Our online equine autumn newsletter is now available.
It’s been a long time since we’ve sent one of these, so firstly apologies for the newsletter silence! It has been a very strange year for everyone with COVID, partial lockdowns and the ‘pingdemic’, but all of us at the practice in the main have remained fit and well – by good fortune. It was also great to have a (nearly) full season of racing and competition, and it’s certainly kept us busy, not least with us being a vet down for the summer.
Despite that, we hope that we’ve continued to provide the service you expect and kept everybody out doing their thing, please let us know, we always want to improve.
New faces in the BEV’s team
The lack of newsletter has meant that some new faces haven’t been properly introduced,
although I’m sure that they’ve made themselves known either on the phone or on visits.
Jeanne went home to Ireland at the start of the summer, an unexpected consequence of
the pandemic, but we wish her well and we welcome two new vets this autumn as well
as a qualified Vet Nurse and a new face on reception who joined this summer
Hannah Cusack joined us on 20th September as a Veterinary
Surgeon. Hannah qualified in 2018 and is originally from
Ireland. She is joining us from a practice in Staffordshire,
having worked there and in equine practice in Lambourn
over the last few years.
In her spare time Hannah enjoys taking her dog Marley out
for walks and riding her horses Bob and Tuppence.
Ellie Marshall Smith also joined us in mid-September as a
Veterinary Surgeon working an Internship. She studied at
Liverpool, but she is originally from Otley and was always
keen to return home to sunny Yorkshire.
In her spare time, Ellie enjoys skiing, walking the dogs and
competing her horses Flo and Bill at local shows
Charlotte Craven started at Equine in the middle of June
as a Registered Veterinary Nurse after working for 5
years at Bishopton’s small animal department.
Charlotte has a golden retriever called Margo, two cats
called Dexter and Pepper. In her spare time, she likes
socialising, painting and watching rugby
Joy Rixon joined us at the end of March as part of the
admin team.
Joy lives on a small holding with some sheep, cattle and a
couple of horses. She enjoys spending her free time with
her grandson, Franky. Some of the clients who’ve been
with Stewart and Ben for many years may remember Joy
from Cow Myers a few years ago
Breeding season
As it comes to the end of the summer and we begin the Thoroughbred pregnancy scans
for October 1st terms, we’ve looked back on what was a busy breeding season. Natural
service was more popular this year, partly because we had some historically ‘tricky’
mares and partly as we have a few nice local stallions available. Pregnancy rates of over
80% for combined chilled and frozen AI was particularly pleasing.
More clients each year are looking to breed from their mares
to make use of mare of good breeding or ability. There are
many things to consider before breeding from a mare. The
first and most important question is why breed a foal.
Breeding from a sound, proven and well behaved mare gives
you the best starting point. Producing a foal from a mare
once she has failed or been injured in her previous role is
quite the opposite. Some career ending injuries are unlucky,
but historically we have been guilty of breeding from mares
purely because they are no longer sound enough to
compete. Some defects or injuries are more ‘heritable’, and
can be diluted to a certain extent by choice of stallion, but
the principles should remain – breed from sound stock.
We would always encourage people to chat to us before deciding to breed, so if you’re
‘researching’ suitable stallions on the internet as they loose jump ridiculous fences or
nearly shave their muzzle showing lengthened strides, have a think about the mare and
have a chat to us.