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New Years Resolutions and Horses

New Years Resolutions and Horses

Jan 8, 2018 | Lameness, Wellness Program

Tuesdays with Tony

 Ahh a new year, another chance to make your dreams come true! 2018 offers us each the opportunity to start fresh, to turn over a new leaf. I know you horse-crazy cats pretty well by now, and I bet I can guess some of your New Years resolutions. For some of you, it might be to make it to Pony Finals. For others, it might be to get in the money in the 2D. Some of you might even have the goal of riding your horse for the first time in several years. Whatever your competition goals this year, Springhill Equine can help you achieve them. My docs are well versed in getting your horse to where he needs to be to make your wildest dreams a reality. I need to find someone to help me with that… cats have dreams too, you know!

Resolution #1: Get my horse on a Wellness Plan

   First, let’s start with the basics. In order for your horse to get back in the game and stay there, you will need to make sure his healthcare needs are taken care of. The easiest way to do that is with one of my all-inclusive Wellness Plans. Not only do they cover all of your horse’s routine medical care like vaccines, dentals, and Coggins, but they also offer peace of mind in the form of No Emergency Fees should your horse meet with an unexpected illness or injury this year.

    Whether your goal is trail riding or racing, or somewhere in between, your horse can’t be expected to do his best if he isn’t feeling well. Each Wellness Plan comes with 2 complete physical exams each year to catch the little problems before they become a big deal. These visits are also a great opportunity to check in with one of our vets, and discuss any concerns you may have with your horse’s performance. If there is an underlying medical problem, you will certainly need to get that taken care of before you can move up to the next level in your sport. I realize that this advice would have more clout coming from someone who actually participated in sports, which I decidedly do not.

Resolution #2: Have that nagging, super-minor, only-sometimes, usually-works-out-of-it lameness checked out

  Just because a judge wouldn’t necessarily notice it in the show ring doesn’t mean it’s not there. If you feel your horse is off, even if it’s only a little hitch when he comes around that 3rd barrel and it only happens when he’s tired, you should really have one of my amazing vets look into it.
    There are a few reasons you should have a mild lameness worked up sooner rather than later. First, even a minor lameness could be a sign of a serious injury, and continuing to work your horse could make the injury worse. Second, the lameness could be an early sign of a disease that can be prevented. For example, if your horse is diagnosed with early arthritis, there are medications you could start him on now that are proven to protect his joints from further damage. Third, and most importantly, that nagging, barely-there lameness could be affecting your horse’s performance, and getting it properly treated could make the difference between first and last place at your next competition. Wouldn’t you love to know if something as simple as a shoeing change could make him feel—and thus perform—10 times better?

Resolution #3: Achieve my competition goals

   Once you have your horse’s health in order, this third step will be easy! With the help of my splendid team of vets, techs, and staff, your horse will be looking and feeling his best. I like to offer our clients the total package – from nutrition to dentistry, from farriers to trainers, rest assured someone at Springhill can point you in the right direction. Remember, a healthy horse is a happy horse, and happy horses win prizes!
    I’m afraid the only competition I have to look forward to this year is the occasional cat fight between myself and Teanie over someone’s tuna sandwich. So, I must live vicariously through all of you and your horses. Your New Years resolutions are truly important to me, and I want to see you stick to all of them!
     WishIng you and your horse the best of luck and a Happy New Year!!!!
      -Tony

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Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Office Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

The Curse Of Knowledge

The Curse Of Knowledge

Jan 1, 2018 | Colic, Dentals, Eyes, Injuries, Lacerations

Tuesdays with Tony

My humans have been worrying about the future a lot this week. The weather people say it’s going to get cold (no one seems to remember how often they’re wrong), and with cold weather comes colicky horses. That got me thinking, so this week I asked Kayla, Nancy, Beth, and MJ what they worry about more now that they’ve worked here and seen all the things horses really can do to themselves. After all, they see hundreds of horse problems every year, so they have plenty to worry about with their own horses. We call that the Curse of Knowledge. Here’s their Top 5 list.

#1 Eye ulcers

Maybe you’ve had the Docs come out and put some of that fluorescent green dye in the eye. Then they tell you to use a few ointments 4 times per day, give some Bute or Banamine, and they come back out to check it again in a few days. Lots of eyes heal perfectly well this way. The ones that don’t, however, are the ones my team worries about. My minions have all had the joy of treating ulcers in eyes. They say what makes this one Number 1 on their list is that everything can be done absolutely perfectly, and things can still go bad. These ulcers are also very expensive and extremely time consuming. Treatment very quickly goes into the thousands of dollars, and is a minimum of 4 weeks. My minions also agree eye problems are a great reason to have major medical insurance on your horse!

