Nov 15, 2016 | Cold weather, Colic, Hay
Quick PSA about the Meet Tony Event this weekend: Exercise for Equestrians. You’ve got limited free time; learn how to make the time you do have to exercise count for all that it can! Come dressed to workout and Kevan will help you work on technique. No, he will not be making anyone perform 50 Burpees or anything of that sort. I will, likely, be lying in the aisle watching the goings on since I do NOT exercise.
Anywho, on to my life, which is really what’s important here. Colic. As far as I can tell, it’s what horses do when they are bored and seeking proof that their human is well trained to do their bidding. My Docs, however, tell me it is largely due to the rather ridiculous system horses evolved to digest their food, combined with the rather ridiculous system humans have developed to house and feed said horses. Also, cold weather.
We all know that horses have a crazy GI tract, and we can’t fix that. What we can fix is what you humans do to that GI tract. Start with feeding good stuff. Need help figuring that part out? Contact Beth at the Clinic. She’s an expert. She even has a certificate that says so from a leading feed manufacturer! Between that certificate and over a decade in the feed industry, Beth has answers to your feed questions. Beth tells me forage should form the foundation of the diet. She tells me horses must eat more than the mouthful or so of grass that I eat and then puke up in some inappropriate place. They need to eat 1.5-2% of their body weight in hay every day! From there, supplement the gaps with as little concentrate as possible. Again, Beth is our go to when it comes to nutrition. Got questions? She’s got answers!
Moving on to the most common reason the Docs get called out this time of year: round bales of coastal hay. The weather gets cool, the grass stops growing, and you humans remember that 1.5-2% body weight forage thing and put out a round bale. Horses, being less intelligent than cats, get so excited about the hay, they gorge themselves to oblivion and get an ileal impaction. How do you make sure this doesn’t happen? Start with square bales. Throw out 1 flake twice daily, then 2 flakes twice daily, and keep increasing the quantity until your horse is leaving some of the hay. THEN you can put out the round bale. Also add some peanut or alfalfa hay. I realize most of our horses suffer from too many calories so alfalfa/peanut seems like a bad addition, but luckily adding 3-5 pounds of these hays per day can keep the GI tract moving in the right direction. Other strategies than can help reduce the risk of coastal hay impactions are the addition of very wet, soaked beet pulp or alfalfa cubes (the minis work best) to the diet, and adding salt on very cold nights.
Trust me, my Docs don’t want to see you for a colic any more than you want to see them. Let’s all do our part to keep those horses pooping as they were meant to be pooping!
-Tony
Oct 4, 2016 | Allergies, Coughing, Hay
Yes we all know I’m not the most athletic critter on the planet. But heck I’m management; I don’t have to exert myself too often. When I do decide to chase off after a squirrel, I find I need to take a moment to catch my breath. After a brief respite in the sun, I am ready to chase that pesky squirrel again. It doesn’t work that way for some cats, horses, or people. Yep, I finally found something us cats have in common with horses (and people but I’m trying to ignore that part). We all get asthma and we all get it because of allergies.
Walk in the barn at feed time and listen for a cough. Horses with asthma will nearly always cough when they are eating grain, especially if it’s dry. Even the smallest amount of dust triggers their over reactive airways making them cough a dry, hacking cough. Cats experience a similar cough when they have asthma. Also there is no hairball after the cough. Another clue it’s asthma in cats anyway. I’ve never seen a horse cough up a hairball. Anyway back to asthma. Other clues your horse may have asthma are sudden poor performance for no good reason and really fast breathing after exercise that takes forever to slow down. Some horses will get so bad you can hear them wheeze when breathing without a stethoscope. On other horses you need a stethoscope to hear wheezes and crackles. Our Docs are happy to show you how to listen for lung sounds. I have never heard these sounds, since they don’t make cat stethoscopes but I have a request in to the manufacturer. How am I supposed to do a proper Cat Scan without a stethoscope?
What are we going to do about the asthma? Well I’m not going to do anything because that’s what I do. My Docs are going to treat the allergies that lead to asthma. Asthma happens when the tubes the air goes through in the lungs gets clogged with mucous. The lungs release the mucous to try to get rid of pollen and dust. So the Docs try to reduce the mucous produced in response to pollen and dust, decrease the amount of pollen/dust in the environment, and help that mucous get out. The easiest, most economical, and most effective treatment is dexamethasone. This is a steroid which is given by mouth. Dexamethasone tells the immune system to quit worrying about the dust and pollen. Unfortunately, dexamethasone can have some nasty side effects when used at high doses for a long time so we have to be careful. Other steroids can be inhaled. This minimizes side effects but can be very expensive. There are a couple treatment options to help get the mucous out, such as Ventipulmin. Our Docs usually use these early in the treatment process then slowly taper them.
