Week 3 @ SVEC

            My third week at Saginaw Valley Equine Clinic ended up being a bit quieter than the first 2.  The foal from last week has continued to get stronger and stronger (and getting a little feisty too) and is now completely off treatments.  We continued this week with much of the usual – vaccines, Coggins, lameness exams, joint injections, checking mares, collecting stallions, and breeding.  We did have another gastric scope, and I can now say that I am pretty good at passing the scope!  We also castrated a 6 month old colt which was a good experience for me as Dr. Jones dropped him for the procedure where I have previously only observed castrations done standing.

            Friday turned out to be a very long and sad day with 2 euthanasias.  A 26 year old horse had gotten cast in his stall and after making it back to his feet, was completely non-weight bearing on his left hind leg.  Based on how he was holding it and how his muscles looked, Dr. Jones thought he may have fractured his femur.  The owners chose to euthanize without doing any diagnostics since the eventual outcome was likely going to be the same.  The other horse was only 16 but he had foundered several years ago and their success at managing his pain was starting to dwindle.  Before Friday, I had never seen a horse euthanized and as with small animals, it was very difficult to watch as the owners clearly had a deep connection with their animal and it was hard for them to say goodbye, even though it was for all the right reasons.

            And it wouldn’t be a Friday without an emergency.  This one happened to be a recipient mare owned by the clinic.  Owners who want to breed their mare but don’t want to lose a show season due their horse being in foal often lease a recipient mare.  The mare is bred normally and then 1 week later, before the embryo implants into the uterus of the mare, the embryo is flushed out and put into the recipient.  This mare is very sick, and fortunately, is not in foal.  The barn crew thought she wasn’t quite right for a few days as she was isolating herself from the rest of the herd but by Friday she had a temperature of 104, severe edema in all legs, skin sloughing off her nose, and her conjunctiva was icteric.  She was brought into the clinic and placed in isolation.  I had the weekend off so I was not there to see how this case has progressed, but I am very curious to see how she is doing tomorrow morning and find out if they have determined the underlying cause of her condition.