Oct 18, 2016 | Events, Farriers, Feed, FES, Hoof Care, Lameness, Our Facility, Pet Pigs, Uncategorized
Well, what a whirlwind this last week has been! The humans around here moved everything up off the floor during their Hurricane Matthew preparation, and it took them far too long to get it all back to the way Teenie and I like it. Then there were several late-night colics that came into the clinic for fluids and emergency care, which would have been fine, except that no one would let me out of the office to prowl supervise because it was night time. Geesh. And finally, there is a mountain of stuff in the office that is to be given away during the Open House (pronounced “See Tony Event”), and it is blocking all my favorite sleeping places except the computer keyboard! It’s hard being at the top.
Stephanie has been working hard organizing this Open House, which takes place this Saturday, October 22nd from 10am til 2pm. She has been on the phone during my Official Nap Time (which is daytime, basically) arranging for all these feed stores, tack shops, drug companies, trainers, boarding barns, and someplace called Backyard BBQ who is catering lunch (I assume they specialize in cat food?) to be here, with all these door prizes and so on. The doctors and techs are going to have educational stations set up, and they even have a farrier coming to talk about hoof care, trimming, shoeing, and to answer questions.
In addition to the farrier’s hoof trimming demonstration, there will also be a chance for you to check out Sox for Horses, and see how they go on and off (there is a special technique that makes it easier if you have a horse with giant feet, like Dr. Lacher’s Ernie), and Mallie Jo will be demonstrating the FES, which is taking the barrel racing world by storm right now. If you have a performance horse of any kind and you don’t know about the FES, you don’t want to miss this!
One of the things everyone is excited about is the Wellness giveaway. From what I hear, everyone who signs a horse up for a 2017 Wellness plan between October 1st and the end of the Open House on the 22nd goes into a drawing, and one horse will win a refund, giving them a year of free Wellness! That is a big deal, which you know if you read the flier I sent you. If you don’t know about Wellness yet, or want to know more, you can read up on it at www.SpringhillEquine.com/wellness or you can call and talk to Stephanie about it.
The other thing everyone is excited about is getting to see me, of course. I’m something of a celebrity around here, in case you didn’t know. I have been in a lot of selfies with people on Facebook, and if you bring me a cat treat, I might be in yours, too! So, load up the kids and come on out to Springhill Equine this Saturday!
Oct 11, 2016 | Uncategorized
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Thank you Hurricane Matthew. No, really, thank you for veering a little bit east instead of west. It made all the difference to us. It meant some rescheduling, it meant Dr. Lacher couldn’t go to the Purina Research Facility, it meant some inconvenience, but overall we made it through another storm. I said it last time and I’m going to say it again: go write down what you wish you had done differently and what you did right so you are even more prepared for the next storm. I’m also going to mention microchipping again. It’s quick, easy, and ensures your horse can be identified. Now for the aftermath: abscesses and skin funk.
After spending hours getting rained on, or just hanging out in 100% humidity in the barn, your horse’s feet and skin will be primed for great things. When feet get wet they allow bacteria to wiggle their way up between the hoof wall and the lamina. This area is the Velcro that holds the hoof capsule on. The bacteria find this to be a warm, comfortable place to set up shop. The body sends in the troops to fight and pus is the result. All that pus causes pressure inside the hoof capsule. As discussed before horses have a very stupid design which involves them walking on their finger tip. Which means all that pressure has nowhere to go and it hurts. It hurts a lot. I really should have been consulted in the design phase of horses. I really could have come up with a better plan. Anyway, if your horse is suddenly very, very lame on one foot in a few days the chances are pretty good an abscess is brewing. I do recommend you check in with our Docs to be sure they think an abscess is brewing. Sometimes, especially with horses, what you think is going on isn’t really what’s going on. I recommend a cat scan, but then I always recommend a cat scan for everything.
Ugh, the skin. I can relate to this one as a sensitive skinned guy. All this weather wreaks havoc on my skin and luxurious, panther-like coat. Oh wait this is about horses. Well it’s the same for them. Giving them a bath in an anti-bacterial, anti-fungal shampoo like Equishield CK as soon as possible will help reduce the skin funk. If you see spots that have crusts or bumps, wash those daily until they clear. If you aren’t seeing improvement after 3-4 days, let the Docs know. They have a bunch of stuff to help with skin funk. And if all else fails, antibiotics are brought in. I hate the antibiotics, and like to come up with new and creative ways to be downright evil about getting the pills!
Hope you all fared Hurricane Matthew well. I hated the extra day locked inside but I suppose it was for my own good. Until next week, may your litter box be clean and your food bowl full!
