Veterinary Parasite

Over the last few weeks, I’ve taken a lot of horse’s temperatures, lots of times. Most of these occasions were, if not enjoyable, then at least safe and uneventful! Unfortunately, a certain few horses seem to have a real problem with it, to the point of kicking out, or posturing like they were going to. This is a real problem when you’re trying to monitor a horse with an infection, as the temperature is one of they key parameters when judging if it is under control. Thanks to judicious use of twitches, and a lot of shouting, I remained unkicked, but life would have been much more pleasant had the horse not been so resentful of what is a painless, if slightly uncomfortable, procedure.

This leads me to my point, which is that if you are a horse owner, you should endeavour to take your animal’s temperature on a daily basis, from a young age. Digital thermometers are cheap and accurate, and provided you are sensible, can be used with little risk to you or the horse. A quick eBay search and they’re available including delivery for £3.48.

Regular monitoring of your horse’s temperature has some real benefits. Firstly, it means that should your horse ever have to be hospitalised, or regularly have it’s temperature taken for any other reason, he/she will be accustomed to it, and will cause no problem to the temperature taker. Believe me the vets/nurse/students will thank you for this! It also benefits the horse, as, for example, in an infected wound, the last thing we want is a horse jumping around or moving suddenly, as it might cause a wound to break down.

Secondly, regular monitoring of your horse has real preventative health benefits, even when your horse is healthy and well. If you can pick up that your horse’s temperature is increased one day, then you can ring your vet and get them to check it out - before the problem becomes any more serious. This is especially important after your horse has been in high risk situations, such as travelling, meeting new horses, etc. The stress of the situations can lead to decreased immunity, and the number of horses from different stables all in one place provides a perfect environment for the exchange of infections. This isn’t intended to put you off showing, but just to make you aware that there are some risks, but these are risks that can be minimised by careful, and easy, monitoring.

Other parameters that can be easily measured are pulse rate, and respiratory rate, and these can also be useful, although they can be a little more difficult to interpret. An increased pulse and resp rate can be associated with pain, or a variety of other conditions, but could also just be due to excitement, or recent exercise. Due to the ease with which they can be taken, I would still recommend taking them daily, and keeping records along with temperature. Here’s a quick guide on how to take them:

In the photo, the young lady’s hand is feeling for the facial artery, which runs on the medial aspect of the mandible bone. If you run your fingers over the area, then you should feel a small tube like structure. Lightly rest your fingers on the artery and you should feel the pulse. Make sure not to use your thumb, or you may inadvertently count your own pulse, not the horses! My preferred site for taking a pulse is actually the transverse facial artery, which runs across the face, below the eye, as indicated by the black line in the photo. In some horses you may be able to see the artery, but if not then run your fingers vertically down over the area, and you should feel the vessel. Both sites can be tricky to use if the horse is eating, as contractions of the muscle will confuse things, so try to take them at a time when the horse is not.

Alternatively, you could buy and inexpensive stethoscope (it doesn’t need to be a good one), and listen to your horse’s heart directly. The drum of the stethoscope should be placed on the chest wall, approximately level with the horse’s elbow, and pushed forward under the leg. The loudest point can be quite variable, so just move the stethoscope around a bit. Initially the heart beat can be tricky to hear - it is a deep sound, and your ears need to “tune in” to it. When you’re counting, a “lub-dub” counts as a single beat.

You can count pulses over a full minute, but generally counting over 15 seconds, then multiplying by 4 is adequate. Perhaps if you were concerned about a higher heart rate, then count over a longer period to make sure the increase is real.

The other parameter you can easily take is a respiration rate. This can be seen in several ways. I find the easiest method is watching the ventral (bottom) part of the abdomen - it will move slightly up and down as the horse breathes in an out. You can also watch for expansion of the rib cage, or movements of the nostrils. On a cold day, the easiest method is often to actually watch for streams of warm air coming out of the nostrils, and count those! For respiration rate, I prefer to count over at least 30 seconds. 15 seconds is not really adequate, as the respiration rate is much lower than the pulse rate.

