(352) 472-1620 vets@springhillequine.com
Hurricane Prep

Hurricane Prep

Jun 3, 2019 | Disaster Preparedness, Hurricanes

Tuesdays with Tony

Yes I know I do this every year around June 1st, but it’s because you humans are very bad at listening. Hurricane season has officially begun. It’s time to play “Let’s get prepared for a disaster!” The Farm Version.

 

Dump Run

 

Hurricanes love to pick stuff up and throw it around. Look around the farm for those items. Make a burn pile for the stuff can get burned, and a dump pile for the stuff that can’t. Once in piles, actually remove them. Wait until we get some rain, but then burn that burn pile. No need to wait for anything for the dump run. Bonus: Dump runs can usually be counted on for some entertainment from other humans making dump runs as well. Most important: do something with the debris. Don’t let it sit around until the next Hurricane Michael is at Cedar Key. At that point everyone in your county will be at the dump trying to get rid of their debris. Be a smart human!

 

Identify your stuff

 

Microchip your horse. It’s easy. It’s cost effective. It’s permanent. Do it now.  Also works for your dogs and cats. I say it works for humans too, but some frown upon that.

 

Identify more than just your pets and relatives, though. Take a few minutes to shoot a video or take pictures of your truck and trailer, vehicles, tack room, and barn. Anything you think you would claim on insurance should be documented. Those phones you humans carry around to take pictures of yourself and your horse can be used for this, too. Upload it to that place called the cloud so it’s safe. A few moments now can save you a ton of hassles with insurance later.

 

Stockpile a few things

 

Think about what you will need if power is out. Take advantage of the Tax Holiday in Florida on some things. Common stuff you can stockpile now include batteries, flashlights, tarps, duct tape (can you ever have enough?), and gas cans. Horses drink a LOT of water. Think now about how you are going to provide that water. Plastic trash cans with lids work great! Large water troughs work well, too. Whatever you are going to use, now is the time to make sure you have it, and it doesn’t leak. If you are going to evacuate (more on that in a sec), be sure you have enough water and feed buckets for everyone.

Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic

Should I stay or should I go?

 

There’s a different answer for everyone, but the important thing now is to make a plan. Even if you intend on staying, you should still make an evacuation plan. It’s just a good idea. The tricky part about evacuating with horses is the timing. You need to leave the area 4-5 days before the projected hit. Traffic is way too bad if you wait until the last minute. Now is the time to call places you may evacuate to and find out what they require. The Agriculture Inspection Station will often waive the Health Certificate requirement during evacuations. However, your destination will likely require a Coggins at a minimum, and may require certain vaccines as well. Check your Coggins now on ALL the horses you might evacuate. Getting them done as a routine appointment is so, so much easier than doing them as an emergency. Bonus: my Docs can microchip your horses at the same time! Easy peasey.

 

We all like to pretend hurricanes are no big deal, but this cat has been around long enough to know you humans don’t really believe that. Spend some time now getting ready, and then you can enjoy that hurricane party as you watch for Jim Cantore’s latest location.

 

All well trained humans will now scroll down to the subscribe button. Press the button, enter your email, and get my blog a day before everyone else. If that’s not motivation, I don’t know what is!

Until next week,

~Tony

P.S. Want more? Check out the podcast my docs do called Straight from the Horse Doctor’s Mouth. They just released an episode on Disaster Preparedness, and it’s chock full of good information.

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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Equine Asthma

Equine Asthma

May 27, 2019 | Equine Asthma, Heaves

Tuesdays with Tony

Wowza!! It has been a hot one this weekend. Hopefully you all made it through the long weekend. Who am I kidding? Of course you made it through the weekend, you had to in order to read my blog this week.  Luckily, my staff knew just what a scorcher it was going to be and left me and Teeny in the lovely air-conditioned office for the weekend. I spent my weekend getting caught up on my sleep and refreshing my memory about equine asthma.

 

Equine Asthma, COPD, Recurrent Airway Obstruction, Heaves, Inflammatory Airway Disease, which is it? Why can’t these humans pick a term and stick with it? Well, as I found out this weekend, there is a reason why it has so many different names. The current accepted term for equine airway disfunction is Equine Asthma. Subcategories of equine asthma include Inflammatory Airway Disease and Heaves/RAO. To break it down even further, Heaves/RAO can be divided into Pasture-associated and Barn-associated. So, how do we determine if your horse has Equine Asthma, and if they do, which form they have? That’s where my docs and I come in. I’m going to give you a brief overview of the different forms of Equine Asthma and if you have a concern about one of your horses, you’re going to call the clinic and schedule an appointment with one of my docs.

 

Inflammatory Airway Disease

 

IAD is a respiratory disease that typically affects younger horses. It is characterized by a lingering cough, poor performance, increased breathing efforts, and prolonged recovery after exercise. Some horses may have watery-to-white nasal discharge but will never develop a fever. What sets these horses apart from horses with Heaves is that they are normal at rest with no increased respiratory effort or rate. Their appetite and attitude remain unchanged at rest.

 

What do you do if you notice your horse showing any of these symptoms? First, you call my clinic and my docs will come out and perform a thorough physical examination. This may include a rebreathing exam where they place a bag over your horse’s nose and mouth. While your horse is staring at you like, “what the heck are they doing to me, mom?” my docs will be listening closely to your horse breathe. Once the bag is removed, they will continue to listen while monitoring how long it takes your horse to breathe normally again, as well as note any change in lung sounds or coughing. Depending on what is seen and heard on the physical exam, my docs may recommend you bring your horse to the clinic for further diagnostics.

 Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic

When you bring your horse to the clinic there are a couple diagnostic tests we will perform. First, my docs will perform a Bronchoalveolar Lavage (BAL) where they will obtain samples from your horse’s airway to send to the lab and look for inflammatory cells. They will also perform an endoscope exam to the upper airway. A small camera is passed up your horse’s nose and into their trachea where they will look for excessive mucous buildup.  I sure hope my docs don’t ever try and stick anything up my nose. I can’t promise I won’t scratch anyone if they do!

