The Equine Placenta

The Equine Placenta

The placenta has a vital function of being the crossroads between the mare and foals’ blood circulatory system. Without a well-functioning placenta, a foal would not survive.

But watch out… the placenta can also be deadly!

Once foaled, the placenta should be passed within 2 hours. If not, we say the mare has a ‘retained placenta’.

This is very dangerous as the placenta acts as a focus of bacterial growth which can cause a serious body infection in the mare with deadly consequences.

Do you have a mare foaling at home?

1) Ensure that if the placenta hasn’t passed by 2 hours post foaling, call your vet immediately.

2) Inspect the placenta to ensure it has come out completely: The most common place for some to be left behind in the mare is the tip of the non-pregnant horn. Check it carefully or save it for your vet to inspect for you!

3) Check for signs of infection in the placenta (irregularities of the surface or colour change). This could indicate the foal may have an infection and early veterinary intervention could be needed.

Selenium Testing

Should I check my horse’s Selenium levels?

Selenium is a very useful mineral for the body. It is important for the horse’s metabolism as well as acting as an antioxidant alongside Vitamin E.

What is an Antioxidant?

Antioxidants inhibit oxidizing agents from damaging cells of the body. Oxidizing agents are produced as a by-product from metabolism of all living cells on a daily basis.

NZ Soils:

As a general rule, NZ soils are very deficient in selenium. Historically, horse owners therefore knew to supplement their horses with this mineral. As a result, there was a period of time where horses blood levels became too HIGH in selenium due to over-supplementation when feeding multiple products. We are now seeing many horses LOW in selenium again due to the fear of over-supplementation.

Signs that could indicate Selenium deficiency:

·         Poor hair and horn growth

·         Poor muscle recovery following exercise

·         No outwardly obvious clinical signs (most common)!

What should you do?

A selenium blood test is between $35-40 depending on your veterinary practice. This will then allow us to see what the ‘storage levels’ of selenium within your horse.

This is one part of the puzzle……

Once we have identified a correct storage level of selenium within the body, we must MAINTAIN it!

How do you ensure your horse receives enough selenium?

This needs to be done with dietary analysis. BUT….It is simple!!!

A 500Kg horse need 7-14mg of selenium per week - (1-2mg per day).

Weigh all of your feed and then calculate the selenium amount, in mg, per component of your feed.

Add them all together and see if you are feeding the correct amount!

Alternatively, we help our clients with this service every day... if you do not look, you will not know!

Saddle Soreness

My Horse is Saddle Sore…. Can my vet help?

Recently, we have seen many horses with sore backs associated with saddle soreness.

I want to share one patient’s story with you:

“Every time my young rider mounts me, my back is sore as the rider’s weight rotates the saddle down behind my scapula. I try very hard to be well behaved and kind, but I always end up walking off because it hurts to stand still. My back was sore before this owner purchased me, but it is still sore now.

The pain has been present for so long that even with light pressure, a painful response is triggered. The chronic pain has sensitised this whole area and I never thought it would get better.

Becci (Vet) was lovely enough to treat me with Mesotherapy, and I needed sooooo much sedation to control the pain whilst she injected over the sensitive area.

Sarah Wisson (Osteopath) was also kind enough to visit me to follow up with exercises and treatment. Both Becci and Sarah were very worried about the length of time this pain response had been present, that the chronic nerve wind up and secondary damage might never recover.

I heard them talking at night many times about me!

Becci came back for further mesotherapy treatment 6 weeks later.

THEN, GUESS WHAT?!

I felt so much better, when Sarah visited for the second time she nearly fell over with excitement! I could hear Becci squealing down the phone too!

Thank heavens we have these options available to help many horses and ponies suffering like I was!  Bring on summer riding!”

Insulin Resistance

Spring is here and with it comes that fresh growth of grass.  

Suppose you had two horses –

One a fit young thoroughbred

One middle aged, live-off-the-smell-of-an-oily-rag pony

Why is the pony more likely to develop laminitis during this spring flush?

The reason is that some horses, typically easy-keepers, are genetically predisposed to respond to dietary non-structural carbohydrate (sugars and starch) differently – their cells are less responsive to insulin, i.e., they have “insulin resistance”.

Insulin is a hormone normally released after a meal that signals the body tissues to take up and store glucose.  With insulin resistance, typically even more insulin is released to overcome a lack of sensitivity to this hormone.

This results in high circulating insulin levels: Either just after a meal or all day.