#2 Very specific lacerations

Last year we had a weanling come in with a very small cut over her hock. She was an extremely well-bred barrel horse. Turns out that small cut went into the hock joint. It looked like no big deal, but because of the location, it was life-threatening. That’s right: life-threatening. Wounds in joints can very easily lead to infections in joints, and infections in joints are extremely difficult to clear in horses. Luckily, with about $5,000 in treatments, my Docs were able to get this one cleared up. MJ was horrified at how small the wound was, how easy it was to overlook, and how bad it all could have ended up. She says she’ll never take a wound for granted again! We all know horses are incredibly fragile, but MJ was amazed to see it action. Also, yet another reason to have major medical insurance on these crazy horses.

#3 Colic

This one had to be on the list. However, my minions said they view colic very differently than they did before working here. All colics used to scare them. Now it’s the colics that don’t respond quickly to drugs. Then they go into full on panic. You see, most colics get some sedation and a little pain relief, a whole lot of water and electrolytes, and off they go. It’s the ones that get painful again very quickly that scare my minions. Too often those are surgical colics. Even if they aren’t surgical, they do require lots of fluids, pain meds, and care. These colics are always touch and go for a bit. And yet another reason to insure horses!

PS on this one: coastal hay is the number one cause of colics. You can feed coastal to your horse, but please, please, please also feed some alfalfa or peanut hay!!

#4 Tendon Injuries

You pick up the trot one day and something doesn’t feel quite right. You wait a day or two and try again: still not right. My Docs come out and do a lameness evaluation, put some novocaine in different parts of the leg until the lameness goes away, and then do an ultrasound. You know you should be worried when the Doc gets “that look” on her face. She tells you it’s a proximal suspensory tear. Why do my minions fear this diagnosis so much? They know it’s a minimum of 6 months of rehab work before we even know if things are going to be back to normal. They know with some of these small tendons and ligaments (like the oblique sesamoidean) that it is nearly impossible to get the horses back to normal. They also know that the best shot for healing comes with extremely diligent physical therapy work, and most people don’t do so well at that part.

#5 Lay Tooth Floaters

I saved this one for last, but it should probably be higher on the list. There are lots of people out there who will “do your horse’s teeth” for not a lot of money. You get what you pay for. Unfortunately you also often get much, much less than you pay for. My minions have seen broken teeth, missed tumors, infections caused or made worse, and, simply put, really bad floats done. Even worse, many lay floaters sedate horses which is AGAINST THE LAW. My Docs went to school for a really long time to know all the things that can go wrong when they sedate a horse. They drive around with a truck full of stuff to manage problems if things do go wrong. My Docs have the knowledge to understand how that little thing they see can be an indicator of BIG problems. I can’t be any clearer: Lay floaters are not a good answer for your horse’s health. Dentistry should be done with bright lights, sedation, a speculum, and a doctor.

Want to know how to keep your horse safe in a scary world? Communicate! My Docs and minions are here to help you. Send pictures, call, email in questions. From abscesses to zoonoses, they’ve got you covered. Now I’m headed for a long winter’s nap.

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 Tech

Horse Tech

Dec 25, 2017 | Exercise

Tuesdays with Tony

Let me begin by saying I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. It’s my favorite holiday. What more could a cat ask for than shiny things on a tree followed by empty boxes and wadded up paper? I realize you humans have lots of holidays, for lots of different things, but this one gets my vote as best.

Moving on to an actual topic: Horse Tech. Dr. Lacher has an obsession with technology. She may not have all of it she wants, but she sure researches the heck out of it. So without further idle chit-chat, I bring you a few of her favorite things.

FitBit for Horse

There are four or five companies working on slightly different versions of the fitbit for horses. Equisense, SeeHorse, Orscana, and Trackener are just a few. The main drawback they all have at the moment is they work on one part of your horse’s life. They either are designed for use during work, or while they are hanging out, but not really both. We all love our fitness trackers because they tell us about our entire day. It would be great to know you rode your horse for 3 miles, and he did another 7 in the pasture last night. For the record, there will never be a fitness tracker for cats for obvious reasons.

These trackers do have some pretty cool things that they track. They can tell you how “even” your horse moves from right to left, they can tell you how much time you spent at the walk, trot, and canter, how you did on take-off distances for jumpers, and even how your horse compares today to his “normal.” Using some of these features, they found that you humans are really bad at knowing how much work you’ve actually done on your horse. Humans underestimated the time they had spent on walk breaks by 50%. And you think cats lay around all the time!