 

Based on the diagnostic results, my docs will recommend certain treatments, including environmental changes. The goal of environmental changes is to reduce dust allergens. This can be accomplished by soaking hay and grain, and bedding horses on paper or wood shavings. Your horse should be out of the barn during cleaning and remain out for an hour after chores are complete. This will prevent them from breathing in excessive dust particles that may be floating about after cleaning is complete.

 

My docs may also recommend a course of systemic steroids to reduce inflammation in the airways. It has been shown that Omega-3 fatty acids help to reduce inflammation as well. I’m not convinced that horses will readily eat fish oil, but it sure sounds delicious to me! There are commercially-developed Omega-3 fatty acids that are more palatable to horses than straight fish oil. My docs may also recommend bronchodilators such as clenbuterol or albuterol which may come in oral or inhaled forms.

 

Luckily, if your horse is diagnosed with IAD, the prognosis of a full recovery if treated is excellent. If cats got IAD, I would just take it as my sign that I should never exercise again. Oh wait, I don’t currently exercise. I guess we will never know if cats get IAD.

 

Heaves/Recurrent Airway Obstruction

 

Unlike IAD, a horse with Heaves/RAO is not normal at rest. You may notice your horse breathing rapidly or with more effort. You may even hear them coughing more frequently. You may also notice nasal discharge along with exercise intolerance. Horses with Heaves will have the classic “heave line” at the bottom of their ribs due to increase in abdominal muscle mass from excess work performed in order to breathe. Some horses with Heaves may become in appetent, although why horses decide to stop eating is beyond me. The horses usually experience weight loss due to decreased feed intake. Similar to IAD, horses with Heaves will not typically have a fever.

 

You may recall I mentioned early on that there are two different types of Heaves, Barn-associated and Pasture-associated. Horses with Barn-associated Heaves spend the majority of their time kept in a stall where they are exposed to typical molds, dust and endotoxins in hay and straw. Horses with Pasture-associated Heaves typically reside in the Southeast and spend the majority of their time on pasture where they are exposed to inhaled allergens. Both types of Heaves result in lower airway inflammation, but exact factors causing the airway dysfunction is unknown.

 

Heaves is diagnosed by BAL and endoscopic examination. Radiographs and thoracic ultrasound are also useful diagnostic tools used to further characterize the inflammation in your horse’s lungs.

 

Treatment for heaves is similar to that of IAD. At the forefront of treatment is to reduce allergens by soaking hay and grain. It is also important to keep horses with heaves off of round bales as they are very high in endotoxic and organic dust. Horses with Barn-associated Heaves should be kept on pasture and horses with Pasture-associated Heaves should be kept stalled except in the winter months when allergens are low. Systemic steroids and bronchodilators are also recommended for horses with Heaves.

 

Now that you are an expert on Equine Asthma, if you are concerned that your horse may be showing any of these signs, be sure to contact me at the clinic and I will get you in touch with one of my docs.  We will get out to check on your horse as soon as possible.

 

Now it’s time for me to go back to enjoying the remainder of this holiday weekend in the cool AC. Take a moment to remember all those who have served our country and provided us with the freedom to nap all day.

 

Until next week,

~Tony

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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When It’s Time

When It’s Time

May 20, 2019 | End of Life

Tuesdays with Tony

We’re going to talk about a tough subject today, so I’m going to be on my best behavior. It’s an important topic, one my Docs face all the time with owners. How do you know when it’s time to euthanize your horse? Let me help you with what I’ve learned from years hanging out on the front counter here at Springhill Equine.

 

Guidelines

 

Let me start by saying this entire blog is full of guidelines. Sometimes it’s crystal clear that euthanasia is the only option: badly broken legs, some very bad lacerations in very bad locations, and the older horse who is down and can’t get up. Most of the time it isn’t so clear. It’s muddy like a limerock road after rain in Florida. My very best cat advice is to talk through your concerns and fears with my Docs. They have helped people make this decision many times, and can help you find the right option for you and your horse.

 

What does pain look like?

 

We all know that some horses, just like some humans, (and some cats) take pain better than others. However, horses as a species are really, really good at hiding pain in general. When you live and die on the grasslands based on who is the easy-to-pick-off weak one, you hide your pain. Horses do give us clues to look for, though. The biggest clue that your horse is painful is weight loss. These are horses who continue to eat everything in sight, but continue to lose weight. And I don’t mean a little bit of weight loss. These horses are often in the 2 to 3 body condition score range, despite a ton of effort by their owners to manage the weight loss. I recommend weekly or every-other-week pictures of your horse. This way you can swipe back and see what your horse looked like over the past few months.

 

A change in routine is another sign of pain for horses. Has Flicka always been under the oak tree at the far end of the pasture at 3pm? Now she isn’t even going to the far end of the pasture? This can be a sign of pain. As the person who knows your horse best, you are in the best position to notice these often subtle changes. Especially as horses age, the change in routine can come on slowly. Take a moment every month or so to evaluate your horse’s patterns.

 

Get out the Magic 8 Ball

 

Next up is the future life problem. For this one, there are two different categories: young vs. older. Why are there two different categories, you ask? Time is the biggest reason, and capacity for healing is the second reason. Let’s take a bad laceration to the back of the lower leg as an example. These injuries can take years to recover from. They make an athletic career unlikely, and they put a lot of stress on the other three legs. A young horse has a much better chance of being able to heal one of these wounds without one of the other legs giving out. It is very realistic to ask yourself if you want your older horse to go through the years of work that will be necessary, and if they can handle it. The answer is often yes, but it’s important, on young and old, to think about.

Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic

Money

 

I’m going to be very brief on this part. Have a plan for how much you can, and are willing to spend on your horse ahead of time. I promise my Docs aren’t going to judge you for this. The reality is some of the things horses do to themselves are very, very expensive to fix. If that’s not right for you, we understand! Some quick guidelines: colic surgery-$10,000, infected joint-$5-6,000, bad, bad wound repair-$2500-3000. Insurance and programs like SmartPak’s ColiCare can help with these expenses, but you have to look into them early.