This is similar to the metabolic abnormalities that accompany type 2 diabetes in humans.

In horses, the insulin resistance is associated with two endocrine conditions –

Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS)

And Cushings Disease (PPID)

So, what has this got to do with laminitis? High levels of insulin over a sustained time period has been shown to cause the painful condition, laminitis – weakening of the tissues (laminae) that anchor the hoof wall to the bone.

Can we test for insulin resistance? Yes, the most sensitive test involves feeding your horse a meal containing glucose powder and then checking blood insulin levels 2 hours later. We can also test for PPID by checking blood ACTH levels.

Can we treat it? Although we cannot change the genetic predisposition, we can enhance the insulin sensitivity of the tissues through dietary management and exercise. We can also use medications to help control PPID and EMS.

Be on the lookout for any signs of foot pain – mild laminitis can be hard to detect because it affects both feet so the only sign your horse might show is moving around less or being reluctant when ridden. Prevention is always better than the cure, so if you are concerned about your easy-keeper call us for a health and nutritional assessment.

Do Horses get Freezing Fingers?

The Hardy Horse…

I currently have the ‘hard’ task of taking my kids to school skiing. Friday was an absolute stunner, but my fingers still swore at me if I touched the snow gloveless… this got me thinking of Horses standing happily with their hooves buried in snow. How do they do it?!

The lower half of the horse’s limbs are mainly bone and tendon – these tissues require much less blood for maintenance than muscle, and therefore, the horse can afford to divert a portion of the blood flow that was heading to the limbs back to the core. It does this opening nifty arteriovenous shunts, secret passageways between the arteries going to the limb and the veins returning to the heart. 

Horses also have a physiological adaptation called countercurrent exchange, which is designed much like a heat transfer in your ventilation system – Veins and arteries run in parallel, allowing warmth of the arterial blood to transfer to the colder venous blood so that when the arterial blood reaches the hoof less heat is lost to the environment, but enough is retained to stop the foot from freezing.  

In addition, the thick, dense hoof capsule protecting the inner tissues of the foot from that freeing snow... a bit like my gloves!  

Written by our lovely part-time Vet Laura

Arthramid Vet

Joint Damage…… Steroids???

Gone are the days where we have to worry about using repetitive steroid injections into the joints of our horses. Welcome to the new generation joint lubricant! Arthramid Vet is a medication that is put into (Intra-Articular) a degenerate or damaged joint. The medication helps to reduce pain associated with joint disease, and assists in restoring function and movement of joints. The product is a sterile gel which is injected into the joint and is similar in structure to hyaluronic acid. It has a potent and long acting effect on joint health. It incorporates into the synovial lining (the part which produces nutrients for the cartilage) results in a reduction of inflammation in the synovial lining. This inflammation in the synovial lining causes long term joint damage. Many horses from young to old have inflammation in their joints. When left, the inflammation causes long term joint damage. We recommend early detection of low level joint disease, so that we can help to promote the health of your horses joints. This prolongs their competitive career, improves results on a Pre-Purchase vet check, but most importantly, helps to promote a comfortable highly mobile older horse.

Colic

Colic

Unfortunately, we have seen quite a few episodes of colic in the last 10 days.

What is colic?

It describes the display of abdominal pain in our horses

What does it look like?

One or all of the following: rolling, pawing at the ground, sweating, flank watching, lifting the upper lip with head stretched (flehmen reflex)

What causes it?

There are many causes of colic, but in the last week it has been associated with a nutritional change. The wet ground combined with these warmer days has caused a flush of grass. This will continue over the next month or two. This sudden flush of grass has caused a change in the diet your horses it. The grass has a higher water, starch and sugar content compared to the winter diet they have been used to. We all know that our horses are poor digesters of starch, and in combination with this excess sugar, it causes a change in the food to the hind gut microbes.

This imbalance and change causes irritation to the bowel lining and causes painful spasms.

We see this GI upset as colic.

How can we prevent it?

Be proactive and reduce the grass intake to your horses. Introduce their access to this grass slowly, even with an hour per day access, or strip grazing.

In addition, reduce the sugar and starch content of their bucket feed to counter act the fibre change.

Lastly, consider proactively using products such as Equishure to reduce the hind gut acidosis which occurs during this time.

I hope this helps. We don’t want to see each other after hours 🥰

Heel Bulb Injuries

Well we all know how annoying these can be.

They commonly happen from either an over-reaching injury or a wire injury.

The damaged skin often forms a flap with an upward shaped V. This means that the skin becomes filled with fluid and then becomes thicker but shrinks in length.