Equilume

If you breed mares and want early babies, you know the struggle of mares under lights. You need them in the stall until 9:30 – 10pm every night, they think that’s stupid, and you wonder if the light is bright enough.

Enter Equilume. They did the work to prove that a blue light shining in one eye at a certain brightness for a certain amount of hours worked as well as being in a stall. Then they took that light and put it on a racehorse hood. Voila! Your mare can hang out in a field with her friends, with a light shining in one eye. Because that light is blue, and only on one eye, she can still see all she needs to see.

Bonus feature: just this year they found that mares wearing the hood who were due to foal early in the season had bigger, stronger, healthier babies than mares on the same farm not wearing the hood. Biggest downside of Equilume is the cost (around $500) for something that can only be used for one season. I imagine that like all tech it will improve and get cheaper as time goes on. I also know that some of you would pay a lot more than $500 to not have your mare in a stall.

Horsepal

Can’t decide how many clothes your horse wants to wear tonight? I’m going to tell you, it’s fewer than you think. I find you humans are always cold compared to those of us with a fur coat. I digress. Turns out there’s an App (and a sensor) for that. Horseware Ireland, being a manufacturer of some of the best blankets on the planet, found out that lots of people have that same question, so they made Horsepal.

This is a small sensor that fits inside your horse’s blanket and checks temperature and humidity. Using that information, the Horsepal app tells you if your horse is likely too hot, too cold, or just right. The App links weather from your area and compiles past data for your horse so over time you can figure out which clothes will be best for what weather. Downside: it can’t send that data to you from the field, but it does store three days worth of data for you to download and review. I’m also not sure how useful this is in Florida, but I do think it gets cool points for helping you humans know how your horses are feeling in the field at 2 am.

KurtSystems

I’m including this one simply because it’s just so dang amazing! Seriously, when you humans put your mind to something, it’s unbelievable what you can do. The inventors of this system were trying to come up with a way to pre-train baby thoroughbreds. They looked at the research out there and found that if you could put babies through a build-up fitness program before you put a rider on them, you had fewer career (and even life) -ending injuries. But how do you do that?

Their solution certainly isn’t cheap, but it is pretty spectacular. The KurtSystem is basically a big monorail system for horses. They use this to start training horses on a track-size area (so way bigger than a roundpen) with no weight. The horses start with slow speeds and short distances and work up over 6 months to faster speeds (still not racing fast), longer distances, and even a bit of weight (around 70 pounds). The goal is to create horses who have some level of fitness, and an understanding of how to do their job before adding a floppy human to the whole system. It seems balancing you humans is really hard work! While I’m certain this won’t be a feature in every barn, it’s cool to geek out on it and to see someone trying so hard to prevent injuries in young thoroughbreds.

What’s your horse tech dream for 2018? My tech dream is a button I push to open the door. Although, I’ll admit, it is fun to watch my staff open and close and open and close it for me. Now scroll a little further down the page, enter your email, and subscribe to my blog. It will make you a better human.

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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Eye Injuries

Eye Injuries

Dec 18, 2017 | Eyes

Tuesdays with Tony

As we get into the Christmas spirit, it seems horses can sense the strain on your wallet from all that shopping. As a cat I’m a little more conscientious about such things, of course, but horses get some sort of evil pleasure from making their owners squirm.

 Every Eye Injury is an Emergency

If you are a horse, one easy way to rack up a big vet bill in a short amount of time is by poking something in your eye. Remember that eye injuries are always an emergency, and the more time that passes before the right medication is initiated, the more expensive they can be to treat.

Corneal Ulcer

This is the most common eye injury in horses, but it can be just the tip of the iceberg. The cornea is the clear outermost layer of the eye that you see through. Puncture wounds, abrasions, and other forms of trauma can cause a break in this layer. Usually these “simple” ulcers will heal just with a few days of triple antibiotic ointment. However, any break in this protective outer layer creates the opportunity for infection. Uh-oh.

Stromal Abscess

When a corneal ulcer gets infected by any of the bacteria or fungus that exists in our lovely Florida soil, it becomes a ‘complicated’ ulcer. What often happens at this stage is the outer layer of cornea heals over, trapping the infection beneath. This is called a stromal abscess, which takes on average 8 weeks of medicating the eye 4 times a day to heal! No fun. A Stromal abscess can often be prevented by early treatment of a Corneal Ulcer. That’s why all eye injuries are an emergency! That, and….

