

Their new 'toy'. This allows them to go in and and take video of what's going on inside joints, etc. They send the video home with you! The only thing this clinc doesn't have is an MRI machine. But they said within a matter of a few years they will have one.

Recovery room. Leading into the surgery room. I loved walking on this floor. I wish I could wake up from a surgery on this floor....wait...what?

 

At lunch I had a hard time deciding what table to sit at, there were all great topics being discussed! I ended up bouncing around to a few different tables. The company my husband is now working for was sponsoring the seminar and his coworker was sitting at the ulcer and teeth floating table, along with one of our favorite vets, so I spent the most time there. A lot of people know about ulcers in horses but I don’t think they realize how quickly they can form and how seriously they can affect a horse. But I think everyone at the table left with a better understanding about them. They also left with some free SWAG. I left with a bunch too, and I am thinking that I might have some sort of contest and send it out to one of my awesome readers because I am super nice like that!

After lunch the veterinarian that worked on Piney, and then a few months later stitched my cocker spaniel’s ear back up after an unfortunate grooming incident, did her presentation on lameness exams. She went through all the steps they use and then went on to do a live demonstration on a horse that had been painted up to show all the bones in a horse’s body. I’ve never seen a horse painted like that before but it was really cool to see all the bones in movement.   After her presentation I asked her a few questions, mostly I asked her about Pin firing on ex racehorses. She said that a lot of time they are used as preventative measures to harden up a bone and prevent it from fracturing later. She said if it was on a joint it was used for injury repair. So in Piney’s case he had it done to his front legs as a preventative to make sure he didn’t fracture his legs, but his hock was freeze fired because he had some type of injury. She said pinfiring wouldn’t necessarily keep her from getting a horse, but she did say that it was important to have it vet checked depending on what I planned on using the horse for.

 

 

Warning GRAPHIC PICTURE BELOW!! either scroll really fast to the very bottom or stay and look at it! You've been warned!!
*

*

*

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

The vet spend hours disecting this leg so that everyone could take a look to what a horse's leg looks like on the inside. There were actually two legs that had been disected. And it was really interesting to see all the insides! The legs had been donated...I asked...

 

It was a very informative day but it was also a very fun day. Before I left, one of our favorite vets and I were joking with my husband that I had just bought one of his horses that had been used in the demonstrations earlier. He walked up to the hubby, shook his hand and said “congratulations on the new horse I just sold your wife! I can have her delivered in an hour!”  Hubby looked pretty confused so we let him in on the joke. Our vet kept trying to get us to take the horse off his hands. He said he had 15 of them, and needed to downsize. He then went on to try and sweeten the deal for us by offering a round bale of hay, 3 tubes of ulcer guard, and a baby goat. He even invited us over to come look at the baby goats at his place. I like people I can joke around with.
I am really happy that I went to the seminar. I learned a lot about horses and a lot about the vet clinic. Again I am so lucky to have them just down the road from us. I felt really bad for the people that lived up in Grand Forks, North Dakota. One lady said that there aren't any vets there and if she needed anything done she had to load up her horses and either drive them 100 miles south or 100 miles north. I just have to drive 16 miles or have the vet come out and even though mileage seems pretty steep, it really isn't that bad, espeically when they will schedual you on a date that somoene else in your area is having the vet out and then will split the mileage with you. Again I am glad I went to the seminar, and I am glad I have them as my vets. Even if I complain about how much I spend...I really do know they are worth every penny.

PUPPIES!! These little babies were for sale. Blue/Red Heeler puppies. How I left without a puppy under both of my arms is beyond me.