Some normal values:

Temperature: 36.7 - 38.3 C

Pulse: 36-40

Respiration: 8-16

These are not absolute values, however. For example, if your horse’s temperature is normally in the range 36.8-37.4, which you know because you take it every day, then a temperature of 38.1 could represent a fever, even though it lies within the normal range as a whole. This is yet another advantage of doing daily TPRs on your horse - you can establish a normal range for your individual horse. Pulse rate can actually be as low as 28 in very fit horses without being abnormal.

With all this in mind, I plan over the next couple of weeks to add a new section to the site - TPRMyHorse. This will be a place to record daily TPR values for individual horses, as well as any daily comments. The system will then plot them as graphs, so that any trends or changes can be identified. It will also provide suggested normal ranges for your animal. This saves having hundreds of scraps of paper with numbers on (I’ve been there!), which mean nothing! I’ll keep you posted when it’s ready to be unleashed!

Disclaimer: The information in this article is for guidance only. If you have any concerns about your horse, be it because of the TPR values, or any other reason, you should not hesitate to contact your vet. While we hope that the information here will help you to look after your animal, it is in no way a substitute for proper veterinary advice from your own vet, and should not be taken as such.

No posts in over two weeks is pretty poor form in anyone’s books, so I can but offer my excuses.  I’ve been away at the Royal Veterinary College in London doing equine work, and internet access has been limited (as well as my waking hours away from their hospital!)  I should be back to a proper posting schedule now, starting with some words about my excellent two weeks away!

Other news from the last two weeks is exam results - good news all round, I passed them all, with 67% in Equine, 66% in Small Animal, and 60% in Farm.  Obviously very happy with the results, especially as it means a resit free summer!

Don’t emotions make wonderful post titles? Don’t answer that. Anyway, next week is one that can only be described as filling me with trepidation, for two reasons: 1) The dreaded exam results, 2) Placement at London’s equine hospital. I can’t even think which one scares me more, but I’ll stick with my usual motto of “cross that bridge when we get to it.” I’ll keep all none of you posted on how they both go anyway…

P.S. I promise this is the last post with an emo title, I’m really not that man!

One of the seven deadly sins if you believe in all that, and I came damn close to it today!  Not once, but twice!  EMS, or extra-mural studies is the work placement component of the vet course, and there are 26 weeks of it to do, all in “holiday time.”  Now to be fair, it’s generally good fun, and there’s a lot to be learnt, so I’ve no problem with actually doing it.  What I hate, however, is the organising part…and to be specific, organising the farm practice part.  As it turns out, there don’t appear to be many farm vets within an hour’s drive of either my rented house, or my parents house.  Those that there are, are already full of students far more organised than me!  Anyway, after getting through at least 10 practices that claimed to do farm work in the Yellow Pages, but had packed it in, or were full, my patience was wearing a little thin.  Visions of having all my placements organised for me flashed before my eyes - Lo! For I was a Bristol student!  Fortunately, it was but a fleeting vision, before I quickly realised I’d rather graduate with a degree that meant something… (for those of you who aren’t aware, Bristol were recently given 2 years to improve standards, or their right to produce veterinary graduates would be suspended!)

Fortunately, a few more phone calls did the trick, and the summer’s fun was sorted.  The next task for today was the dreaded dentist.  Fortunately, all was fine, and a quick 5 minutes of running a probe over my teeth seemed to quell the man’s desire to cause pain.  Unfortunately, the receptionist was not so easily pleased - for this 5 minute visit, the princely sum of £15.90 was demanded!  Forgive me if I’m being naive, but I thought this was an NHS dentist?  Anyway, that sin came back to me all to quickly when I realised this equated to an hourly rate of £190.80.  Compare this with a certain Australian equine clinician, with more letters after his name than I’ve had hot dinners (OK, I was a packed lunch kid, but it’s still a fair few) , who declares an hour of his time to be worth in the region of £100.  Was I really jealous of a mouth-obsessed torturer?  Well I came close, I’m man enough to admit that, but after experiencing the joys of drilling teeth in dead dog’s heads, there’s no way I could do that to a live human!  No, for that I’d need at least 200 quid an hour!