Oct 4, 2016 | Allergies, Coughing, Hay
Yes we all know I’m not the most athletic critter on the planet. But heck I’m management; I don’t have to exert myself too often. When I do decide to chase off after a squirrel, I find I need to take a moment to catch my breath. After a brief respite in the sun, I am ready to chase that pesky squirrel again. It doesn’t work that way for some cats, horses, or people. Yep, I finally found something us cats have in common with horses (and people but I’m trying to ignore that part). We all get asthma and we all get it because of allergies.
Walk in the barn at feed time and listen for a cough. Horses with asthma will nearly always cough when they are eating grain, especially if it’s dry. Even the smallest amount of dust triggers their over reactive airways making them cough a dry, hacking cough. Cats experience a similar cough when they have asthma. Also there is no hairball after the cough. Another clue it’s asthma in cats anyway. I’ve never seen a horse cough up a hairball. Anyway back to asthma. Other clues your horse may have asthma are sudden poor performance for no good reason and really fast breathing after exercise that takes forever to slow down. Some horses will get so bad you can hear them wheeze when breathing without a stethoscope. On other horses you need a stethoscope to hear wheezes and crackles. Our Docs are happy to show you how to listen for lung sounds. I have never heard these sounds, since they don’t make cat stethoscopes but I have a request in to the manufacturer. How am I supposed to do a proper Cat Scan without a stethoscope?
What are we going to do about the asthma? Well I’m not going to do anything because that’s what I do. My Docs are going to treat the allergies that lead to asthma. Asthma happens when the tubes the air goes through in the lungs gets clogged with mucous. The lungs release the mucous to try to get rid of pollen and dust. So the Docs try to reduce the mucous produced in response to pollen and dust, decrease the amount of pollen/dust in the environment, and help that mucous get out. The easiest, most economical, and most effective treatment is dexamethasone. This is a steroid which is given by mouth. Dexamethasone tells the immune system to quit worrying about the dust and pollen. Unfortunately, dexamethasone can have some nasty side effects when used at high doses for a long time so we have to be careful. Other steroids can be inhaled. This minimizes side effects but can be very expensive. There are a couple treatment options to help get the mucous out, such as Ventipulmin. Our Docs usually use these early in the treatment process then slowly taper them.
Management changes are really important for horses with asthma. The only way to change the pollen is to move far away but dust is a different story. Remember how I said that coughing happens around feed time? Wetting down feed and, more importantly, soaking hay reduces this source of dust. In fact some humans did a study about hay and found a 25% reduction in symptoms just be removing dry hay from these horses diets! Bedding is another important source of dust. Using the pelleted type bedding reduces mold and frequent wetting down decreases dust. The effects of pollen can be minimized by keeping your horse in the barn with a fan on them. Sure it doesn’t work great but it’s about the only option we have here in Florida short of moving to Arizona.
Since asthma is an allergy problem identifying what your horse is allergic to is very important. Our Docs do this skin thing that helps figure out what is causing the worst response. They call it allergy testing. A small amount of a potential allergen is injected under the skin. The Docs come back in a few hours and see if there is any swelling around the allergen. Based on what causes the most swelling, they make a super special shot to help the horse learn to tolerate those things. It’s pretty cool.
Our Docs are seeing lots of horses with asthma right now. If your horse suddenly isn’t right, give them a call and see if asthma is the problem. And put our 8th Annual Open House and See Tony Event on your calendar for October 22nd. Food, fun, prizes, learning, and you get to see me in cat!
Sep 27, 2016 | Cushings, PPID
While Dr. Lacher was off gallivanting at the Grand Canyon last week, I was helping Dr. Vurgason groom her horse for the Racehorse Reclaim benefit horse show. As we were brushing his coat to a glorious shine, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a clump of long hair! I couldn’t believe my eyes: Smokey was already beginning to grow his winter coat. “Is this normal?” I inquired to Dr. V. She replied that yes in fact, a horse’s winter coat begins to grow in response to hormonal changes within the brain. These hormones are triggered by changes in length of daylight.
You may have noticed your evening rides being cut short recently because it is getting dark by 8:00 already. Well, horses have noticed this too. The brain actually has a very intricate system of glands that produce hormones that stimulate other glands that produce other hormones that stimulate organs elsewhere in the body.
That long hair coat comes way too early for Florida. It makes for some hot horses. In particular, if your horse has heaves (asthma in horses), or is a non-sweater, this time of year is no fun. Unlike me, your horse likely can’t come in to the air conditioning to get out of the heat. This means it’s time to fire up the clippers and get rid of that hair. Sometimes that hair can be an indication of a problem.
