Snip Snip

Seemed like it was the week of castrations, both field and in clinic.  Most colts are castrated at less than a year old, however we had a 4 year old come into the clinic and boy did he have some big testicles.  

It's important to note that the type of drug used to induce anesthesia has an impact on how well the patient recovers.  Torbutrol has a very smooth recovery, the horse first rolls sternal and then stands up without much flailing around.

While going out for a field castration, one of the owner's other horses had badly injured her left eye.  There was a gash on the lateral canthus of the eye and it was so swollen her globe wasn't even visible.  After a couple days she developed a melting corneal ulcer as you can see in the picture below (the cornea is stained with fluorescein).   The cornea is the transparent structure at the front of the eye that allows light to enter.   Traumatic injuries, like the one this horse had, can damage the cornea and lead to corneal ulceration.   

To treat this we used a subpalpebral lavage system which delivers medicine to the horse's eye continuously.  It is passed through the upper eyelid and attached to flexible tubing that connects it to an injection port where medication is introduced.  It's a very easy, safe, and effective way to treat ocular damage.