Equine Wellness / Preventative Medicine

Equine Veterinary Associates Preventive Care

Just like your automobile needs regular maintenance to prevent mechanical problems, maintaining your horses’ health can prevent many problems. Your horse needs a strong preventative program. Some aspects of the program are influenced by where your horse lives, what the horse does, and to a certain extent by the horse’s age.

Simply put, a two-year-old futurity horse that is on the road competing has different issues than a twenty-four-year-old horse that lives in a backyard. As a result, it is important to discuss with your EVA veterinarian your horse’s specific situation to develop a maintenance program and schedule that will provide maximum benefits to your horse and prevent problems.
  • Feeding - quality feeds on a regular schedule
  • Adequate / free choice water
  • Grooming
  • Adequate exercise
  • Hoof trimming / shoeing every 6-8 weeks
  • Deworming every 4-6 weeks
  • Vaccinations every 4-6 weeks
  • Physical Exam/ Oral exam - annually
  • Fecal evaluation - annually
  • Sheath cleaning - annually
Fecal Tests

It is wise to assess how well your parasite control program is working in your horse by occasionally checking the manure for parasite eggs shed by the adults living in the intestines. This is done by a process called a “fecal flotation” using a microscope and a special apparatus designed for concentrating the worm eggs.

Parasite eggs can be very sensitive to environmental changes. Therefore, to maximize the amount of information we can obtain, the fecal sample needs to be very fresh.  An old sample, or one that has been warmed up, may be misleading and thought to be negative, even though it was positive and the specimen had degraded to where the worm eggs were destroyed.

If you are bringing in a fecal sample, which should be checked at least once a year, please contact our office in advance. We do give discounts if more than five samples are run at the same time for the same owner.

Test results are usually available in twenty-four hours, and then a custom deworming schedule can be designed by your EVA veterinarian based on these test results.