Equine
Equine Emergency Preparedness
By Dr. Garrett Metcalf
There will come a time for every horse owner or trainer to experience an equine emergency situation. Horses like to harm themselves because they are prey animals. They only know that if something is scaring them they run away as fast as possible and it doesn’t matter what is in their way. These behavior traits often lead to emergency situations and hopefully this article will help horse owners be more prepared in those situations. This is making it difficult for equine owners to get emergency help and making it difficult for the currently practicing equine veterinarians to keep up with the demand, especially in emergency situations. The need for owners and trainers to be more prepared for emergency situations is rather important for the health of the horse and the health of your veterinarian. Most solo practitioners cannot be on call that much or at all after hours leaving most owners with the options of referral to a 24 hour facility or to manage the problem themselves until the next day. The goal of this article is to help horse owners to be prepared as they can be for emergency situations when they arise.
The equine veterinary community is experience a rather tough situation with the lack of graduating veterinarians entering the equine market. The latest statistics from American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) has found that only 1.3 percent of veterinary students start work in the equine field directly out school. There are 4.5 percent that enter an internship but out of this total amount roughly half this group will not continue working in equine practices by five years. To add to the problem more than 60 veterinarians are retiring from equine each year in the United States and this is expected to grow at a rate of three percent each year. To put another way there are on average 4,000 veterinary students that graduate each year and only 150 of them are entering some form of equine field with only 50 entering directly into practice.
To read more, pick up a copy of the November issue of NTFR magazine. To subscribe by mail, call 940-872-5922.
By Phillip Kitts
The mystique and imagined glory of the rodeo road call many young people’s names. As they grow up, they watch the greats of the sport run from rodeo to rodeo and occasionally land on the television giving the perception of the rockstar lifestyle.
No, the glory of the rodeo road is not as grand as, say, the National Football League or the National Basketball Association, but being an athlete competing in front of the yellow chutes of Vegas is just as big a deal, and in every way, can be compared to competing in a Super Bowl.
However, things sure are different in the rodeo world. Let us take a minute and talk about what seem to be simple things in life that impact rodeo and rodeo athletes that in no way would make a difference to the big-money sports.
To read more, pick up a copy of the April issue of NTFR magazine. To subscribe by mail, call 940-872-5922.
By Garrett Metcalf, DVM
It is common for horse owners to have a horse with a wound or laceration at some point in their life. Sometimes small lacerations can be perceived as benign, inconsequential problems that do not need immediate veterinary attention and are managed by the owners or trainers initially. Unfortunately, these simple-looking wounds can involve very important anatomical structures that can lead to serious infections that can be life-threatening or, at best career-limiting, for the horse.
Large wounds tend to get all the attention from owners or trainers because when they occur they are so obvious and visually appalling that medical attention is sought almost immediately. Those types of large wounds can be devastating, but they often involve the upper body regions of the horse, which heal better and often don’t involve structures such as joints or tendons.
To read more, pick up a copy of the March issue of NTFR magazine. To subscribe by mail, call 940-872-5922.
By Phillip Kitts
Have you ever wondered what the rodeo looks like for contract personnel in the winter?
This month we will look at what the winter months look like from the rodeo photographer’s perspective.
To understand the time and demands that go into a career as a rodeo photographer, let’s start at when the season gets busy. Not all rodeo photographers work the same. There are many varieties in their career field. They can vary from the few weekends here and there to the full-timer who travels more than 30 weekends a year.
The full-timer that spends most of their year working usually hits the road in late winter. Yes, the winter months are slower but the photographer who has cemented themselves into the field usually books a few during late winter.
Rolling into the spring it begins to get busy. Depending on the photographer, spring can start with an every other weekend type schedule all the way to every weekend through the summer. In 2023 there were photographers that had 20-plus weeks straight going from rodeo to rodeo.
When late fall rolls in things begin to slow down, even for the go-getter who books everything they can.
To read more, pick up a copy of the March issue of NTFR magazine. To subscribe by mail, call 940-872-5922.
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