Long hair at the wrong time of year can mean one of the glands in charge has gone AWOL. In horses, the pituitary gland is the most likely culprit. Nobody knows why, but many older horses will grow a tumor on their pituitary gland called an adenoma. This tumor applies pressure to the gland as it grows, and causes it to over-produce its hormones (namely, adrenocorticotropic hormone, or ACTH). This condition is known as Pituitary Pars Intermedia Dysfunction, or more affectionately, Cushing’s disease.
Cushing’s disease can lead to a whole slew of problems. For one, overproduction of ACTH can confound the whole winter-coat-growing system, so your horse winds up with long, curly hair in the hottest summer months. Failure to shed out completely or patches of long hair (not in the Fall) are often early signs of Cushing’s disease. Through mechanisms which are not completely understood, Cushing’s disease can cause lethargy, muscle loss, potbellied appearance, fat deposits, laminitis, and recurrent infections. Hmm, maybe I have Cushing’s disease…?
Luckily, our Docs have ways to determine if your horse’s long hair is from Cushing’s or if they are just getting ready for winter. First they draw some blood, then it goes on a trip to Cornell University where they test the ACTH levels. When I was a kitten, ACTH levels couldn’t be pulled in the Fall since the levels go up in the Fall and the humans didn’t know what was normal and what wasn’t. They have fixed that problem with some research. Now Fall is a great time to test since horses who are just beginning to show signs will have really high levels in the Fall. Also….Springhill Equine has a contest going on now where you can get your horse tested for FREE!!!! Free you say? Yep, FREE. Just click on this link to the
“Does my horse have PPID?” form, fill it out and Voila! You are entered. That’s easier than getting Beth to share her tuna fish sandwich with you.
Sep 20, 2016 | Disaster Preparedness, Modernized barn, Mosquitos, Safety
Let me just start off by saying that despite it being the 21st century and all, a barn cat is still the best way to keep the rodent population down. But there are areas where the fancy gizmos and gadgets of 2016 can really benefit the modern horse farm. I had always thought that most of this stuff wasn’t anywhere near affordable until I crunched the numbers myself and converted Kitty Coin currency to American Dollars.
Everyone likes barn work (I guess?), but what are the jobs that you just wish were a little bit easier? Do you get tired of dragging out the garden hose, standing in the sun filling up the buckets, and rolling the hose back up twice a day? Well for one, I don’t know why you don’t have the water spigot closer to the buckets, but secondly, you could have the water monitored by a ‘smart’ watering and monitoring system. BTW, calling these automated devices ‘smart’ is just as brilliant as calling an owl wise. Again, it’s your feline friend that is the master mouse hunter. But regardless of what we are calling it, smart watering systems are only the beginning.
Ever heard the bang of thunder at 2am and are fighting the inner conflict of laziness verse desire to check on your horses? Well, you could stay in bed and look at the barn cameras right on your ‘smart’ phone or tablet.
Did your horse miss an afternoon shower and need to cool off? You can have a misting area in your barn or paddock to cool down your equine friend.
Wondering if that mosquito that just bit you was carrying the Zika virus? Worry not because you didn’t get bitten, you had an automated fly repellent system.
Traveling the national show circuit but concerned about the retired horse back home who doesn’t like the heat? Install some new high-efficiency paddle fans. Don’t want to leave them on and run up the electric bill? I did say “high-efficiency”, but still you can have them turn on and off automatically when horses are present through occupancy sensors.
Have you ever walked into your tack room and thought you entered a walk-in-freezer? Or worse, a sauna? No problem, you can monitor and control the room temperature remotely and prevent anybody but you from making any adjustments.
Kept up at night by the thought of a barn fire or other natural disaster? That’s why there are smoke, fire, gas, and unfriendly tomcat detection systems that can alert you, as well as fire suppression systems and breakaway gates to minimize damage in such a tragic event.
You left the barn lights on and already got into your kitty print PJs? No problem. You have a lighting control system and have a button to shut the whole barn down right in your bedroom.
You have to walk all the way to the corner of the paddock to call one of our veterinarians because your horse cut himself and you don’t get good service at the barn? Why not install a cell phone booster? Or hey! Bring WiFi out to the barn then you can use WiFi calling (check your carrier for rates and compatibility) or browse FaceBook because you still haven’t gotten an automated water bucket and are standing there with a hose!
Ah, the 21st century. I think I’ve only scratched the surface with the many things we can do that my parents sure couldn’t in their day. Now if I can just convince the doctors we need a 4K TV in the office….
– Tony
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