 Iris Prolapse

Certain types of fungus that can infect corneal ulcers actually cause the cornea to ‘melt.’ The fancy medical term for this is keratomalacia, which would be great to use in a game of Scrabble! Melting corneal ulcers are the worst of the worst. If left untreated, they can cause iris prolapse, or rupture of the eye. It is every bit as gross as it sounds. Basically, the ooey gooey insides of the eye leak out through the hole in the cornea, until the iris (the part that gives the eye it’s color) blocks the hole. This requires emergency conjunctival graft surgery or enucleation (removal of the eye) to treat. This is definitely not something you want to make your horse endure due to your inaction.

An Ounce of Prevention

You can’t really protect your horse 100% from everything, because they’re a lot like cats in their ability to find a way to cause mischief. However, you can go a long way towards preventing eye injuries (injuries in general, really) by doing a few simple things. First, make sure they don’t have something sharp to scratch on. Check your stalls and fences regularly for nails and broken boards. Broken tree branches are another favorite scratching point. Also, don’t put your horses out with things like rusted-out car bodies, tractor implements, falling-down structures, and things like that. Just because your neighbor’s horse made it in that type of environment for 20 years is no guarantee that yours will.

A quality fly mask can also prevent many eye injuries. Gnats and flies are a major cause of itchy eyes, so keeping them away is a huge help. The mask itself will also keep most scratching sessions from becoming eye injuries. It’s a lot cheaper to buy a new fly mask every year than it is to treat an eye injury. Do your horse (and yourself) a favor, and cover it up!

The moral of the story

If your horse has a squinty, tearing, swollen, or otherwise weird-looking eye, don’t waste any time getting one of our amazing docs to check it out! Quick treatment can make a huge difference in whether or not your horse loses an eye, and it can also be the difference between hundreds of dollars and thousands of dollars. I’m a professional risk-taking cat, and I’m here to tell you: Don’t take risks with your horse’s eyes! There’s nothing to gain, and everything to lose.

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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Let’s Go Horse Show!

Let’s Go Horse Show!

Dec 11, 2017 | Competition Horses

Tuesdays with Tony

I hear this thing called ‘competition season’ is approaching. As a cat, I compete with no one. I am perfection, and I know it. However, I understand things are different in your world. You humans have a thing called horse shows, where you compete for who has the prettiest browband, most silver on their saddle, or most expensive outfit. No wait, that’s not true. You compete for who has the best horse! Oftentimes the most important competition, however, is the one between your current self and your past self. Can you make today’s performance better than your last one? Yep, that was a deeply profound statement from a cat. I am a keen observer of the human psyche, even if it looks like I’m sound asleep most of the time. To prepare you humans for the upcoming competition season, I have prepared Tony’s guide to getting the best performance ever.

Goals

Go find a mirror. They’re everywhere. You can even point your phone at yourself and hit the record button if needed. Now, look deep into your eyes and honestly determine your goals for the next year to 18 months. But how do I know if it’s an appropriate goal, Tony? Good question. Goals ask us to stretch ourselves out of our comfort zone. Improve upon what we’ve got now, but not go to the impossible. For example, if you and Spot are currently working on how to trot a 20 meter circle, then making the Olympic Dressage Team in the next 12-18 months is probably unrealistic. However, scoring a 65% on a training level test at a recognized show is an excellent goal. Goals must be something you can achieve, or they will annihilate your willingness to try.

I got skills!

I’ve got a goal, I’m good to go. One year from now I will have achieved my goal because I said I have a goal. Yeah, that’s not how that works. Look at your goal. For simplicity (you humans are a simple species), I’m going to stick with the dressage thing. Your goal is to score a 65%. Make a list of the skills needed to achieve a 65% at training level. What are you great at? What do you really, really need to work at? If you can nail a halt from the walk, trot, or canter, don’t spend a whole lot of time on that. If your 20 meter circle looks like something a 2-year-old drew with their eyes closed, you should spend lots and lots of time working on geometry! Making a list of what you rock, what you are OK at, and what you really, really need to work on will help you see how best to achieve your goal.

Get Help

I mean this in every sense of the word. If you are reading this, chances are you’re a crazy horse person. This means you should probably get some counseling. If you are still reading this, you have now identified some skills you need to improve. Get help to improve them. Go to a clinic, find a trainer, seek out a friend who’s riding skills you admire. Chances are good you aren’t the only one who has trouble with that skill. In our dressage example, riding round circles is really hard. Talk to your trainer (or friend) about where your difficulties lie. Tell a clinician you seem to prefer abstract circles to the round variety, and ask if they have any help for this issue. Keep your eye on that goal. Don’t get distracted and work on your already amazing halts over and over and over again. Work on the things that are holding you back. Practice what you’re bad at.