Management changes are really important for horses with asthma. The only way to change the pollen is to move far away but dust is a different story. Remember how I said that coughing happens around feed time? Wetting down feed and, more importantly, soaking hay reduces this source of dust. In fact some humans did a study about hay and found a 25% reduction in symptoms just be removing dry hay from these horses diets! Bedding is another important source of dust. Using the pelleted type bedding reduces mold and frequent wetting down decreases dust. The effects of pollen can be minimized by keeping your horse in the barn with a fan on them. Sure it doesn’t work great but it’s about the only option we have here in Florida short of moving to Arizona.
Since asthma is an allergy problem identifying what your horse is allergic to is very important. Our Docs do this skin thing that helps figure out what is causing the worst response. They call it allergy testing. A small amount of a potential allergen is injected under the skin. The Docs come back in a few hours and see if there is any swelling around the allergen. Based on what causes the most swelling, they make a super special shot to help the horse learn to tolerate those things. It’s pretty cool.
Our Docs are seeing lots of horses with asthma right now. If your horse suddenly isn’t right, give them a call and see if asthma is the problem. And put our 8th Annual Open House and See Tony Event on your calendar for October 22nd. Food, fun, prizes, learning, and you get to see me in cat!
Mar 30, 2016 | Ailments, Colic, Hay, Uncategorized
March is almost over, and you've all heard the saying, "In like a lion, out like a lamb." Personally I prefer lions because they are really just big, less cuddly cats. Anyway, all this weather fluctuation has made for a bunch of colics!
In horses, colic is just a general term for signs of GI pain. Colic may be due to an impaction, a twist (the fancy doctor word for this is volvulus), gas, stomach ulcers, or inflammation (doctor word enteritis). Colic may even be due to something non-GI like a urinary obstruction, although that is more of a cat thing. Luckily I haven't had the pleasure of experiencing one yet.
About 90% of the colics we see are termed "mild colics." Less than 10% of colics are severe or "surgical colics," so named because they would require surgery to correct. So what makes a colic a mild or severe one?
In many cases, the answer is time. Most colics, when treated early with pain medication, laxatives, and electrolytes, will improve. There are some cases where a really big impaction will require rehydration with IV fluids to get it to pass.
When a mild colic is left untreated, it has the potential to become a bad colic. In the case of gas colics, the gas-filled intestine can float to the top and cause the large colon to twist. An impaction due to long-term dehydration can get worse and worse until it would need to be cut into and flushed out with a hose to get rid of it (yes, that is literally what they do during colic surgery).
Unfortunately, some horses are very stoic and don't tell you their belly hurts until it hurts really, really bad! Also, some people have jobs and can't stay home watching their horses all day to see if they colic. So if your horse colics at 8am and you don't get home until 5:30pm, it might already be a bad colic.
There is also something fat horses can get called a lipoma, basically a fatty tumor, that wraps itself around the small intestine and cuts off the blood supply. Nobody can do anything about that without surgery. Just one more reason I chose not to be a horse!
Luckily our docs are well trained to tell whether your horse has a mild colic or a bad colic, and they will know what to do either way! So the next time your horse has a bit of a bellyache, give us a call. The sooner the better! Odds are in your favor that it will be mild, but I wouldn't want to take my chances. Maybe that ball of yarn doesn't look so tasty after all...I'll just continue my nap.
Until next week, may the odds be ever in your favor!
-Tony
Mar 1, 2016 | Feed, Hay, Weight loss/gain
First a little business: Our latest #SpringhillEquine winner is June Begelman! Also, I had better see everyone next Thursday March 10th at 6:30pm for the Skin Funk Seminar. And now on to our main topic.
This past week has been sufficiently busy for my amusement. Dr. Lacher did a few dentals, ultrasounds for breeding, and a lameness exam. Dr. Vurgason took X-rays of a mini with a fractured face, and castrated another one of those cute (but loud) piglets. As I observe the horses that trail through the clinic, I have noticed a trend toward the slim, tucked-up, ribby look this season. Perhaps you too have noticed that your horse shed a few too many pounds this winter?
There are a few possible reasons for this phenomenon, but let’s rule out the easy ones first:
Has your horse had his teeth floated recently (at least within the last 12 months)? If not, he may not be properly chewing his feed for optimal nutrient absorption. Chewing is an important part of digestion, especially for animals who have to break down coarse feedstuffs like hay and oats. I much prefer bite-size pieces of tuna-flavored kibbles.