 

Most important thing I’ve ever said

 

The absolute single most important thing to consider when considering euthanasia for your horse: what is their every day like? We animals live for today. We aren’t trying to make it to our kids graduation, or the end of the Game of Thrones season. We live day by day. If those days aren’t good, we aren’t happy. Consider what the day to day looks like for your horse. Please be honest with yourself, and if it isn’t good, let them go.

 

I know this week was tough, but it’s really important stuff! My Docs are always, always, always available to talk with you about your horse, and help you make decisions.

 

Now be a good human and subscribe to my blog. It’s a simple button push after scrolling down a wee, tiny bit further.

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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Talk To The Foot

Talk To The Foot

May 13, 2019 | Farriers, Feet, Hoof, Lameness

Tuesdays with Tony

With the amount I talk about horse feet, you all must think I’m obsessed with them. Well, you kind of have to be when you run an equine vet clinic like I do. Horse feet are kinda important. It’s not like a dog, where they can get along just fine on 3 legs. Horses need all 4 of their feet to be in good working order just to survive. So today I’m going to teach you a few things you can look for to make sure your horse’s feet are going in the right direction instead of the wrong one.

 

Lameness

   Did you know that over 85% of lameness in horses originates in the foot? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen humans bring their horse in for “soreness in the stifles”, “hock injections”, or even a “broken shoulder” and the problem ends up being in the foot. The silver lining in this is the fact that foot problems can often be easily corrected by trimming and shoeing, which is an easy and inexpensive fix, relatively speaking. Believe me, you WANT your horse’s lameness to be in the foot. That’s a much better scenario than a bone cyst, severe arthritis, or a torn suspensory ligament.

    This should go without saying, but recurring foot lameness is usually an indicator that your horse isn’t happy with how he’s being trimmed or shod. Now, I’m not telling you to pick up the phone and call a new farrier. A great place to start is with X-rays of your horse’s feet. There is only so much a farrier can tell from the outside of the foot. Many times, the bony column within the foot doesn’t match what the hoof would lead you to believe.

    There is so much we can learn from just a single side-view of the foot. My docs can tell you if your horse has any signs of laminitis, such as rotation or sinking of the coffin bone (the bone inside the hoof). They can even tell you if these changes are acute (new) or chronic (old). They can determine your horse’s palmar angle, or the angle between the ground and the bottom of the coffin bone.

white line disease horse hoof

They can tell you if your horse has signs of coffin joint arthritis, or navicular disease (note: to get a full evaluation of the navicular bone, a few more views would be necessary). They can tell you how good the bony alignment is from the fetlock joint down to the tip of the toe. This hoof-pastern-axis should be a straight line, neither “broken-forward” nor “broken back.”  Your farrier may be surprised to see how much excess toe or how little sole your horse has. Additionally, he can get an idea of the side-to-side symmetry and balance of the foot from one more front-to-back view.

 

A Good Trim

 

Everything about horse feet starts with a good trim. You can see my Everything You Need To Know About Horse Feet blogs for tons of information and pictures. Here’s the basics: the heels should be brought down to the widest point of the frog. Yes, brought down. Do not leave bad-quality heel on. You can’t “grow better heels” on a horse. They’ve got what the good Lord gave ‘em and you can’t fix it, you just have to manage it.

Alignment side equine hoof demo at equine hoof care semina

From there, your farrier should trim the foot as they normally would. When finished, the widest part of the hoof should be halfway between the toe and the heel. If it isn’t, the trim is adjusted until it fits this ideal. If it can’t be….well, that takes me to the next section of this blog

 

Shoes or no shoes

 

I hear it all the time: “My farrier just wants to charge me more so they said my horse needs shoes.” Nope, not true. Farrier myth busted. Every farrier I met doesn’t want to put shoes on a horse until they absolutely need it. However, when the hoof has been trimmed to the best of your farrier’s ability, and the mechanics are still all messed up, a shoe is needed to fix what’s messed up.

If your horse has really weird feet, your farrier is definitely going to want an appointment with our Docs and the x-ray at the same time. This will get your horse the best possible shoeing job. Heck, your farrier and my Docs get so much information from foot x-rays that we recommend them for every performance horse, every year.

No hoof, no horse, is the truest thing ever said about a horse. Be sure to use my Docs as the great resource they are to help your horse have the very best feet they possibly can!

 

Now be a good human. Scroll down a teenie, tiny bit further and subscribe to my blog. All the cool humans do it. And if you listen to the podcast my Docs do, which is another cool human trait, you can listen to more about horse feet. The more you know, the better care you can provide for your horse.

 

Until next week,

 

~Tony

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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Electrolytes and Horses

Electrolytes and Horses

May 6, 2019 | electrolytes, Sweating/ Not sweating

Tuesdays with Tony

As I was lying in the middle of the driveway yesterday, I realized it was a bit warm. Humidity wasn’t too bad though, but that can only mean one thing: Summer is coming. With summer comes sweat, for horses and humans. Cats simply will not lower themselves to something as banal as sweating. Sweating is tough on a critter! I found out just how tough while researching electrolytes and horses.

 

That’s a lot of water!

 

At full exertion, horses can produce close to 4 gallons of sweat per hour! Yeah, I’m never going to exercise that much. That means they have to replace all that water when they’re done exercising. More importantly, it means a horse exercising gets dehydrated really, really quickly. That horse losing 4 gallons of water is at critical dehydration levels at the end of the hour. Let’s be honest, most of your horses (and humans) don’t exercise to max levels, but even sub-max is a decent amount of fluid loss. Why are we discussing this? Make sure your horse has access to PLENTY of water before, and after exercise. If you’re exercising for longer than 30-45 minutes you should even have water available during exercise. Another fun fact, horses (and humans) sweat even more in hot, humid weather. It’s never hot and humid in Florida, right? (should be read in an extreme level of cat-sarcasm tone).

Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic

More than just water

 

That sweat is more than just sweat. It contains a bunch (and I do mean a bunch) of electrolytes. For horses, they lose electrolytes in this order: Chloride> Sodium> Potassium> Calcium> Magnesium. Why does that matter? It means any electrolyte supplement should replace them in that order. In other words, check the label on your supplement. It also matters because those electrolytes are really important for things to happen the way they should in the body. One thing they do is make sure the gut moves the way it’s supposed to. You horse people don’t like colics, right? Electrolyte levels get whacked, you’ve got a colic. Electrolytes make sure all kinds of muscle contractions happen correctly, besides just the gut ones. The heart beat and muscles depend on proper electrolytes, as well. Basically, they’re pretty darn important to life.

 

I see sugar

 

Know what else horses use a lot of when they exercise? Sugar. That has to get replaced back into the muscles. This is what horses are surprisingly not great at. If you run a marathon (I don’t know why you would, but if you did), you could replace the energy stores in your muscles in about 12-24 hours. A horse doing equivalent exercise takes 48-72 hours to do the same thing! Crazy! Most of this energy is replaced by the normal process of eating hay and grain, but some of it is replaced by the sugar you see in electrolyte supplements. That sugar also helps the GI tract absorb the electrolytes. I think we can all agree a lot of sugar is bad, but a little bit is critical for exercise recovery.

 

What does all this really mean?

 

It means, if your horse is a pasture potato, having a salt block available and feeding a good quality hay and concentrate will meet all their needs. If your horse has to work for a living (this means physical labor as opposed to being in a supervisory role like myself), you will need an electrolyte plan.

 

On a day-to-day basis, a salt block along with a good diet is probably adequate, unless your horse is in hardcore training. When work gets stepped up though, it’s time to add in additional electrolytes about an hour before the hard work starts. Even better, but this can be nearly impossible with horses, add electrolytes to about a gallon of water, and have your horse drink them. Yeah, I know, you can lead them to water, and all that, but a bit of training before big events will help your horse learn this valuable skill. Make sure your horse has plain water available as well.

Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic

After work, be sure to offer electrolyte water again, or add to the next concentrate meal. This will help your horse replenish those valuable electrolytes as fast as they can.

 

The Perfect Electrolyte

 

There are approximately 1 bajillion different ones on the market. Look for ingredients in the order horses lose electrolytes, with one exception: chloride. Chloride tags along for the ride with all the others, so sort of by default, you’ll get lots of that.

 

Bottom line: look for Sodium (often listed as salt), potassium, calcium, and magnesium in the ingredients. There will be sugar in there too, and that’s okay! A little bit of sugar helps the gut absorb those electrolytes. BUT (and it’s a big BUT) sugar should NOT be the first ingredient on the list. It should be around 3-4 down on the list, and will likely come before magnesium. Once you have the right ingredients in the right order, pick the one your horse likes. That’s the really hard part.

 

Electrolytes are way more complicated than I ever dreamed! Speaking of dreaming, I’m going back to holding the chair in the back office down. You be a good human and scroll down a little further to subscribe to my blog. You’ll get it a day earlier than everyone else, and that will make your Monday a little cheerier.

 

Until next week,

~Tony

 

P.S. I know that I’m the resident celebrity around here, but my docs are starting to get worldwide attention with the podcast they do. Horse people all over Canada, UK, Europe, and Australia are listening, as well as people in all 50 states here in the US. Have you checked it out yet? It’s called Straight from the Horse Doctor’s Mouth. You can click on that link and find out for yourself what all the fuss is about!

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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Horse Eye Problems

Horse Eye Problems

Apr 29, 2019 | Eyes

Tuesdays with Tony

By now you already have it marked on your calendar to attend this month’s meet and greet with yours truly. Of course, if you don’t, here is your friendly reminder that this Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 at 6:30pm I will be hosting the world-famous ophthalmologist, Dr. Dennis Brooks. So when you come, you not only get to meet the world’s most famous cat, me, you also get to meet him and ask him all your burning questions about eyes. And I’m here to prep you with a quick tidbit about all the eye problems your horse may, and likely will, encounter during his lifetime.

 

Superficial Corneal Ulcers

 

Probably the most common eye condition my docs see in horses is superficial corneal ulcers. What does that mean, you ask? Well, that means that your horse probably did a silly horse thing like scratch his face in a bush, or roll in dirt and then rub his eye on his leg. When he did that, he caused damage to the epithelium (thin tissue layer) of the cornea leaving the layers below exposed to the elements. Luckily, most horses are giant wimps and will let you know right away that they have hurt their eye. You may notice your horse squinting more, tearing, or even some swelling of the eye lids.

 

Once you call my docs and they come out, they will perform a full ophthalmologic examination of your horse’s eye. This will likely include sedation as well as nerve blocks to make the eyelid less difficult to open. They will then use an ophthalmoscope to examine the surface of the eye as well as the back of the eye.  Then they will stain the surface of the eye with fluorescein stain and that is when you will see it, the dreaded yellow spot on the surface of the eye indicating that there is a defect in the corneal epithelium and thus a superficial corneal ulcer has formed.

Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic

Once my docs see this, they will prescribe certain topical medications as well as systemic NSAIDs. That’s where your job begins. You’re going to be very diligent and apply medications twice a day, if not more, depending on what my docs tell you. If you are lucky, the ulcer will be healed within a week and your job will be done. Unfortunately, that is not always the case, and some ulcers just do not heal no matter how diligent owners are. That is where I come in. The docs are going to recommend you bring your horse into me at the clinic where I will oversee the docs placing a subpalpebral lavage system in your horse’s eyelid which will allow for more frequent application of topical medications without having to manipulate your horse’s eyelid. I will also ensure that my staff is administering medications to your horse every 2 hours while he is hospitalized. This is great for me, as I get treats and pets every time someone comes in to treat your horse.

 

On occasion, even with increased medications and the SPL, ulcers may not heal and my docs will have to deride the cornea.  I am a bit of a squeamish cat so I usually find a nice warm place to nap when this happens, but from what I have heard around the clinic, this is when the docs take cotton swabs and try to remove corneal epithelium that is not healing and preventing the ulcer from healing.

