Medical Examinations

Many sick or underperforming horses don’t present with clear cut signs or obvious symptoms. A thorough clinical examination may elucidate the cause but often specialist techniques need to be employed.

Blood testing to assess the status of the red and white blood cells is often a good place to start and using our in-house HM5 analyzer we can get a rapid answer to you. We can also obtain rapid results, for a standard metabolic profile which can point to problems in various organs, liver kidneys, and gastrointestinal tract using our VetScan2 chemistry machine.

High Country Vet Services has a new endoscope for investigating airway and gastrointestinal problems, such as gastric ulcers and other causes of recurrent colic.

Infectious Diseases

Infectious diseases are an ever-present part of our work; both treating them and trying to prevent them. Some diseases are so serious that our main strategy is one of prevention. Equine influenza tetanus and strangles fall into this category.

Our control strategy for flu and tetanus is vaccination and is a successful strategy particularly when the whole population is vaccinated. Strangles whilst being more widespread than is generally thought, may be prevented on a yard by an effective screening of new horses entering premises or treated by a coordinated strategy in the face of an outbreak. D. Batt is experienced in managing both prevention and treatment and she would be pleased to visit and discuss what would be appropriate for your situation.

Infectious disease of specific organ systems can need the use of specialized equipment such as endoscopes for examining airways, guarded swabs and biopsy instruments for obtaining samples for culture or examination. Dr. Batt is well versed in the use of such equipment in expediting the resolution of such disease.