Has your horse been recently dewormed? In humans it is true that tapeworms living in the gut can eat the food intended for their host, and grow super long (disgusting!) In contrast, the internal parasites of horses cause weight loss by damaging the large intestine, which is where a lot of nutrient absorption normally occurs. Some parasites migrate through the blood vessels of the large colon, others encyst in the lining of the intestines. Either way, being “wormy” is definitely a reason why your horse could be losing weight. Maybe I should swallow a tapeworm to lose the rest of this holiday weight I’ve been holding onto…
Far and away the most common reason I see for skinny horses is something I like to call “a-groceri-osis,” or a lack of feed. So many horse owners are shocked when they hear how much grain our docs recommend for an underweight horse. I’m not talking about increasing your horse from 1 cup to two cups of Omelene 100. I’m talking 12 lbs (that’s two full coffee cans twice a day) of Triple Crown Senior. In my glory days, I could fit my whole body into a standard equine feed scoop.
For many of us, weight loss is difficult. But apparently for some creatures, weight gain proves more of a challenge. Keep in mind that you should always start with forage. Grass and hay should be the mainstay of any horse’s diet. As a carnivore, it’s hard for me to get on board with the green and leafy stuff, but they seem to like it. Next, it may be in your best financial interest to evaluate the type of grain you are feeding. Higher calorie does not necessarily mean higher cost. If you have a skinny horse, you will get more bang for your buck by switching to a Senior feed than feeding more of a Maintenance feed. My cat food is very expensive, but I’m worth it.
That being said, if your horse has had a dental, you have recently dewormed him, you believe you are feeding him enough to sustain an elephant, and he is still skinny, please have Dr. Lacher or Dr. Vurgason out to take a look! There are several other underlying medical issues that can cause weight loss in a horse; this is just what I’ve learned over the years from eavesdropping on the docs. Until next week, my friends!
Feb 13, 2016 | Cold weather, Colic, Hay
Main Topic:
It’s almost hay season around here. Sure the weather is still warm but with the daylight decreasing our grass will slow down on growth over the next few weeks. This means our horses will need more hay. There’s good news and bad news on the hay front.
Good news: We have had more than enough rain this summer which means many pastures have done very well growing grass. You will be able to get by longer without hay as your horse grazes down what they have. This isn’t true for all situations, but check your pastures for actual grass and monitor how they are doing weekly. If you notice your horse starting to pull up grass by the roots, bare patches in your field, or weight loss in your horse it may be time to add more hay. Not sure what the right answer is for your horse? Have one of our amazing technicians: Beth, Charly, or Nancy come out and assess your pastures and feed program.
Bad news: We have had more than enough rain this summer which means farmers had to race against storms to try to get hay put up. Check with your regular hay supplier early to see what availability they have. Local hays may be difficult to get. Luckily farmers are farmers and they watch the weather more closely than Dr. Lacher (which is saying something since she has been known to check the radar every 5 minutes). So while hay may be a bit tougher to find most of them should be able to take care of their regular customers.
Coastal hay has a bad reputation when it comes to colic. Some of that is earned. Horses on lots of coastal and nothing else will often colic. Horses suddenly put on a round bale of coastal will colic (especially if this happens after 6pm on a weeknight or anytime on a weekend). Luckily there are easy ways to minimize your coastal hay colic risk.
Most important: gradually increase your horse’s hay. If your horse isn’t normally on hay during the summer now is the time to gradually start them on hay. Begin with 3-4 pounds of hay per day. Increase by about 1 pound weekly until your horse is leaving some hay behind. Once they are leaving hay you may put out a round roll of hay if that’s your feeding preference. Once your horse is on 8 pounds of coastal hay daily you should add in about 2 pounds of alfalfa or peanut hay daily. Alfalfa and peanut hays draw water in to the intestinal tract helping reduce the risk of colic.
Don’t feed coastal? We’ve got a plan for that too. Northern Grass and grass/alfalfa mix hays are excellent choices for many horses. Timothy, Orchard, and Brome hays are the most common grasses. You don’t have to worry about colics due to hay with these types of hays and they provide more nutrition than coastal hay. But they provide more nutrition than coastal hay and sometimes that’s too many calories. For the easy keeper or Insulin Resistant horse we don’t recommend more than 2-3 pounds of these hays per day added to a base of a coastal.
Want to get the most out of your hay dollar? Consider some type of feeding system. Slow feed hay nets come in sizes from a flake or two to an entire round roll. Hay nets have numerous benefits including slowing your horse down which makes your hay last longer, decreasing the calories they consume from hay, keeping them eating small amounts for longer, keeping their feet, manure, and urine out of the hay, and keeping them from stuffing their nose in the bale which often causes problems with allergies. We haven’t found a reason not to use these hay nets yet. One of our technicians, Nancy, began using them on her coastal round bale and got an addition 10 days out of the roll and her two older horses were able to stop taking medication for their heaves since they couldn’t stick their noses into the bale. If hay nets aren’t your thing check out YouTube for about a million different slow feed hay DIY options. Check out this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7Ws8–3IOU for starters.