 

If, after debridement the cornea has not healed, my docs will probably call in the experts like Dr. Brooks or Dr. Mangan. Everyone at the clinic always gets so excited when the ophthalmologists are coming, though I have yet to figure out why. When the experts come, they will assess the eye and tweak my doc’s plans. They may perform other diagnostics and adjust your horse’s medications. I even heard that horses may sometimes require contacts. I have perfect 20-20 cat vision so I wouldn’t know what it is like to have contacts. My docs tell me a horse having a contact is not the same as humans, but instead the contact acts as a protective barrier on the cornea to encourage ulcer healing. As you can see thus far, eyes can be a giant pain in my kitty rear-end, so remember, if you notice your horse showing signs of eye problems, call the clinic ASAP and get my docs on the job.

 

Stromal Abscess

We all live in Florida for a reason, the warmth! There is nothing better than laying on the hood of the doc’s trucks and taking a warm sun bath, ahhhhh I love Florida! Unfortunately, horse eyes do not have the same love for Florida that I do.  The heat and humidity here make for an excellent breeding ground of fungi and bacteria, which also means that your horse’s eyes are at an increased risk for developing stromal abscesses. This is when the fungi or bacteria find a tiny little defect in the cornea and work themselves into the deeper layers of the cornea. The defect heals without you even noticing any problems and then a few days later you come out and see that your horse is squinting, has a lot of tearing from his eye and is very, very painful.

 

You’ll call my docs out and they will perform their usual ophthalmologic examination. Except this time they will not find an ulcer. Instead, they will see a white dot somewhere below the corneal surface. This is the result of the body trying to combat the fungi or bacteria that has gotten into a place it shouldn’t be. Stromal abscesses are even more difficult to treat, and my docs will almost certainly place an SPL and start your horse on multiple medications including anti-fungal medications. You will probably decide that you want to bring your horse in to me for treatment so that you are not having to get up at all hours of the night to treat your horse. Of course, I will always oblige and love to have the company, the more the merrier, right?

 

Stromal abscesses take what seems like forever to heal and sometimes even require surgical intervention. My docs do not perform corneal surgery; that’s when they call in the experts again. Even after surgery, stromal abscesses take a lot of care and time, but in the end they are rewarding when all your hard work has paid off and you horse’s eye has been saved.

 

Equine Recurrent Uveitis

Equine Recurrent Uveitis an immune mediated disease. I have diabetes, but that’s not an immune mediated disease, that’s just because I used to be a fat cat.  Immune mediated means that the horse’s body is attacking its own cells, in the case of ERU, the horse’s body is attacking its eyes. Eeek!

 

ERU is a common cause of blindness in horses and is a painful disease. You will notice that your horse’s pupil is very small at all times, even in the dark, they will likely be squinting, and may have tearing. You may also notice that your horse’s eye appears to be smaller. ERU can affect one or both eyes and is most common in Appaloosas but can occur in any breed of horse. If ERU is left untreated, your horse’s retina may become detached or a cataract may form in the lens of the eye.

 

My docs will assess your horse’s eye and usually will see that his eye is smaller, they may notice that there are blood vessels surrounding the cornea and the eye may be cloudy.  They will recommend treatment that will include immunosuppressants topically and sometimes systemically. They will also put your horse on systemic NSAIDs for pain control. Some horses require lifelong treatment and may require surgery to place an implant that releases immunosuppressants slowly over time. The goal with treatment is to decrease the number of times medications are administered to the fewest times possible while maintaining your horse’s comfort.

 

By now, you’ve listened to me, and you’ve listened to my docs and you know that if you notice any of these signs or symptoms, you will call the clinic or emergency line because, remember, eye problems are always an emergency!

 

These are by no means the only eye problems that horses have. In fact, I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of problems. But I have been up for more than 5 minutes now and must nap before I prepare for my next nap. So, if you want to hear more about eyes from the expert, come out to see me on Thursday night. Remember you can always watch the seminar on Facebook live or later on my YouTube channel.

Until next week,

~Tony

P.S. If you want to know more about equine eyes, make sure you check out the podcast my docs put out. It’s called Straight from the Horse Doctor’s Mouth. The episode on eyes is ah-mazing 😉

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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Summer Sores

Summer Sores

Apr 22, 2019 | Summer Sores

Tuesdays with Tony

Warmer weather is moving in, and along with it are some familiar visitors: flies! And in Florida, flies mean summer sores. Read along to learn everything you never wanted to have to know about summer sores, including how to prevent, identify, and treat these unwelcome, unpleasant, and unsightly buggers.

Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic

What are summer sores?

     The short version, because I’m a very busy cat and I haven’t got all day. Summer sores, technically termed Habronemiasis, happen when insect larvae end up in the wrong place: namely either in a wound or in your horse’s mucous membranes such as eyes, lips, or genitalia.
      Habronema is actually the horse stomach worm, and rarely causes any problems when it stays in the digestive tract where it belongs. However, when the larval stage is deposited in a wound or elsewhere on the skin, instead of being ingested by the horse, it causes a major inflammatory reaction.
       I guess it’s kind of a bummer if you’re a habronema larva…it would be like getting dropped off at the wrong house by your Uber driver. (The Uber driver in this scenario would be a house fly, face fly, or stable fly; and your pick-up location would be a steaming pile of manure.)

Habronema in Wounds

      Summer sores that develop in wounds are actually the easiest to prevent. Here’s the secret: cover them up!! For wounds on the legs, this means bandaging. For the face, it means a fly mask. For elsewhere on the body…time to get creative! Summer sores are definitely one of those places where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
     Even the tiniest break in the skin can offer an opportunity for habronema larvae to be deposited and set up shop. Be wary of summer sores anytime you are dealing with Scratches on the back of the pasterns, nicks from walking or riding through thick brush, and of course any time you have a wound big enough to require stitches.
Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic    In fact, preventing summer sores is one of the best reasons to have those borderline lacerations stitched up. The less space flies have to land, the less opportunity they have to drop a little habronema larva in there too. And believe me, flies LOVE wounds! Yummy, weeping serum, blood droplets, maybe some pus…it’s a fly dreamland! For those wounds on the lower limbs, we love Sox for Horses Silver Whinnys. They provide a good combination of skin coverage and breathability, while the silver-impregnated threads help the wound to heal.