Keep the Pressure On

When I tell you this next step, I want you to remember this blog is free. That’s right, I give you all this amazing cat wisdom for free. This may be the most important step: Find someone who will hold you accountable. It can be a horse friend, a trainer, a Facebook friend, (probably not your spouse) anyone that will listen to your progress from the previous 10-14 days, your outline for the next 10-14 days, and not cut you any slack on excuses for not achieving. This person will help you ride when it’s dark, cold, and/or raining outside. This person will push you to do more that you ever thought you could. And the best part? You can do the same for them!

No excuses, humans! The weather is great for riding. We have access to amazing talent in Florida for the winter in pretty much every discipline you can do with a horse! The only thing holding you back is you.

Until next week,

~Tony

P.S. Don’t want to worry about keeping your horse healthy while you two are achieving these amazing things? Sign up for a Wellness Plan now! Save money, have a happy horse, enjoy more time. Click here before our limited slots are gone.

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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Poisonous Plants

Poisonous Plants

Dec 4, 2017 | Poisonous Plants

Tuesdays with Tony

Poisonous Plants

Plants are delicious. Who doesn’t love to chow down on a plant the humans have carefully placed for decorative purposes? I know I do. I have learned, however, that not all plants are safe for eating. This rule applies to cats, dogs, and horses.  This week I’m going to educate you humans on the top 5 poisonous plants in the horse world.

Quick dog and cat tip before I begin: Easter lilies are deadly to cats in very, very small amounts, and Coonti palms work the same way for dogs.

Red Maple

While beautiful, Red Maple trees are very, very bad for horses. Eating as little as 2 pounds of Red Maple leaves will cause toxicity in horses. Like many plants, wilted leaves contain the most toxin. The toxin, gallic acid, causes the body to attack and kill the red blood cells. This makes the blood unable to carry oxygen. Horses are affected within about 24 hours of eating. They become extremely depressed, and may even have blue mucous membranes. They will also urinate red or dark brown urine. There aren’t great treatment options for this toxin. The Docs give them lots, and lots, and I mean lots, of IV fluids. If they make it 36 hours, it’s very likely they will recover.

Since poisonous plants pretty much all look alike to me, I have included a pictures of these various plants.

Creeping Indigo

This is one horrible poisonous plant, and ‘Creeping’ is the key word. It creeps along very close to the ground, making it really hard to find. Creeping Indigo also spreads by long, hard-to-pull roots and seeds making it difficult to fully kill in one round. This plant makes you go to full-on war.  Horses need to eat around 10 pounds of creeping indigo daily for about 14 days to develop signs. That seems like a lot, but some horses develop a taste for this weed and seek it out! The toxins are 3-nitropropionic acid (3-NPA) and indospicine. These toxins attack the nervous system in many weird ways. That means the symptoms of Creeping Indigo toxicity are difficult at best to figure out. They can vary from runny, squinting eyes, sleepiness, nystagmus (this is the fancy term for eyes wiggling back and forth), gait abnormalities, and mild colic-type signs. Yep, a wide variety. To add to the joy that is Creeping Indigo, there are no lab tests to identify the toxin, and no real way to know if it’s the cause of the problem. Special tests on tissue taken after an animal has passed away can identify the toxin.

Here’s a picture of Creeping Indigo to help you identify it, with chapstick container for size reference. It will die if you spray it with Grazon, or other similar products, but you MUST pull up the dead plants since the seeds are still viable! The ways to hate Creeping Indigo are many.

Crotalaria

Crotalaria is commonly known as rattlepods or rattlebox, due to the sound of the seeds rattling in their pods. This one suckers you in with pretty flowers, then BAM! Your liver gets annihilated. This plant really starts growing in late summer. It like damp places, such as the area around the water buckets or troughs in your pasture.

It has big broad leaves with a spike of small yellow flowers, and commonly grows to 4′ in height. Luckily, crotalaria tastes very bitter, so unless animals are starving, they usually won’t eat it. Interestingly, some less-toxic strains of this plant are consumed by humans in various places around the world. It just proves my point that some people will eat anything.

This one will happily die with pretty much any plant killer, but it does like to come back every Fall.   