Commonly it will heal without veterinary treatment if you keep it clean. Please be careful with deeper injuries and contact us if you are not sure.

Why would you need our help? 

The skin can heal with a lump formation at the back of the heel bulbs. This can increase risk of repetitive injury and is quite ugly.

To treat these cases we would need to cut off the excessive skin formed. A bit like a tummy tuck but on the heel!

When would this extra skin be most annoying?

If your horse is going to wear bell boots it can rub.

The tall and short of the horse…

Horses come in all sizes with the tallest horse, a Shire horse appropriately named Sampson, measured 2.2 m tall at the withers and weighed 1,524 kgs; while the shortest horse, again appropriately named Thumbelina, measured 44.5 cm tall.

While many of us agree that horses are intelligent creatures, the brain of an average sized horse is similar in size to a child’s. Sticking with the nervous system, the longest nerve in the horse is the recurrent laryngeal nerve, which measures up to 2.5 m in length in Draft and Thoroughbred horses. Those of us inconvenienced by the recent Cromwell roundabout detours can sympathise with this nerve - it takes a significant detour extending from the brainstem down the spine, around the heart and back up the neck to end close to its origin in the larynx.

Another part of the horse that can boast about its length is the small intestine which if uncoiled would stretch the length of an adult blue whale. In contrast, the stomach of the horse is relatively small. In fact, the horse has the smallest stomach in relation to body size of all domestic animals. So it’s not surprising they like frequent, if not continuous, meals.

To end this brief fact file on horse dimensions, the longest tail recorded on a horse measured 381 cm.

Lumps Under the Jaw

Horses can get lumps and bumps over their faces for many reasons, however young horses develop symmetrical lumps on the bottom of the jaw (mandible) at specific ages.

Lumps in this location can be trauma, a tooth root (apical) infection, or a tumour. However, when they occur on both sides at similar times, this is due to the normal eruption of adult molar teeth.

Horses have 3 baby versions of their molars in each side of the 4 dental arcades. At the age of 1, 2 and 3.5 years of age, new adult molars develop behind these ones.

However, at 2.5 years, 3 years, and 4 years old the current baby molars are pushed out of their location in the jaw and the second adult set of molars come through underneath. It takes quite a bit of effort from the bone cells to make this happen, and this can be seen as eruption bumps on the bottom of the jaw.

This is a normal finding.

However, it could be abnormal if:

• The lumps are not symmetrical

• There is pain over one of the bumps

• There is any discharge from the bump

Causes of abnormal bumps include retained baby teeth (caps), or sometimes infection.

If you have any concerns, always ask. If problems are left for too long, it can cause damage to the adult tooth.

Final Tip:

Never remove baby molars/caps from the jaw before they are ready. They MUST be finger loose first. Evidence suggests it could damage the structure of the erupting molar.

Fasting Hyperbilirubinemia

When horses do not eat (anorexia), even for just half a day, it is very common for them to appear jaundiced.

The jaundiced/yellow appearance is due to a build up of bilirubin in the blood stream.

What is bilirubin:

A by-product of red blood cell breakdown. White cells that gobble up old or damaged red blood cells release it, and it is transported by carrier proteins within the blood to the liver.

Here the liver joins it to a sugar group, and it is then released in bile.

The bile travels down little ducts to the intestines.

Bilirubin is excreted in the faeces or resorbed to be excreted in the urine.

This process can be disrupted, and bilirubin levels can increase in the blood, causing the membranes in the mouth and eyes to look yellow.

Why does hyperbilirubinemia happen? (High bilirubin levels)

• Rapid destruction of red blood cells e.g toxicity or auto immune disease

• Reduced function of the liver

• Blocked ducts carrying the bile out into the intestines

Fasting: This is very common in horses. If the cause for not eating is treated, then the yellow membranes go away.

Allow your horses access to lots of hay or grass, and ensure they can get some form of shelter in the cold weather.

The good old Haematoma:

What is it?

An obvious and sudden swelling that can be the size of a golf ball or even as big as a soccer ball.

It is a collection of fluid and most commonly, blood.  The cause is often blunt trauma. The skin is commonly not broken.

Where are they found?

The chest, between the front legs is very common.

They can however occur anywhere on the body that could be kicked or contact the ground when your horse falls.

Why do they occur?

They are the result of a big bruise, bleeding, and tissue trauma. They are commonly subcutaneous (under the skin) but depth depends on the force of the trauma and location, so they can be very deep and underneath the muscle.

