Sep 29, 2015 | Ailments, Leg issues, Pythium
Pythium:
My regular clinic duties usually consist of monitoring dentals, vaccines, ultrasounds, sometimes suturing lacerations or medicating eyes. On the contrary, the surgery I was forced to witness yesterday is unlike anything I have ever seen or hope to see again in my 9 lives. We had to lay down a horse with two wounds on her pasterns that were infected with something called “Pythium.” It looked repulsive! As I understand from the doctors, Pythium is a fungus-like organism that lives in standing water, especially in Northern Florida (lucky me). Horses (or dogs or cats) become infected by either drinking water containing the organism, or by standing in puddles, mud, or wet grass laden with the fungus. Fortunately, cats hate water, so we wouldn’t be caught dead in such a situation.
Dr. Vurgason saw the wound last week and immediately took a biopsy and debrided (scraped off) as much as possible with the horse standing. When the results of the biopsy came back positive for Pythium, I could tell it was bad-news-bears. Apparently Pythium is approximately 50% fatal, even with treatment. But the doctors have formulated an aggressive treatment plan including vaccination, debridement under general anesthesia, and regional limb perfusion with a powerful anti-fungal medication.
All I know is, yesterday’s surgery was very unpleasant to observe. The wounds were full of these gross things called “kunkers” which serve as a source of infection and a place for the fungus to hide out, undetected by the horse’s immune system. The kunkers were surrounded by grayish goo, and there were probably a dozen of them! The deeper the doctors cut, the more kunkers they found. It was all I could do not to cough up a hairball.
Anyway, the surgery went well and the horse woke up fine, thanks to my supervision. Check out the attached pictures if you have a strong stomach! Hopefully the rest of my week will be less gory.
Prior to surgery.
Beginning of surgery when we found the first set of “Kunkers”
First step of removal of the “Kunkers”
Final removal of “Kunkers”
Sep 21, 2015 | Events, Hay, Leg issues, Skin Funk
Patient of the Month
As most of you know Coby fell through the wooden floor of a trailer. We are quite pleased and impressed at the healing progression from day one and the use of Amnio Treatment. The picture from the right is the beginning to the healing progression to the left in the photo. He still has a lot of recovery but we are still hopeful that he continues on the healing path. Follow his story on Facebook with us for more updates.
Springhill Equine Facebook
Upcoming Events:
***Wellness 2016 Enrollment is coming up! Be on the look out for enrollment forms to come your way!***
Main Topic:
It’s almost hay season around here. Sure the weather is still warm but with the daylight decreasing our grass will slow down on growth over the next few weeks. This means our horses will need more hay. There’s good news and bad news on the hay front.
Good news: We have had more than enough rain this summer which means many pastures have done very well growing grass. You will be able to get by longer without hay as your horse grazes down what they have. This isn’t true for all situations, but check your pastures for actual grass and monitor how they are doing weekly. If you notice your horse starting to pull up grass by the roots, bare patches in your field, or weight loss in your horse it may be time to add more hay. Not sure what the right answer is for your horse? Have one of our amazing technicians: Beth, Charly, or Nancy come out and assess your pastures and feed program.
Bad news: We have had more than enough rain this summer which means farmers had to race against storms to try to get hay put up. Check with your regular hay supplier early to see what availability they have. Local hays may be difficult to get. Luckily farmers are farmers and they watch the weather more closely than Dr. Lacher (which is saying something since she has been known to check the radar every 5 minutes). So while hay may be a bit tougher to find most of them should be able to take care of their regular customers.
Coastal hay has a bad reputation when it comes to colic. Some of that is earned. Horses on lots of coastal and nothing else will often colic. Horses suddenly put on a round bale of coastal will colic (especially if this happens after 6pm on a weeknight or anytime on a weekend). Luckily there are easy ways to minimize your coastal hay colic risk.
Most important: gradually increase your horse’s hay. If your horse isn’t normally on hay during the summer now is the time to gradually start them on hay. Begin with 3-4 pounds of hay per day. Increase by about 1 pound weekly until your horse is leaving some hay behind. Once they are leaving hay you may put out a round roll of hay if that’s your feeding preference. Once your horse is on 8 pounds of coastal hay daily you should add in about 2 pounds of alfalfa or peanut hay daily. Alfalfa and peanut hays draw water in to the intestinal tract helping reduce the risk of colic.
