Devon Equine Services
We are a fully mobile Devon county equine veterinary practice and will do a free visit if we are seeing 4 or more horses on the same yard.
Lameness investigations
Experience as vets to hundreds of Devon horses tells us that lameness is one of the most common problems in equine practice. Our vets can tailor the extent and depth of any lameness examination to your requirements. We will use a combination of techniques to investigate lameness, which may involve nerve and joint blocks to localise the cause of the lameness. Our mobile digital x-ray and ultrasound equipment are available to provide immediate and high-quality imaging. Lameness investigations can be performed at your yard, at a location to suit you or at our dedicated Devon equine veterinary practice. We employ a range of treatment options depending on the diagnosis from joint injections to rehabilitation programmes to working with referral surgeons and physio’s.
We are available to perform thorough 2 and 5-stage vetting for our clients and non-clients. Buying a new horse is an emotional and logistical minefield and our job is to reduce the risk associated with your purchase. We will advise you practically on any problems that might be present and how that might affect suitability for the intended use. Unfortunately, we cannot vet horses which we have seen before as a practice or belong to our clients due to potential conflicts of interest. Please contact us to discuss your individual requirements. We are happy to perform pre-purchase radiography, ultrasound and endoscopy as required and at the same time.
Poor performance investigations
Your horse does not need to be competing internationally in order for you to feel that he/she is not performing as well as they ought to be or at their best. Equine vets in Devon particularly see a lot of rural environment related ailments and these can be a very difficult area to investigate. Common examples of underlying issues that can also cause poor performance include mild lameness, liver disease, stomach ulcers, dental problem, respiratory problems, kissing spines, sacro-iliac pain and muscle soreness. All these issues can be investigated at your yard and will be done in the most cost effective way possible.
Dentistry
Equine dentistry is an area of horse care which has evolved significantly over the last decade. As a practice, we believe that we can only do the best job in a sedated horse. Even if a horse is well-behaved, the use of dental mirrors and probes (which are vital for thorough examination) is not effective in an un-sedated horse. We now realised the importance and prevalence of conditions such as dental caries (cavities) and diastema (gaps between teeth) with food packing and gum disease. A check of the mouth and feel with fingers is possible in most horses without sedation, but will not pick up on some of these more subtle conditions. We have all the equipment necessary to perform thorough equine dental care, including rasping, diastema treatments and widening, wolf teeth removal, extractions and more. We are happy to perform dentistry ourselves or work with BEVA/BAEDT registered equine dentists. We reduce the cost of sedation when it is combined with a dental to encourage its use and are happy to discuss discounts for multiple horses on the same yard.
Colt castrations
We can perform equine castration standing up or asleep. Please ring us to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each method, and which might be the best method for your colt.
Video Endoscopy
We are fully equipped with the latest portable video endoscopy system. We can scope your horse for airway conditions (upper airway endoscopy) and stomach ulcers (gastroscopy) on your own yard. With our portable video system it means you can see exactly what we see inside your horse and understand fully what is going on. Check out our Gastroscopy Factsheet for more information!
Additional services include:
- Vaccinations and health checks
- Passports and microchipping
Our Equipment
Digital x-ray
Our high quality equine digital radiography system has a wireless plate, which receives the image and sends it to the laptop in seconds where it can be viewed immediately by the vet and owner.
It’s completely portable and can be brought in the car to the horse. The image quality of these new digital systems vastly outperforms more conventional machines. This means we can provide a more accurate diagnosis as well as x-ray parts of the horse such as the back (for kissing spines) at your own yard.
We can now take better x-rays, faster and more cost-effectively.
We also offer a reduced price ‘Laminitis Package’ to enable better management of this painful and common condition. We can email the images to your farrier and advise on management.
Dentistry
At South Moor we are happy to work with BEVA/BAEDT registered Equine Dental Technicians and perform equine dentistry ourselves.
South Moor Equine has a power rasp which is very useful for certain dental conditions or when there are several horses to do at once. When you book your horse in for a dental we will bring routine dental equipment, speculum, light source, head stand, power rasp.
We also have dental burrs, diastema flush, cheek tooth extraction tools and more, but usually only take this more advanced equipment out when required/requested.
Horse Hospital
In our practice laboratories or Horse Hospital, we can provide same-day haematology and biochemistry testing for your horse. We will also perform faecal worm egg counts ourselves on any sample you provide so you can be happy in the knowledge that any advice you are given is from a vet and not a lay-person. In an emergency, where a joint infection is suspected we can quickly run an in-house white blood cell count and total protein on a sample of the joint fluid and ascertain if the joint is involved or not.
We work closely with several other external laboratories so we can send off samples for other sorts of tests to the most appropriate place. Non-emergency or specialist samples are all sent to a specialist equine laboratory by next day delivery.
Ultrasonography
We have a modern, super high quality ultrasound scanner with a specific tendon probe. This means we are no longer looking at grainy, difficult to interpret images, but high resolution, well-defined pictures. Again, this enables us to make more accurate diagnoses and measure smaller, more subtle lesions. Our vets are regularly scanning tendons and have a wealth of experience to draw upon.
We also have specific reproductive scanners for breeding management.
Equine abdominal ultrasound is a specialised procedure, so we work with equine medicine specialists to provide this service at your yard if required.
Endoscopy
We have endoscopes which allow us to examine the inside of the respiratory system and visualise any problems that might be occurring. Our vets routinely perform tracheal washes, broncho-alveolar lavage, guttural pouch investigations and more.
We can organise for gastroscopy at your yard or at a referral centre.
ECG
ECG
We have a portable ECG unit allowing us to record your horse’s heart rhythm to investigate possible heart problems further.
Laser Surgery
We are able to offer laser surgery to remove certain types of skin tumours such as sarcoids and melanomas. Laser surgery has certain benefits in that it reduces the spread of tumour cells, significantly reduces bleeding, and reduces pain and inflammation. Most of these cases can be done under standing sedation using local anaesthetic.
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