Do they need treatment?

They can commonly be left to self resolve if they are small. Resolution can take weeks, even months, but nearly all will resorb given sufficient time.

Large hameatomas often need draining: Please note this is commonly for cosmetic reasons. They would rarely be detrimental to your horse’s health.

Surgical treatment:

The fluid mass is punctured and drained at its lowest point. There is risk of infection at this stage so prevention of this is important.

Canines

Canines are VERY important from a dentistry point of view. Please read my post to find out why! 

They are short and found in the gap or 'diastema' between the incisor teeth and cheek teeth. Their location and presence can be variable.

They have no function for digestion. So why are they important?

These teeth commonly collect tartar around the gingival margin. This causes inflammation/gingivitis and predisposes them to painful conditions. In addition, they are a common site of tooth fractures in the horse.

These teeth are called brachydont, and unlike the molars, are not able to respond to exposure of the central pulp cavity (the part of the tooth where the nerve and blood supply is). Their pulp cavity is also shallow underneath the tooth surface. Therefore, when the canines become damaged, they commonly need veterinary attention!

 Identification of problems sounds simple, but it isn’t. 

Damage and painful conditions of these teeth are very hard to spot. Each tooth needs careful inspection following removal of the tartar.

Please see the picture. This was one of our patients that was sedated for a complete oral health check and dental evaluation. Look how easy it would have been to miss the little hole in this tooth had our horse have not been sedated.

The hole in this tooth progresses straight into the painful pulp cavity! These horses often suffer for many months before we find them on our examinations.

Thanks to our dental special and giving our clients the opportunity to have an affordable oral health check, this horse no longer needs to suffer.

This patient is one of many this month that is grateful for our dental specials. Please don’t underestimate the benefits sedation provides for our dental patients!

We look forward to seeing you all next year for our annual promotion of equine dental health!!!

Wobblers

Stumbling, weakness, toe dragging, difficulty going downhill, inability to change leads… these gait abnormalities are commonly due to lameness, but occasionally neurologic disorders are the cause. In New Zealand, we are fortunate not to have many of the infectious agents that cause neurologic disease in horses. However, we do see Cervical Vertebral Stenotic Myelopathy (CVSM), a.k.a Wobblers Syndrome.

What is CVSM?

CVSM occurs when the spinal column in the neck (vertebrae and ligaments) impinge and compress the spinal cord. There are multiple causes but the most common are vertebral malformation in young, rapidly growing horses and arthritis in older horses. It may seem unusual that dragging of the hindfeet is due to a problem in the neck, but this is because the nerves that travel between the hindlimbs and the brain are located superficially in the region of the spinal cord that is prone to being compressed.

When your horse has a gait abnormality a thorough lameness and neurologic examination is the first step to provide a diagnosis, a treatment plan, a long-term prognosis and (importantly) an assessment of whether the horse is safe to ride. If neurologic deficits are detected, radiographs of the neck can help to assess if CVSM could be the cause.

A reminder: Autumn beauty can be deadly…

Over the past few weeks, it’s been lovely driving around and seeing all the autumnal colours. However, in Autumn the European sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus) and the Box elder (Acer negundo) can cause a very painful and often fatal muscle disease in horses called Atypical Myopathy. The culprit is a toxin called hypoglycin A, which is found in the helicopter blade-like seeds that provide hours of entertainment for the kids in the Autumn. The toxin has been detected in sycamore trees in New Zealand and cases are seen occasionally. Signs include stiffness, reluctance to move, lying down, colic-like signs, dark urine, sweating, difficulty breathing and even sudden death.

How much is too much?

Unfortunately, we don’t know the answer. The concentration of toxin varies between seeds from the same tree and with season, weather conditions and other stressors… so it’s very hard to predict. To further complicate things, some horses appear more susceptible than others.

How can we keep our horses safe?

Ideally, avoid grazing paddocks that contain sycamore seeds throughout Autumn. Fencing off sycamore trees may not be sufficient as these helicopter-seeds can travel over 100 m from trees in the wind. If exposure can’t be avoided, plenty of supplementary feed should be provided so that horses are less likely to eat the seeds. Paddock vacuums and groomers can be used to collect the seeds. In the Spring, the seedlings can also be a source of toxicity and the arduous task of picking seedlings is unfortunately the most fail-proof method of avoiding toxicity as both mowing (without collection) and spraying herbicides increase the risk of exposure. Paddocks that contain sycamore material shouldn’t be used for hay or haylage as both seedlings and seeds proceeds within the grass remain toxic. There isn’t any antidote for hypoglycin A but some horses do recover with supportive care.