Habronema in Eyes

    If I were a fly, the choice between landing in a weepy eye or a bleeding wound would be a real toss-up. Decisions, decisions. I guess I’d have to say the eyes have it, because horses always (well, usually) have 2 of those, whereas the wounds are more of a hit-or-miss thing.
    I guess what I’m really trying to say here is, keep a fly mask on your horse. Especially in the summer. And especially during the day. If your horse has allergies, uveitis, or otherwise tends to have runny eyes, then he probably should have a fly mask on 24/7/365. No, it doesn’t hurt to do that, as long as you are peeking under the fly mask at least once a day to make sure there are no  hidden injuries. Yes, they can see through a fly mask, even at night.
    Ocular habronemiasis, or habronema in the eye, is probably the most common location where my docs find these parasites. The larvae are deposited and then migrate into the conjunctiva, the third eyelid, or the nasolacrimal duct which runs from the inside corner of the eye to the nose.
    Once these larvae realize they are in the wrong place (i.e. not the stomach), they die. But THEN their little bodies calcify into this hard, yellow granular material, the consistency of which is not unlike concrete. Imagine several of these rock-hard dead larvae carcasses imbedded in your horse’s eyelid and I bet you can guess what comes next: a corneal ulcer.
    Now, you know from reading my blog and coming to my seminars that corneal ulcers are always an emergency, and often a bad deal because they can become infected so easily. With corneal ulcers caused by habronema, you have the added disadvantage of a jagged calcified granule rubbing up against the cornea and not allowing it to heal. So, not surprisingly, my vets will do their best to remove these dead larvae before they can cause any more damage. This involves squeezing them out like a pimple, pulling them out with tweezers, or flushing them out through the nose with saline. Spoiler alert: this is not a fun procedure for your horse. So, again, FLY MASK!

Habronema anywhere else

Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic    The tough summer sores to treat are the ones that occur somewhere that is impossible to wrap and too deep to dig out. Common locations for these include the corners of the mouth and the sheath on males. These summer sores usually need to be treated aggressively and repeatedly by a veterinarian. My docs have a special cocktail of a dewormer, a steroid, and DMSO that they will inject directly into the summer sore. This combination is aimed at killing the larvae while also treating the severe secondary inflammation associated with habronemiasis.
    In addition to local injection, my docs will also instruct you to deworm your horse with Quest. Why Quest, you ask? Because Quest contains Moxidectin. Similar to Ivermectin, the active ingredient in most dewormer, Moxidectin is the strongest drug in its class. This is probably the ONLY time you will hear me recommend Quest, as we try to reserve it for treating summer sores and not use it on deworming for internal parasites.
    The silver lining, if there is one, is that summer sores are not life-threatening, and they will heal eventually. As the name implies, summer sores are almost exclusively seen during periods of warm weather. As such, winter in itself cures most summer sores.
    So, now you know all the secrets. If you would like to pick an expert’s brain on Ocular  habronemiasis as well as all other eye things, don’t miss my next seminar, All About Eyes, on May 2nd at 6:30pm, featuring Dr. Dennis Brooks!
   Until next Tuesday,
           -Tony

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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Banamine in the Muscle

Banamine in the Muscle

Apr 15, 2019 | Banamine

Tuesdays with Tony

Over on the Faceplace this week, my humans posted a picture of a horse with what’s called Clostridial Myonecrosis (CM). It got A LOT of attention, so I felt it only right to research this syndrome further, and drop some of my amazing feline knowledge on you guys. Like anything with horses, there’s a lot of opinions surrounding clostridial myonecrosis. I’m going to stick to the facts.

 

Banamine causes this

 

We’ll call this a sort-of fact. The truth is, any shot given in the muscle can cause this to happen. The reason any intramuscular shot can cause CM is because it’s secondary to muscle damage, and any shot in the muscle causes some degree of muscle damage. It’s often a very small amount of muscle damage, but it’s still an injury. You see, when that damage happens, it sets up the perfect growth environment for a group of bacteria called Clostridia. This bacteria likes to grow where there is no air.

But how did this bacteria get there, you ask? The obvious answer: on the needle. The wrong answer: on the needle. We all carry spores of Clostridia in our muscles! It’s part of living on planet earth. These bacteria create little tiny spores that are really, really hard to kill. We (humans, cats, horses, dogs, parakeets, you name it) likely eat these spores on food. They enter our bodies through our GI tract, and then hang out in muscles waiting for the right conditions to come along.

Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic

Ever heard of gangrene?

 

That’s the less fancy, not-a-doctor, name for CM. It’s one bad dude! Gangrene had a 45% mortality rate in the American Civil War!!! By World War I, mortality was down to 10-12%. By World War 2, mortality rates were approaching 1%, and by Vietnam they had dropped even further to 0.01%. Why all this talk of war? This has been the big area for CM in humans. Those bullets, and swords, and all the other uncivilized things humans do during war, cause a ton of damage to muscles. Wars are also generally fought in less than sterile environments. What the medical community learned from these cases was the importance of air.

 

Fresh air as a cure

 

Overall, this is a family of bacteria you don’t want to mess with. The Clostridia family are also responsible for such winners as botulism and tetanus. Notice a theme? Botulism is famous for happening in improperly canned or stored canned food (no air), and tetanus happens after a deep, penetrating wound (no air). CM happens deep in the muscle where there’s no air. This is why in the pictures on the Faceplace (and below) you see big, deep cuts into the horse’s muscles. It’s all about getting air in there. The tubing you see tied in a knot is to keep the cuts open so air can continue to get deep into the muscles. Every day, sometimes even two to three times per day, doctors managing these cases look for new areas of CM. These new areas are opened up with new cuts into the tissue. I’m not going to lie: these are tough cases for the patients and the doctors. No veterinarian wants to cause an animal pain, but in these horses, it’s the only way they will survive. Antibiotics and aggressive pain control are also used to help these horses survive.