Oleander

This plant often gets planted as a decorative hedge. Horses think decorative hedges have been placed for snacking purposes. One mouthful of this hedge is enough to cause problems! In humans, a very small amount is enough to kill. The toxins in oleander are powerful cardiac poisons like digitoxigenin, and oleandrin. They target the heart muscle and cause it to die. Horses that eat oleander can show signs from poor performance to extreme lethargy depending on how much they ate. All I have to say about this one is don’t plant it in first place. If you do have oleander, be very, very careful removing it. All it takes is some sap in a small skin wound to cause problems with human hearts! 

Nightshade

Last of the horrible Top 5 poisonous plants is nightshade. This fun little guy loves to grow along fence lines. Long ago, crazy humans used the plant to dilate their eyes since they thought it looked good. The main toxin in nightshade is atropine. My Docs use it as a drug in its purified form. If your horse eats nightshade they will experience fun things like diarrhea, nervousness, irregular heartbeat, and extreme sensitivity to light. Luckily this guy also doesn’t taste very good. Keeping plenty of hay in front of your horses is a great way to keep them from checking out nightshade to see if it’s tasty. Most of the time this one can be treated with time. The easiest way to get rid of it is to check your fence lines regularly and simply pull them up. 

Poisonous plants are no joking matter. The best way to know what you’ve got? Call your County Extension Service and have them come walk your property. County Extension Agents are full of all kinds of useful knowledge about plants and grass. Best of all, they are part of your tax dollars at work!

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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Fencing

Fencing

Nov 27, 2017 | Fencing

Tuesdays with Tony

The docs have seen a lot of fencing-related injuries recently, so I have been tasked with educating you humans about the best way to keep your horses safely where you want them. Cats, as a rule, don’t exactly have boundaries, so I’m not sure I’m the best one to school you on this topic. However, I do know which type of horse fencing causes the most injuries that I see here in the clinic, and I overhear a lot of chit-chat regarding the do’s and dont’s of containing your equine companions. Here are the top 3 factors I would consider when choosing fencing for an accident-prone horse (which, as we know, is all of them).

 

horse fencingSafety

   We all know that horses are constantly looking for new and creative ways to injure themselves, and often they use their immediate enclosure as a means to achieve this end. But, with a little foresight, you can interfere with their self-destructive plan. My two favorite vets agree that barbed wire is not acceptable fence material for horses. Horses do not equal cows; their skin is not as thick, and their fight-or-flight instinct is much stronger. If a horse finds himself tangled in wire, he will immediately struggle and pull until he frees himself, even if that means leaving most of the skin from his legs behind. A cow, on the other hand, would probably just sit there and chew his cud until someone came out to feed the next morning.

 

That being said, plain wire is the number one source of fencing-related injuries I see here at the clinic. While it may seem harmless, it is difficult for horses to see (especially when running, in the dark, away from one of those invisible monsters). Wire fencing also tends to coil when broken (or when sitting in a pile prior to installation). Horses find these coils of wire particularly enticing as holes in which to place their limbs. “Goat wire” fencing is fine, but keep in mind that small rectangles are preferable over hoof-sized squares. Tip: Horses don’t like electricity! An electric wire around the top of your fencing will make almost any fence a safer fence.

Height

   The height of your fencing should be determined by the animals you are attempting to contain. For example, if you have a Warmblood stallion who has a career as a jumper, you probably want at least 5’ electric fence on all sides. However, if you are planning on confining curious foals or adventurous minis, you may opt for wooden planks that start just a few inches off the ground. In addition to the size of your equid, you must also consider his temperament. Is your horse one to stick his leg or head through a gate made from a round pen panel, or is he smarter than that? I know I am, but we have previously established that cats are the superior species.

Practicality

You are probably thinking, “that’s all fine and good, oh wise Tony The Magnificent, but I can’t afford miles of immaculate fencing like you see lining the roads of Lexington.” That’s OK! Good, safe fencing doesn’t have to be super-expensive, and it doesn’t have to be pretty. Instead of a 4-board wooden fence, consider wooden posts with goat wire between. If you want your fencing to hold up longer, try installing a strip of electric tape along the top to deter your horses from stretching over the top to graze, pick leaves from the trees, or scratch their necks. If you choose electric fencing, consider the solar powered version (with electric back-up) to save on your electric bill each month.

 
 I know you are all going to go right home and fix your fencing now. But just in case you have one of those horses who finds ways to hurt himself despite your best efforts at accident prevention, remember that Springhill Equine is available 24/7 for your emergencies! Any day, any time, including weekends and holidays, you will reach a real live vet on-call through our emergency hotline: (352) 474-5007. Not that you will need it now, all thanks to me!
     -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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Do you REALLY want to buy a horse?

