Our equine vets have a great deal of experience dealing with horses and ponies of all shapes and sizes.

The care we provide is both reactive and proactive because we believe that preventative health is equally as important as treating an animal when it becomes unwell. As such we provide health care plans, vaccination and worming schedules, nutritional advice and quarterly equine newsletters.

We provide an ambulatory service, visiting your horse at home. Treatment is carried out in situ, including selected surgical procedures.

When necessary, we work closely with local referral centres, farriers, physiotherapists and chiropractors.

1. Vaccination Protocols

At Market Veterinary Centre we believe that preventative medicine is important, and vaccination forms a central part of this philosophy. We are happy to advise on the most suitable vaccination protocol for your horse or pony.

2. Parasite Control Plans

Worming is the second most important cornerstone of equine preventative medicine. We can advise on suitable parasite control protocols, dependent upon the individual management system for your horse, and offer an in-house worm egg counting service.

3. Diagnostic Work ups

Should your horse become unwell, we will visit your horse and, following an examination, perform any diagnostic tests that may be required in order to reach the diagnosis. This includes procedures such as blood sampling and local anaesthesia for lameness diagnosis.

4. Mobile radiography

Our digital x-ray machine is portable, and if necessary, can be transported to your horse in order to take good quality x-rays.

5. Mobile Ultrasound

Our ultrasound machine can be taken to your premises and is suitable for both the imaging of damaged tendons and ligaments and also for pregnancy diagnosis.

6. Dentistry

We have a Hausmanns gag and extensive range of manual dental equipment, allowing us to provide routine dental care for your horse. Sedation may be required  for dental treatment. If, following oral examination, your horse requires advanced dental treatment we can arrange this for you.

7. Laboratory

Our practice labratory allows us to be able to analyse blood samples from emergency cases the same day.

We can also carry out worm egg counts, both to check if your horse needs worming, or to check if the class of wormer that you have used has been effective.

Hair and skin samples can be examined microscopically for parasites or cultured for ringworm.

In some cases samples taken from your horse will need to be sent to an external laboratory for examination.

8. Passports

All horses in the UK should be accompanied by an equine passport. Since 1st July 2009, all horses must be microchipped at the time of passport application. There are many companies that your horse can be registered with, and it is the owners choice as to which company you use. You need to provide the application forms for us to fill in. In most cases these can be downloaded from the internet. We fill out the paperwork and microchip your horse, as required by the passport issuing authorities.

For more information on equine passports please visit the DEFRA website.

Your horse’s passport also contains the record of your horse’s vaccinations and a medication control section. PLEASE ENSURE YOU HAVE YOUR PASSPORT WITH YOU WHEN WE TREAT OR VACCINATE YOUR HORSE. In an emergency, if your passport is not available, we will still be able to treat your horse, however the range of medicines that we can use may be restricted.

9. Pre-purchase examinations

Buying a new horse is an important decision. We can carry out an examination of your horse prior to purchase in order to assess his health and soundness. A certificate is issued which details the findings of the examination. You may be required to present this certificate to your insurance company if you insure your horse for vets fees or loss of use.

10. Insurance

We recommend that all owners should consider insuring their horses for vets fees. This provides peace of mind for you as an owner. We are happy to discuss insurance with you, however we cannot recommend any particular company and do not sell insurance.