Today I spent the entire day at Three Counties Equine Hospital, the veterinarians that work with the Hartpury Equine Therapy Center. Comprised of 5 veterinarians, it is a large practice and stays busy 24/7 seeing all kinds of emergencies! Nearly every stall was filled when I arrived today. I was able to observe many things such as a Coffin Joint Nerve Block with local anesthesia and a Lameness Evaluation on the lunge line by Dr. Harrison on a giant bay Dressage horse named Indy. She also had a dozen x-rays taken on both front fetlocks, coffin joints, and navicular bones. After helping with the x-rays, I helped take the weights (in kilograms) on 12 horses and took a brief lunch break. Then I watched Dr. Claire sedate a horse named Dennis so that we could inject die into his Navicular Bursa in order to see if something was wrong with his navicular bone. We took x-rays to from lateral views in order to inject the die and to see the navicular bursa. I then watched Dr. Mark perform Artificial Insemination in an older mare using an insemination rod. Next, I observed the nurses give a 3 week old foal a bag of plasma! That was cool. The foal has been sick for several days and may be suffering from neurological problems. She hasn't been nursing from her mother, so I got the milk the mare before I left for the day. Check out these really cool pictures of the equipment and facilities at this equine emergency hospital:
The chute and ultrasounds machine used to see when the mare's follicle is about to ovulate and when she is ready to be inseminated. When using frozen semen, their only exists a short window of about 6 hours during the mare's ovulation cycle when the semen can be implanted as opposed to fresh semen that has a window of several days.
Ultrasounding the uterus
The x-ray machine!!! awesome!
The dolly system in the surgery suite. Once the horse has been "knocked down" or anesthetized for surgery it is carried into the surgery room via this system on the ceiling
The surgery table and large animal anesthetic machine for equine surgery patients.
A horse that was on IV fluids. She has a muzzle on to keep her from eating.
Dr. Harrison doing a dental.
Surgery! If I'm lucky, maybe I'll get to see a real live colic surgery!
Injecting the die to find the navicular bursa
A foal nursing from her momma
This is the 3 week old foal undergoing a plasma transfer!
The chute and ultrasounds machine used to see when the mare's follicle is about to ovulate and when she is ready to be inseminated. When using frozen semen, their only exists a short window of about 6 hours during the mare's ovulation cycle when the semen can be implanted as opposed to fresh semen that has a window of several days.
Ultrasounding the uterus
The x-ray machine!!! awesome!
The dolly system in the surgery suite. Once the horse has been "knocked down" or anesthetized for surgery it is carried into the surgery room via this system on the ceiling
The surgery table and large animal anesthetic machine for equine surgery patients.
A horse that was on IV fluids. She has a muzzle on to keep her from eating.
Dr. Harrison doing a dental.
Surgery! If I'm lucky, maybe I'll get to see a real live colic surgery!
Injecting the die to find the navicular bursa
A foal nursing from her momma
This is the 3 week old foal undergoing a plasma transfer!
WOW! Incredibly cool stuff! Being a nurse, I am finding your experiences very interesting. What kind of surgery was being done in that one photo?
ReplyDeleteWill you find out how the foal does?
Thanks for sharing!!
Great blog kac!!! the pictures are great ! Very interesting stuff, we're sure you are learning a lot!! Keep sharing your time with us, it makes us feel we are there with you!!!! love you ...mom an dad
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