Do you REALLY want to buy a horse?

Nov 20, 2017 | Buying and Selling

Tuesdays with Tony

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas horse shopping season. Three words: DON’T DO IT! Read on for wise words of wisdom from this cat before you buy a horse at Christmas time.

Know the cost

Just like there are no free lunches, there are definitely no free horses. The purchase price is a very, very small part of the cost of horse ownership. Horses require a place to live. Board for a horse can range from $250 to, well let’s be honest, the sky is really the limit here, but let’s pick $800 as our high number. The low number likely doesn’t include grain or hay, so add another $50-$80 per week for grain and hay. This is like your monthly horse mortgage payment. It gives them a place to live, but not much more. Plan on adding on the farrier every 4-6 weeks, and routine veterinary care (our Wellness Plans make this part easy). If you’re as smart as a cat you’ll also add on either an insurance payment or a payment to an emergency fund. Should I mention tack? Fly masks? Sheets and blankets? Water buckets? Go wander around the Tack Shack and make a shopping list, and get an idea of what you’re looking at there.

Put in the time

Horses require a lot of money and a lot of time. If you want to get good at horses, plan on spending a minimum of 15-20 hours per week doing horse stuff. I can hear it now, “It would be heaven to spend 20 hours every week riding!” Listen to the cat: I didn’t say riding. I said doing horse stuff.  They require brushing, cleaning up after, handling on the ground, and all kinds of not-riding type of time.  In fact, the more time you spend with them not riding, the better your riding time will be. Speaking of riding time, plan to spend some money on lessons.  Based on my observations of humans, you guys don’t come equipped with horse sense. You’re going to need to learn that from a trainer, and lessons cost money.

We’ll sell him and make money

There are definitely people who make lots of money in the horse world. Here’s how that works:

  1. They started with a large fortune and now have a small one, thanks to horses.
  2. They have the knowledge to buy young, untrained horses and put their time and training into them to make them worth more.
  3. They have a leprechaun and a four leaf clover hidden somewhere giving them unprecedented luck. For every one that makes money, there are a hundred that lose money.

But I really want a horse

If you have read this and still really want a horse, keep reading. Some human once said, “The outside of a horse is good for the inside of a human.” It’s true. I watch it happen at Springhill Equine every day. They calm you crazy humans. They teach you patience, and confidence, and empathy, and all kinds of wonderful things. So here’s a few steps you can take to be sure you really, really want a horse:

  • Take lessons. If you can commit to once-weekly lessons, and are still hungry for more after six months, you might be ready for a horse.
  • Volunteer somewhere taking care of horses. In our area we have HOPE, The Retirement Home for Horses, and HPAF who will happily let you come groom horses and get a feel for being around them.
  • Lease a horse. This is a short term commitment to horse ownership. You get to have a horse for a while to try it out.

Do you really want to buy a horse?Before you buy

If after all this you are ready to buy a horse, don’t skip my final, most important piece of advice: Never, never, never, ever buy a horse without a pre-purchase exam from one of my veterinarians. My Docs will go over your potential horse with a fine tooth comb to be sure there are no health complications you may not have noticed. These can range from eye sight issues, to heart problems, to subtle lamenesses. Pre-purchase exams can save you a lot of headaches!

Every horse-crazy kid has wanted a pony for Christmas. I’m not saying don’t buy a horse. Okay, I am, but if you are going to get a pony, at least be smart about it! That’s the wisdom of Tony for this week. Now go enjoy a long Thanksgiving weekend with your horses!

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Office Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. 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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Lameness: Video Diagnosing and Rehab

Lameness: Video Diagnosing and Rehab

Nov 13, 2017 | FES, Lameness

Tuesdays with Tony

This ‘riding of horses’ thing amazes me. First, that they let you humans do it. Second, how much devotion you humans have to it. I wish my minions had that level of devotion to scratching my chin just right all day long. That would make me a happy cat. Where am I going with this ‘level of devotion’ thing? I helped analyze videos this week. You may have an idea about what this means. I thought popcorn and soda, but in reality it’s the analysis of every footfall, every wiggle, every head movement, and even what the human is doing while a horse is doing what it does. In the end, the rider had very concrete exercises to deal with the issues this horse was having.