Don’t feed coastal? We’ve got a plan for that too. Northern Grass and grass/alfalfa mix hays are excellent choices for many horses. Timothy, Orchard, and Brome hays are the most common grasses. You don’t have to worry about colics due to hay with these types of hays and they provide more nutrition than coastal hay. But they provide more nutrition than coastal hay and sometimes that’s too many calories. For the easy keeper or Insulin Resistant horse we don’t recommend more than 2-3 pounds of these hays per day added to a base of a coastal.
Want to get the most out of your hay dollar? Consider some type of feeding system. Slow feed hay nets come in sizes from a flake or two to an entire round roll. Hay nets have numerous benefits including slowing your horse down which makes your hay last longer, decreasing the calories they consume from hay, keeping them eating small amounts for longer, keeping their feet, manure, and urine out of the hay, and keeping them from stuffing their nose in the bale which often causes problems with allergies. We haven’t found a reason not to use these hay nets yet. One of our technicians, Nancy, began using them on her coastal round bale and got an addition 10 days out of the roll and her two older horses were able to stop taking medication for their heaves since they couldn’t stick their noses into the bale. If hay nets aren’t your thing check out YouTube for about a million different slow feed hay DIY options. Check out this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7Ws8–3IOU for starters.
We are here to help you design the perfect nutritional system for your horse, your life, and your farm. Gives us call, e-mail, or text!
Erica’s Corner
UNCLE! Alright I have cried Uncle!!!!! I am done with rain. Despite my best efforts I can’t keep up with Angie’s rain rot. She gets a bath at least once weekly in CK Shampoo. It has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. She spends a decent amount of time wearing my rain rot concoction mix on her top-line. And she has scratches, dew poisoning, small annoying crusts (whichever name you choose) on her pasterns that refuse to leave no matter what I do to them.
Trying to ride has been difficult at best. My property is on a hill and usually drains very well. Fortunately or unfortunately I also live on clay which is now so wet I could make an enormous work of pottery art out of my pastures. Poor Ernie has been riding up and down the road since it’s the only dry place around. He is very tired of straight lines….
I know one year it will be dry and I will look back on this summer of amazing grass growth with longing but today is not that day. Today I am hoping for sunshine and 50% humidity.
Tech Spot
Wow, It’s that time of year again for our Annual Open House October 10th from 10am to 2pm! Time sure does fly! We are looking forward to familiar faces as well as new ones.
This is the perfect opportune time to meet all of our staff, gain a little knowledge from our live demos, eat with us and win some wonderful prizes!Again, this year our big prize is a full year of our Basic Wellness Program for free! What a wonderful program to! Tony is super excited for everyone to come see what we have been up too!Hope to see you all there! Please RSVP via
Springhill Equine Email Thank you!!
Sep 15, 2015 | Ailments, Leg issues, Pests, Skin Funk
Tuesdays with Tony
AS a black cat I must say I am excited that cooler weather came for a visit even if it was brief. It was excellent napping weather after a very busy week of routine health care. Dr. Lacher and Dr. Vurgason were very busy with vaccines, dental, fecal egg counts, and general health checks this week. On the farm and in the clinic it was definitely jam packed. They seem to like these healthy horse checks. It offers them a chance to address minor issues they see before they compromise your horse’s health. There is nothing our Docs like better than giving your horse a happy healthy life. With all this rain it has been very difficult keeping ahead of the Florida Skin Funk. Frequent baths can help but with as much rain as we have had this year you would have to be bathing 24/7. In most circumstances a mixture of chlorhexidine, mineral oil, and dish-washing detergent can be sprayed on affected areas, left to sit overnight, and bathed off in the morning to removed really bad crusts. I have no idea why a horse would tolerate all this bathing, and spraying. I just lie on the pillow when it’s raining out and stare forlornly at the porch wishing I could be outside. For the worst cases the Docs use special medicated shampoos, and ointments that work like a charm.
I have been extremely busy delegating Open House tasks. It falls on the cat to be sure everyone has just the right job given to them. I then closely supervise the computer and phone items from my perch in front of the screen. I find it especially helpful to surreptitiously put my paw on the alt or ctrl keys while the humans are typing. The reaction when the computer begins having random responses to typing is priceless and keeps this cat entertained for hours. I do hope to see everyone at the Open House this year. We have some great prizes and the chance to meet me so I really see no reason not to come on out October 10th between 10am and 2pm.
