Equine Services
Preventative Health Care
Annual exams and immunizations help keep horses healthy and allow us to detect diseases before they become serious problems. Regular parasite prevention is a key part of preventive care, as is dental maintenance. Preventative health care allows us to reduce emergency calls in the middle of the night and helps horses live much longer and happier lives.
Reproduction
Breeding Soundness Examination
A breeding soundness exam, or BSE, is a necessary and practical expense for both breeder or buyer. They are done on both mares and stallions, and include a variety of tests to determine the breeding status of the animal and overall health of the reproductive system.
Mare BSE: Often when buying a mare, or prior to 
breeding your mare, a breeding soundness examination should be done. During a BSE, any reproductive problems such as cervical adhesions, uterine infections, or vaginal wind sucking can be identified and addressed. A pre-season BSE should be performed as early as January for April breeders. Often when finding a manageable problem, it can take time to identify and alleviate. If waiting until April, you can lose valuable weeks of your breeding season before your mare is sound to breed. Always remember that the mare's breeding history offers a voice to her past and my help determine where previous problems occurred.
Stallion BSE: Prior to purchasing a new stallion, considering a young stallion for his first breeding season, or entering the breeding season with a stallion with suspected low fertility, we recommend a thorough examination and evaluation of the reproductive tract (testicular size and shape) and semen. If your stallion is trained to mount the phantom and ejaculate into an artificial vagina, semen is collected and analyzed. Semen quality is determined based on progressive motility, concentration, volume, morphology, longevity and velocity. Bacterial cultures are also taken and semen can be test-cooled in several different extenders. We do provide phantom training to stallions.
Semen Collection & Processing (Fresh & Cooled)Stallion collections are performed at CCVS in our indoor collection facility. CCVS will provide a jump mare for aid in teasing and collecting. Semen is collected, analyzed, extended and can then be shipped from our lab or directly inseminated into the mare(s).
Artificial Insemination (Frozen, Fresh, & Cooled)
Artificial insemination allows breeding of your mare to a stallion from anywhere in the world without the risk of many diseases and/or injury during mating. At CCVS we can AI your mare using frozen, fresh, or cooled semen.
Post-Partum Examination
A post-partum exam should be performed on both the mare and foal within the first 24-48 hours after foaling to ensure the health of both mom and baby. Foals require a thorough examination with particular attention paid to their limbs, heart, lungs, umbilical cord and palate. Your foal can also be tested at this time to see if adequate colostrum was ingested. Your mare should be evaluated vaginally for trauma sustained during delivery. Examination of the placenta is necessary to ensure that it was passed in its entirety.
Embryo Transfer
Embryo transfer has emerged as a way to enhance a particular mare’s reproductive potential by maximizing her number of offspring. Embryo transfer has been used in fertile older mares unable to carry a foal to term, mares wanting to continue to show or train or mares with economic or sentimental importance. With embryo transfer, many performance mares are able to produce offspring without interruption of their show career. We maintain our own recipient herd at Haymaker Farm consisting of gentle, reproductively sound, young mares.
Dental Examination
The equine tooth is much different than the human tooth in that it continues to erupt throughout the life of the horse. As the teeth are in wear, sharp points form and can cause uncomfortable ulcers in the mouth. Because of this, annual dental examinations are needed to locate and correct problems before they start. Dental examinations should be performed starting at 6 months of age, and then every 6 months for growing horses. After the age of 5, a dental exam should be performed yearly for the mature horse, and every 6 months for the geriatric horse. A proper dental examination consists of sedating the horse and placing a full mouth speculum. Then, all of the teeth, the tongue and the cheeks are visualized and palpated. Following, a combination of mechanized and hand floats are utilized as needed, to adjust and/or maintain proper alignment and correctness.
Lameness Examination
A good lameness examination is essential to diagnosing soundness issues. Because veterinarians cannot ask their patients where it hurts, they are dependent upon visual cues from the horse as it moves. A lameness evaluation includes a physical exam, palpation of the limbs and joints, evaluating range of motion and joint flexion and watching the horse travel in a straight line and on a circle. Further diagnostics include nerve blocks, joint blocks, radiographs, and ultrasound. The initial diagnostic work-up may be performed in the field as long as a firm, even surface is available. However to ensure quality radiographs and a controlled environment for nerve blocks we strongly recommend performing these exams at our clinic.
Surgery
Here at CCVS, minor surgical procedures can be performed. Some of the common procedures performed include: castration, laceration repair, and hernia repair.
Emergency Care
CCVS offers 24 hour emergency service in the event of an emergency. After hours and on weekends, our phones are turned over to an answering service that will contact the on-call doctor immediately. Please call 402-254-3577.