Lameness

It started with a “left shift when jumping” problem. The rider came to my Docs because her horse was shifting hard to the left. She wanted to eliminate a pain or physical problem. Always a wise idea. Unlike cats, most of the time horses want to do what you humans are asking. If they aren’t doing it, eliminating a painful cause is a good idea! A very thorough lameness exam ensued. Despite flexions, circles, backing, head up, head down, over the hill, and going through the wood, no lameness could be created. Now, there are lots of lamenesses that can’t be recreated on the ground, so the Docs had the rider get on and ride. You won’t believe what they noticed under saddle!  Ah, I crack myself up. I was on Facebook reading clickbait articles until the wee hours of the morning with Teanie last night.

Anyway, under saddle the Docs saw this horse pushed his right hind to the inside. They called it “tripoding.” I’m pretty sure they made that term up, but you get the idea. Next they had the horse jump over small jumps coming towards them, going away from them, and finally from the side. They recorded all of these angles on video. Then they spent a whole lot of time watching these videos over, and over, and over. I finally went to sleep. A cat can only watch a horse repeatedly take off and land over the same exact jump so many times. The result was a list of things this horse was doing that caused him to shift left. For instance, he always pushed off with his left leg, and he would do just about anything to make that happen. At the same time he pushed off with his left leg, he dove right with his shoulders, and his right stifle bowed out.

FES Tuesdays with TonyRehab

Now we have something to work on! What does that work look like? Incredibly detailed and somewhat tedious. Work a cat would not be good at. For this horse, it started with an FES session. That’s Functional Electrical Stimulation. This therapy is like pilates for horses. It stretches muscles and gets things moving. This guy was very tight in his neck and hip area! He’ll get a session a week for 5 to 6 weeks to help the rehab work go farther, faster. That rehab work is going to be in hand and under saddle work to help him strengthen the stifle so it can stay strong on that right side, and work to help him “lock in” to a straight line. Right now he rides like a wet noodle!

Not getting the performance you want? Talk to my Docs. They’ll have you clocking 1D times, jumping higher, or collecting better in no time! Until next week….

Tony

P.S. I have a special request: As my adoring fans, I need you to subscribe to my blog. It’s getting harder and harder to get it to you through Facebook, and if you subscribe, it will come right to your email. Just look over on the right side of the screen, or if you are on your phone, scroll down to the bottom. As a reward, I will take a selfie with you at my next seminar!

 

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Office Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. 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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Winter Colic

Winter Colic

Nov 7, 2017 | Colic

Tuesdays with Tony

First off, before I talk about colic and cold weather, I’d like to thank everyone who shared their BBQ with me at my Open House on Saturday. I had a great time, and I appreciate all the scratches and compliments! Apparently my minions had a good time with you too, but I mostly stayed in the food area, so I don’t know what they had going on at their stations. Anyway, on to my topic for this week:

Winter Colics

Not sure if anyone else has noticed, but it’s been a wee bit nippy outside the past few weeks. I know I have been puffed up like a black ball of fluff during my morning rounds outside the clinic! Your horses may be fluffed up too, or you may have dug their winter blankets out of the attic. One thing you can be certain of is that with cold snaps come winter colic events! So, what can you do to prevent your horse from falling victim?

Water

We don’t always know what causes horses to colic, but we know that dehydration often plays a role. Ever notice how it’s tougher to get in your recommended 8 glasses of water a day when it’s cold out? Well, horses are the same way. Temperatures drop, and so does their water intake. Providing easy access to clean water at all times is the single most important thing you can do to prevent colic. Luckily I have an automatic waterer at the clinic that my minions refill daily to keep myself and Teanie well-hydrated.

Food with water

One easy way to get more fluids into your horse during colder weather is to soak their grain in water. You can also add other soaked things to their diet, like soaked beet pulp, soaked alfalfa cubes, or soaked hay pellets. If they don’t mind the soupy texture, you can feed this year-round, but it is especially encouraged during the winter months. Personally, I prefer wet food over dry, but Teanie likes the crunch of the dry more than canned. We try to make it as complicated as possible for the humans who provide our food.

Salt (so they drink more water)

You know how every time you eat Chinese take-out, you seem unable to quench your thirst the next day? That’s because of the high sodium content of the food. Along these lines, if you add a tablespoon of salt (yes, plain old salt like you have sitting on your table) to your horse’s feed, it can really encourage water intake during a cold snap. Horses tend to like some salty seasoning to their meals, and typically won’t turn down their grain due to the added salt. You can also use an over-the-counter electrolyte powder if you are feeling fancy. Speaking of fancy, I hear a can of Fancy Feast calling my name. If you want to know more about winter colic, there are some pretty awesome vets and technicians here at the clinic who would be happy to answer your questions.

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Until next time: Stay warm!

-Tony

Colic horse

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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