Sep 9, 2015 | Ailments, Cushings, Disaster Preparedness, Laminitis, Leg issues, Pet Pigs
Well Tuesday was so crazy I didn’t manage to catch up until Wednesday! The day after a long weekend is always hard on management. I have spent the weekend ensuring sunbeams are properly tracked across the floor, making sure the chairs don’t move in the office, and knocking any stray papers off the desk. Meanwhile, Dr. Lacher was busy seeing emergencies all weekend. Actually you guys were pretty nice to her and she only had to see a few. Dr. Lacher and Dr. Vurgason don’t really mind emergencies when they are true emergencies. The only time I hear them upset is when the horse has been very sick for a while and the humans wait until 10:30pm on a Saturday night to call but I digress.
One of this weekend’s emergencies was a common Fall problem: laminitis. Why Fall you ask? Well let me answer. This time of year your crazy horses are getting ready for Winter. That’s right: Winter. The brain of the horse is tuned to seasons in a very particular way. It has to change the metabolism, hair growth, foot growth, and a million other little tweaks so that the system is ready for whatever the coming season will require. Horses, having evolved in cold climates, start getting ready for Winter around August 15th. To do this the pituitary gland increases its production of about 5,000 different hormones. All is fine and dandy unless your horse also has Cushing’s or is pre-Cushingoid. If that’s the case too many hormones are released and voila!! Laminitis happens.
The good news is these laminitis episodes are relatively minor, even if sometimes they don’t look that way, and are quickly controlled with some anti-inflammatories like bute or previcox, a little help from some thyroid hormones, and changes in trimming or shoeing. Knowing your horse’s ACTH levels if they are a suspected Cushing’s horse helps the Docs manage these guys if they experience a flare up.
In other goings on this week, Dr. Vurgason treated another one of those things called a pig at the office. They really are rather adorable until they open their mouths. I was grateful she anesthetized him so that she could perform a castration. Dr. Lacher saw several horses for lameness, along with a few dentals and other routine health stuff. I think she might get some kind of perverse pleasure from making her technicians run around in circles since she makes them do that a lot! She claims this is so she can watch the horses move after stressing different parts of their bodies but I have my doubts.
Sep 3, 2015 | Castration, Cryptorchid, Vaccines
Tuesdays with Tony
As you can see, I’m having to rest up from the past week. Not only did I have to supervise the doctors this week but I spent a lot of time watching the phones. I don’t answer them. I only watch them, from behind closed eyes. I’m not really in to helping people when they call so I just don’t answer. Besides managing the front desk, I assisted with quite a few fecal parasite egg counts this week. I enjoy sitting on the counter assisting in any way I can while Beth, Nancy, or Charly perform these really import tests. Basically they take a bit of poop, mix it with some stuff, centrifuge it, let it sit for a while, then count how many worm eggs they see. Apparently this tells them how often horses should get dewormed. They tell me most people deworm too often and their counts are generally very low indicating twice yearly deworming. I pretend to listen while they tell me this. It makes the humans feel more important than they actually are.
I have really enjoyed the crypt-orchid (testicle stayed too high and had to be dug out) surgeries we seem to be making a habit of on Mondays. The doctors said the last two had both their testicles in the abdomen which seemed to make them excited. They said it’s relatively rare to have this happen. I felt they should scratch behind my ears while they told me all this. Luckily both horses had great owners since these horses could easily have been passed on as geldings to some unsuspecting person.
Coby has required a lot of intense management from the cat. Last week Dr. Lacher and Dr. Vurgason put amnion on his wounds. This is a specific part of the placenta which is resistant to infection, has anti-pain properties, and helps the wound heal with growth promoters. I must admit even the cat is impressed. We did this last week and again yesterday. I have attached some pictures so you guys can see what a little cat supervision gets done. I am pretty darn impressive. By simply watching I have really gotten this wound healing well.
One final word of wisdom from the cat: vaccinate your horses. We have Eastern Encephalitis in the area. The vaccine is about the cheapest thing you can do and is nearly 100% effective. When Springhill Equine gives it you have a guarantee from the manufacturer. If your horse gets encephalitis they will cover treatment costs. Vaccinating for encephalitis is about as sure a thing as finding me taking a nap in a sunbeam.
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