Springhill Equine veterinary Clinic

 

Ok, Ok, but how do I keep it from happening?

 

“Tony,” you say “all this is great, but how do I keep it from happening to my horse? That’s the knowledge I really want from your divine catness!” Maybe you wouldn’t add that last part, but you should. The bad news is you can’t 100% prevent CM from happening. The good news: 1) You can come pretty close, and 2) CM is pretty rare in horses. Horses get certain shots in the muscle all the time. Vaccines, for example, go in the muscle. Vaccines contain a very small amount of antibiotic to help combat CM before it can get started. Going to add yet another reason to get vaccines performed by your veterinarian: if this happens following a vaccine by a veterinarian, the vaccine company will cover the costs of treatment. Valley Vet definitely won’t do that. Other common shots given in the muscle are joint support treatments like Adequan. Again, these can cause CM, but are generally only mildly irritating to muscles which means they are way, way, way less likely to cause CM.

The very best way to prevent CM is to never, never, ever give anything in the muscle without checking with your veterinarian first. Banamine is a common culprit because it can be very irritating to muscles, but it isn’t the only one. Be 1,000% sure it’s OK to put the shot you are about to put in the muscle, in the muscle. Oh, and make sure your horse is clean before you do give that shot. I’m not saying they have to be ready for The All American Congress halter classes, but be sure your needle doesn’t have to go through a ½” of mud to get to the skin.

Those pictures are scary, even to this tough cat! However, an ounce of prevention goes a long way, and a conversation with your veterinarian about what medications your horses is getting goes even farther!

Now be a good human, and subscribe to my blog. You’ll get it a full day before anyone else. That’s right: Tony, a day early. Happy Monday!

Until next week,

~ Tony

P.S. Are you thirsting for more horse knowledge? You should browse through my previous blogs. Or, if you like listening better than reading, you should check out the podcast my docs put out. It’s up top in the menu bar, where it says ‘Podcast.” Or just click here. It will rock your world.

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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First Aid for Horses

First Aid for Horses

Apr 8, 2019 | First Aid

Tuesdays with Tony

It’s that time of the month again, it’s time for you all to come out and meet me, Tony! This month my seminar is all about ME! Well that, and first aid for your horse. Come out on Thursday at 6:30pm for a meet and greet with yours truly as well as a talk from my docs on first aid.

Whether you’ve owned horses for a long time or you are a new horse owner, you are probably well aware that horses try to find a way to hurt themselves on a daily basis. That is why it is a good idea to have a first aid kit prepared and ready to go at all times and in all situations. I have seen my fair share of horsey emergencies here and have a developed an all-inclusive list of supplies for you to make your own first aid kit.

Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic

Phone Numbers

The most important part of your first aid kit will be a card with my clinic phone number and emergency number on it. Remember, if you ever have any kind of emergency your best bet is to call me at the clinic so I can get ahold of my docs for you and they can further direct you on what to do. I am available 24/7/365 and will track down one of the doctors for you so no need to worry about that.

The Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic number is (352) 472-1620

The Springhill Equine After-hours Emergency number is (352) 474- 5007

 

NSAIDs

I know by now, you all have read my blog about bute, banamine, and previcox/equioxx. And if you haven’t yet, shame on you, you owe me extra pets on Thursday at the seminar. After you finish this blog, come back up and click on the link to read that one.

Nonetheless, having at least one type of NSAID as a part of your first aid kit is always a good idea. I personally recommend keeping a tube of bute or banamine paste on hand. I find the paste form of these medications are much easier and safer to administer than the injectable or powder forms. I am sure you humans with your opposable thumbs find administering medications orally significantly easier than I do. NSAIDs are multi-purpose and can be used in several different emergency situations. Always ask my docs for instructions before giving your horse any NSAID or other medication.

 

Bandage Material

Over the years, I’ve heard numerous stories around the clinic about how, if there is something for a horse to cut itself on, they will find it. No sharp corner goes untouched by a horse’s limb, eye, or nostril. No stray nail goes unturned by a hoof, and no wire stays nicely laying on the ground out of your horse’s way. In a lifetime of horse ownership, you will undoubtedly see a lacerated limb, an eyelid or nostril laceration, and a hoof abscess or two. Until my docs can get to you and fully assess the extent of injury, cleaning a wound with an antiseptic cleaner such as dilute iodine solution or chlorhexidine solution and applying a bandage to the wound to keep it clean and help control bleeding is never a bad idea.

Your bandage material should consist of gentle anti-biotic ointment such as silver sulfadiazine, non-stick telfa pads, combi roll or clean standing bandages, cling wrap, vet wrap, adhesive bandage such as elasticon, and of course the fix-all of all fixing things, duct tape. Baby diapers or large sanitary napkins can serve as an excellent hoof bandage for abscesses along with epsom salts or animalintex poltice. Here’s a link to a fantastic video by my docs on how to wrap a foot.

 

Equipment

One can never have too many hoof picks. When you need one, you can never find one and when you don’t need one you have five extra. Designate one to your first aid kit so you’re never without it in a time of need.

Cats have excellent eyesight, even at night. You humans, however, seem to stumble around in the dark. Since horses like to get injured at the most inconvenient times, it is likely it will be very dark when you find them. A flashlight or headlight will be an excellent addition to your first aid kit. That way you’ll be better able to assess the situation your horse has found himself in.

Latex gloves will protect you and your horse from further contamination of wounds and allow you to cleanly apply topical antibiotic ointment. Clean, sharp scissors are useful for cutting bandage material, but remember, I definitely do not recommend cutting any skin or foreign material that may be lodged or caught in your horse’s body or wounds. Leave that to the experts and call my docs! (See the section on Phone Numbers back at the beginning)

The last 2 pieces of equipment you should have in your first aid kit include a stethoscope and a thermometer. Now, you don’t have to buy one of those fancy-schmancy stethoscopes you see the docs use, a simple, inexpensive one can be purchased from Amazon. I know this because, I often place orders for catnip and cat toys on Amazon overnight when my staff forgets to turn the computers off and leaves the keyboard out for my ordering pleasure. While placing your order on Amazon, go ahead and add a quick 8 second thermometer to your cart.