We are here to help you design the perfect nutritional system for your horse, your life, and your farm. Gives us call, e-mail, or text!
Erica’s Corner
For starters, I went and got married. It was a great day with everyone in costume, amazing cake (very important with my sweet tooth), and fantastic pizza from Villagios (also important). In typical Dr. Lacher fashion I did things a little weird. We took a bit of a honeymoon pre-wedding since Dr. Vurgason is expecting her first child any moment now. I asked Baby Vurgason to wait until after the wedding to appear but now we are ready and she can come any time!
I don’t know about you guys but I am officially ready for Fall! I love Summer but like all things we love too much is not a good thing. My horses are all hairy and need clipped but doing that while sweating is just no fun!
With the time change we are now relegated to riding in the very tiny area where I have some light. This always involves spooking at the imaginary dragons that live just outside the lit area. Good times!!! At least there is Pumpkin Spice everything to make it all better.
Tech Spot:
In this month’s Tech Corner, I’d like to talk about what tending to Coby’s wounds has taught us. Coby is the horse who fell through the floor of the horse trailer approximately 3 months ago. The bones were exposed on both hind legs and one tendon was torn.
The first thing we all learned is the importance of working with dedicated owners who are willing to devote the time and effort necessary for the patient to make a full recovery. This includes following the directions and time line set forth by your vet which is best determined by IMMEDIATE consultation with your vet. Coby’s owners did an excellent job! The second thing we learned is that good old well water does amazing things! Lots and lots of “shower effect” hosing of the wounds clean them quite nicely and helps reduce swelling and discomfort. We were able to experiment with amnion, provided by another client, and discovered that it does not attach to bone but loves granulation tissue. We also used a dressing called Cica care, which accelerated the healing process dramatically.
The bottom line is, if you’re going to have horses who are allowed to be out and act like horses, you are going to have wounds. Coby had severe wounds which had all of us holding our breath but with diligence, the right materials and guidance, MOST wounds that we see can heal nicely.
Events of the Month:
Springhill Equine has had a very busy October…..hence the reason the Naughty Pony News Letter from October is late.
So if you have not already heard, the Open House on the 20th was a huge success! Thank you to all the Vendors and Contributors who helped to make it a great one! Thank you for all the participation from our clients!!
October 24th Dr Lacher and Justin Long shared a very special day with all of us! Congratulations and well wishes for a lifelong happiness together! It was a very unique event with all the costumes appropriate for Halloween right around the corner.
Dr Vurgason is impatiently waiting the arrival of her new baby girl. So she has been on maternity leave for a couple of weeks now. We will post some pictures of mom and baby when she arrives.
Upcoming Events:
November 17th @ 6:30pm
Hay Seminar
Please join us at our clinic 22837 NE 22nd Ave Newberry, Fl
Wellness 2016 Enrollment is HERE! You should have received the paperwork in the mail! If you did not. please call our office.
Nov 17, 2015 | Feed, Hay
Tuesday’s With Tony – Hay Seminar
I have decided a contest is in order. I have also decided this hashtag thing is here to stay. Furthermore, I have scheduled an opportunity for my adoring fans to come see me and learn about hay this evening at 6:30 pm at the Clinic. Put all that together and you come up with: Put a post on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter with #SpringhillEquine and you at our Hay Seminar. On Wednesday I will choose one lucky hashtagger to win an awesome prize package. So attend the Hay Seminar, #SpringhillEquine while you are here, bribe the cat to pick you, and win an awesome prize. The most important part is the cat bribery. I am very picky. I like meat, preferably tuna or turkey.
In other fun around here we just started with a new online pharmacy. Why is this exciting for the cat? It isn’t really, other than the humans had a training session on it and I got to stand in front of the screen and push random keys on the keyboard. That was a seriously good time. Prescriptions have been a bit of a trial for us. Our Doctors are all for prescriptions but it turns out most places just aren’t very good at it. We get faxed a prescription, our Doc signs it, sends it back, we get faxed again, we sign again, they lose it again. It’s a vicious circle. As it turns out, some of the catalogs don’t use properly labeled drugs. It all just ends up being a mess. So in an effort to make life easier we are using a new and improved pharmacy: Vet’s First Choice
It’s super easy to get to: http://springhillequine.com/ and the button at the top left corner. Simply press the button and you will go to our pharmacy. They offer free shipping on lots of different items and you can use the coupon code WELCOME25 on your first order for $25 off. Check it out and let us know what you think.