Be on the lookout for these seeds this Autumn and if your horse does show any signs of Atypical Myopathy call us immediately as early intervention is key.

Back pain continued...

In the recent weeks I attended a 4 hour veterinary seminar to further my knowledge in the veterinary aspects of back pain. It was a fantastic series and I wanted to briefly share a few aspects with you.

Does pain threshold vary between horses?

Yes, Post mortem examinations have shown a difference in nerve supply to areas of the back within a horse population. This suggests that even in the presence of back abnormalities causing pain, some horses are less sensitive to the pain associated with this condition, and some horses are much more sensitive.

Radiographic examination for kissing spines (impingement of the dorsal spinous processes):

Let’s remember it’s only one picture to the puzzle.

It is a great indicator of changes to the bones such as sclerosis and lysis (whitening and holes).

It also indicates the proximity of the processes to the adjacent ones.

But it doesn’t show pain. Some horses with have pain from kissing spines with minimal radiographic changes and some horses will show severe changes with no pain.

Use radiographs in conjunction with a full clinical evaluation to assess their relevance.

Chronic fascia pain:

We need to remember a large component of back pain is held within the fascia of the back. This fascia can become chronically inflamed and stick down instead of allowing gliding of  the muscle levels. When left, this issue can be self perpetuating.

Treatment of back pain should be multimodal!

 My suggestions:

The clinical examination and lameness evaluation must be performed first

The Radiographic assessment should follow

Nerve blocks can be used as a further diagnostic step to help with a diagnosis

Treatment of pain:

Treat underlying lameness in addition to therapies for chronic back tension

Examples includes; pain relief, mesotherapy and even steroid injections

Equine therapy is a MUST: This could include chiropractic, osteopathy or physical rehabilitation.

The last treatment step to consider is surgery

Are you concerned about kissing spines?

Today we medicated an interspinous ligament that was suspicious to be causing clinical back pain in our patient based on radiographic examination. This interspinous ligament is the soft tissue structure that stabilises and holds steady the tall processes between the adjacent spinal vertebrae.

How do we do it?

We use a sterile scrub to prepare the back. Then we used the Xray machine to guide our needles to the correct space between the dorsal spinous processes/suspicious kissing spine lesion. We deposited medication in the region between the potential kissing spines.

Medication:

Our first choice would be to use local anaesthetic to numb then pain. We can then compare the horse under saddle before and after the injection to assess for improvement.

Another option is to use  steroids as an anti-inflammatory agent. This is injected into the same area. The horses performance can then be assessed going forwards and the rider can observe for resolution of their concerned clinical signs.

Why would we do this procedure?

I think this is a very useful technique when we are concerned whether the X-rays of close spinous processes are actually causing clinical pain. It may also help to indicate if surgical correction is required for our patient, and which sites may require surgery.

Scintigraphy is helpful to show a hot and inflammed bone, but it doesn’t indicate early or milder soft tissues squeezing between the processes.

Mesotherapy

Back pain can be a frustrating thing for horses, riders, and veterinarians! Clinical signs, while sometimes obvious, are often vague and misunderstood. For this reason we often see horses in the chronic stages of back pain, and treating this kind of discomfort can be tricky due to the nervous system’s response to chronic discomfort.  This is why quick fixes such as time off, saddle/tack changes, and using common pain relieving medications are often unsuccessful. Once the nervous system becomes sensitized to the chronic pain messages being sent to the brain,  those pain messages will continue even if the original cause for the pain is remedied.  We call this ‘wind up pain’ or the ‘pain cycle’. Treatments therefore need to be focused on both addressing the primary issue if one is identified, and interrupting the pain cycle to stop those chronic messages. 

Thankfully we have a few tools up our sleeves that do just that!   One such tool is mesotherapy.   Mesotherapy involves the use of tiny needles to inject medications into the mesoderm, a layer of the skin where many of these inappropriately firing nerves are found.   The science behind mesotherapy suggests that these medications help ‘block’ the pain messages from travelling to the spinal cord, thereby interrupting the pain cycle. It’s a quick and easy procedure, and although it looks like a lot of needles, the needles are tiny and not terribly uncomfortable.  The tiny bumps that result are the medication under the skin which resolve within a few hours.  Mesotherapy is effective at addressing back pain due to old injuries, saddle issues, poor core development, mild forms of kissing spines (not requiring surgery), facet joint arthritis, muscle soreness etc.   Mesotherapy alone won’t solve all the problems though.  Once the horse is more comfortable an appropriate rehab program is a must to condition the topline and help prevent the discomfort from happening again.  Questions about mesotherapy? Feel free to reach out to our team!