The next time my docs are at your farm have them teach you to listen to your horse’s heart and take a heart rate as well as where to best listen for gastrointestinal sounds. They can also show you how to safely take your horse’s temperature. This way, if your horse is showing signs of distress or illness, you can give my docs even more information about what is going on with your horse when you call them.

 

Ointments

Along with your silver sulfadiazine ointment, there are several other ointments you should consider placing in your first aid kit. I find Vaseline or petroleum jelly useful for the tip of the thermometer to safely take your horse’s temperature. You can also mix it with cayenne pepper and place it on bandages if your horse tries to use his teeth to take his bandages off.

Eyes are always considered an emergency. Triple antibiotic ophthalmic ointment without steroids is safe to have on hand and can be used on lacerations near the eyes as well as in the eye if my docs direct you to apply it prior to their arrival.

Diaper rash cream can be applied to minor abrasions and to areas you want to keep free from moisture. It can also be mixed with silver sulfadiazine ointment to make an excellent concoction for treating and keeping wounds dry.

Finally, a wound ointment such as SWAT will help to keep flies and gnats away from wounds and provide a barrier to keep debris from entering the wound.

 

If you want to learn more about first aid and the dos and don’ts of first aid, remember to come see me this Thursday at 6:30 for free “cat-scans” by yours truly, Tony loving, pizza, and of course, giveaways! If you have a really, really good excuse and can’t come, you can always watch it live on Facebook. If you forgot to take notes and need to go back and see it again, you can find it on my YouTube channel any time after the seminar.

 

Until next time,

 

~ Tony

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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The War on Flies

The War on Flies

Apr 1, 2019 | Flies

Tuesdays with Tony

I love Florida Spring. The weather this past week has been absolute perfection for sunbathing in the middle of the driveway at the Clinic. I love seeing how many people I can get to drive around me by laying right in the middle. It’s a good time. Unfortunately this weather has been good for something else: flies. Now I enjoy a few flies around. They are so fun to chase, especially when they get inside, and I can run around, over, and through all the hard work my minions are doing. If I get papers to go flying it’s even better. A few flies is fun. A bunch of flies is awful, and since I live in a barn, flies can be a problem.

 

Luckily, I found this handy guide to flies: Full Paper. I’m going to give you the wise cat summary version here, but I highly recommend you go read the entire document! It’s full of great information about managing flies. Now is the time (in Florida anyway) to get busy managing your environment for flies. For my adoring fans in areas that are still cold, one day it will stop snowing, and this will be useful information.

 

Whatcha got there?

 

You have to start by knowing your flies. Different flies want different things in life. This means you can’t catch stable flies with the same traps you would use for house flies. Heck, you might not even have house flies. Setting out several kinds of traps, and putting them in different areas will help you see what you’ve got.

 

You can also spend some quality time watching your flies (and your horses) to help determine fly species buzzing around. For example, house flies like to hang out with their bodies parallel to a surface, while stable flies like to set their little fly butts down. Really learning what kind of flies you have, and watching to see which kind annoy your horses most will help you pick the right ways to kill the most flies possible. I love helping my minions observe flies. It is a great time to insist on chin scratches.

 

Hit ‘em where it hurts

 

We’re going to learn a lot about flies today. We’ve already learned that house and stable flies hang out in different locations. Now we’re going to learn about fly life cycles. Knowing how flies raise fly families helps you get rid of happy fly breeding grounds. Flies go through four stages: adult, eggs, larvae, and pupae. This gives you four separate life stages to go after! Adults are best targeted with traps (but remember you need the right trap for the kind of fly you have!).

 Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic

Eggs can be difficult to target, but heat is your friend here. For larvae (ie, maggots, and who doesn’t think they’re just gross), getting rid of the environment is key. Larvae can be found in damp, protected areas. At a horse farm, the absolute prime baby fly location is in those horrendous mats of hay found around hay feeders. Other great baby rearing locales are under stall mats, especially under the water buckets, and anywhere horse manure piles up. There is a cool product called sodium bisulfate (sold as Poultry Litter Treatment) you can add to stalls, or edges of manure piles. This stuff changes the pH enough to kill the larvae without changing it so much that it’s bad for the rest of us.

 

Pupae can get eaten by a cool bug called a Fly Predator! These are tiny wasps that live to eat fly pupae. They can be ordered from companies like Spalding Fly Predators (https://www.spalding-labs.com). The key to fly predators is to put them out about every two weeks in the height of the season, and start them early.

 

Control what’s left

 

Ok you’ve identified your flies, the areas they hang out, you’ve got your traps, cleaned up the wet, matted hay, and put out Fly Predators. Now what? First, you will notice you have a lot fewer flies to even worry about. You may find you have few enough that you and your horse are happy, but if not, never fear: there’s fly spray. Ever felt like no fly spray works? Here’s a few fly spray tips:

  1. None of them last for very long. Apply them right before you really, really, need them.
  2. Be sure your ENTIRE horse is covered with fly spray. Best way to do this is to wipe them down. Pro tip: a sunless tanning mousse application mitt works great for this.
  3. EcoVet. It has a funny smell, but actually works. In testing done by Dr. Machtinger (who I stole all the information in this week’s blog from), EcoVet was the only fly spray that worked.

 Remember, this is the short version of flies and horses. For even more on flies, go here: Full Paper.

 Now be a good human and subscribe to my blog. You won’t regret it, and you’ll get a super special email from me once weekly.

If you’d like to hear a podcast that my team did with Dr. Machtinger about flies, click here: Flies Podcast It’s loaded with information, and takes about a half hour to listen to. You’re welcome!

Until next week,

~Tony

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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