Equine Medicine & Surgery

Emergency/Urgent Equine Care

Our Equine Critical Care service offers 24-hour a day, year-round directed and continuous care for critically ill or injured, emergency, and urgent care (same-day, no appointment) equine patients, with a special emphasis on the colic patient.

The service is overseen by specialists with board certification in equine surgery, equine emergency/critical care, equine internal medicine, and large animal internal medicine. Your animal will be treated and intensively monitored 24 hours a day during their entire stay with our Equine Critical Care service.

Our facilities include:

• State-of-the-art surgical facility with specialized equipment including laparoscopy equipment
• Dedicated intensive care aisle for Colic patients
• 24 hours a day, seven days a week fully staffed emergency service and critical care
• Advanced monitoring equipment including adult intensive care stalls, mare-foal stalls, foal pens, and a neonatal foal table
• Interior breezeway for unloading and examination
• Video monitoring of colic aisle and isolation stalls
• Neurology stall with hoist for the management of the down, surgery, or atoxic horse
• Sling capabilities
• Stall-side neonatal intensive care unit with ventilator capabilities
• We are an ACVECC approved training facilty for equine critical care

Since critical and emergency cases can be so unpredictable, we work collaboratively with board-certified specialists in theriogenology (reproduction), Anesthesiology and Pain Management and Radiology, along with a fully staffed surgical team for emergency surgery. We also have patient support with access to 24-hour Clinical Pathology Laboratory for blood and fluid analysis.

What Might Be an Emergency Situation?

The following are common medical conditions that need to be seen immediately:

• Colic (abdominal pain indicated by pawing, rolling, or overall indications of painfulness)
• Serious laceration of the limb or body
• Epistaxis (bleeding from the nose)
• Choking
• Fracture
• Trauma
• Eye or head trauma
• Snake bite
• Dystocia (abnormal or difficult birthing)
• "Tying up" (muscle cramping)

Some emergent issues will be seen by our Equine Internal Medicine specialists, including: difficulty breathing, fever, diarrhea, and neurological disease.