What’s that noise? Pt. 2

There are many types of respiratory noise that can cause performance problems for your horse.

The most common noises that affect performance are located in the upper airways.

We all love physics, so for simplicity let me explain one little fact. When an airway narrows by 1/4 of its normal diameter, the resistance to air flow in the upper airways is 16 times greater. Anything therefore that affects the normal anatomy of the upper airways will affect resistance to airflow and reduce performance.

I wanted to mention one of the commonest upper respiratory problems we hear in our sport horses. It is caused by paralysis of the left side of the larynx and due to the type of sounds produced from obstruction of air flow, horses are referred to as a ‘Roarer’.

The laryngeal structure has two curtains which act like a trap door. When the curtains are open they allow  air to flow from the nasal cavities to the lungs, but when the curtains are closed they allow food to pass and be swallowed. This prevents food and fluids from entering the airways which would be very dangerous.

In some horses, the nerve that opens the left curtain becomes damaged so that it is remains closed and obstructing the airways during breathing. As mentioned above, the resistance to air flow is then dramatically increased.

At low levels of exercise this doesn’t affect performance because horses are such amazing athletes. However, during strenuous exercise, or during higher level dressage when the horse is on the bit doing collected work, it can affect performance.

Can laryngeal paralysis be fixed?

The paralysed curtain can be surgically fixed open like a curtain tie. This fixes the problem of the obstructed airway, but isn’t without potential long term problems. When the curtain is fixed back, small amounts of food particles can end up in the respiratory tract causing lower airway inflammation and again can affect performance . Therefore following this surgery there are strict management requirements for the horse going forwards.

What causes laryngeal paralysis?

Horses can be born with this condition. It can be a low grade where the curtain is mostly open, or progress to high grade where it is completely obstructed.

In addition to being born with the problem, any neck trauma, or intravenous injections that come out of the neck vein, can damage this nerve as it runs along the jugular groove of the neck.

Important tip: Any injections given in the neck should be done by a qualified or experienced person to prevent this issue from occurring.

I hope none of you experience this issue with your horses. Please ask if you have any questions.

Foals immune system

Foals need to get their immune system in the colostrum they drink from the mare. The colostrum is the first milk filled with immunoglobulins (IGG’s). IGG’s  are antibodies that move around the foals blood and tissues looking for bacteria or viruses to destroy.

The IGG’s are proteins and amazingly they are not digested when the milk is drunk. Instead for the first 18 hours of a foals life, they can be absorbed in the intestines.

Note, please remember as well as absorbing these IGG’s, they can also absorb bacteria and viruses that enter their mouths. Therefore hygiene and a clean environment for foals is extremely important.

After 18 hours, this magic window of absorbing these antibodies closes. After this time, if the foal has not received enough good quality colostrum, we can improve the foals immune system by giving plasma.

Plasma is purchased especially for this purpose, and it is made from blood from healthy horses. These horses are donors like people can be.

We had to help out a little foal this week so that she could fight of all the bad pathogens she is likely to meet in the next 12 weeks before she has made her own immune system.

Have a great weekend!

Wounds to the face: What’s best to treat with?

Happy new year everyone. I hope 2022 is a great year for you and your beautiful 4 legged friends.

This week we have seen a high number of traumatic skin injuries. A few due to the presence of hay contractors and a few bad luck incidents.

Several have been to the face and I have been contacted by clients to ask about ointments and creams that can be applied to this region.

Here are my tips:

Any ointment that is applied to the face needs to be assessed for its safety to the eyes. This is because due to rain, sweat and rubbing, these treatments can end up in the eyes and we have seen nasty caustic burns to the cornea as a result.

Use creams that are safe to the cornea.

Avoid sprays as they can easily enter the eyes.

Use fly repellant as needed but apply with a sponge to the area below the eye and to the muzzle only: Be careful over the forehead.

Flamazine cream is a long standing favourite of mine for injuries to the face and this would be my preferred recommendation. It is safe if it enters the eye.

You can also use eye ointments as a topical antibiotic to face injuries.

Just a reminder, injuries to horse eyes are a scary thing, so let’s be extra careful and cautious.