EQUIVET AUSTRAILA - NEWSLETTER - SPRING 2005
Spring has sprung & Susanne (pronounced Susanna) has got married!!! Susanne came to us almost 18 months ago & I thought I had found the perfect associate; totally dedicated & professing total disinterest in all males! Within a few months Paul had changed all that, whisked her away to Fiji & now she is Mrs Brundell !! I am sure you will all join with me & all at Equivet in congratulating them & wishing them all the best for their life together. Susanne has proved an invaluable part of the practice & we look forward to a long association with her. They will continue to live on the farm at Pilton.
Robyn & I had another enjoyable sojourn in the United Kingdom. Although, it appears to get busier every year, (or am I just getting older?) We came home through the United States & visited the Michigan State & Colorado State universities. Both were excellent & very generous with their time & knowledge. We learnt a lot on Ovum Aspiration and Superovulation & saw their Embryo Transfer programme. Robyn will speak more on these at our Seminar Day. Finally we finished off the trip stopping in at an equine veterinary conference in Queenstown, New Zealand. This conference was dedicated more to lamenesses than stud medicine but was very rewarding. We didn't try our hand at any skiing; they need to invent a way of doing it without that cold slippery snow everywhere!!
Eric Klaui & Alex Newcombe will have arrived by the time you are reading this. Their furniture will arrive a month later & then I will start to believe they are here permanently. We look forward to Eric's input into the practice. It is an enormous move for Alex in particular & I hope you will all welcome them into our community. They will live at or near Warwick to primarily service our clients there but I am sure we will see him often enough around Toowoomba & Southbrook. Alex is both a human and equine physiotherapist and she has developed an expanding list of equine clients in the Midlands in the United Kingdom. Her human work has been in the rehabilitation services of a large county hospital.
I hope as many of you as possible will join us at our Seminar Day on August 28th. Have a look at the enclosed programme; we have tried to include something for everyone. We will be circulating a questionnaire on the day to determine if you would like it to be an annual feature &, if so, should it be over two days or one? Perhaps one day for the Thoroughbreds & natural service & one for the rest covering artificial breeding. If we do make it an annual feature, we plan to hold it each year on the first weekend of August. I have been acutely conscious over recent years that I have not reciprocated the kindness shown by many of you to us at Christmas time because of work commitments. I hope that this day will make for partial repayment. If you are in receipt of this newsletter, you are invited but please feel free to invite any staff that may be interested. However, PLEASE, we must have an RSVP (with numbers) at least a week before for catering purposes (or else you may have no chair and go hungry).
Abortions & Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome (M.R.L.S.) is still proving a problem on many farms. There are many reasons why mares abort - some noninfectious (e.g. twins, umbilical cord problems, placenta not coping, poisonous plants, certain medications etc.), some infectious (e.g. Equine Herpes Viruses 1,4 bacterial and fungal infections). Although it may appear that we are no closer to resolving the problem, I do believe that we are making progress in defining some causes. There does appear to be growing circumstantial evidence that the progressionary caterpillars are involved in some cases. There have been few abortions/resorptions where there are no trees & no caterpillars. I do implore you to continue to submit your aborted foeti & placenti to the Toowoomba Veterinary Laboratory or the Scone Veterinary Laboratory or contact us so that we can take further samples. Even though progress has been slow, we can only progress if we continue to look & learn. I am hoping we can dedicate some time to this subject at our Seminar day.
Stallion Swabs. On the Thoroughbred stud side, to decrease the incidence of particular venereally transmitted infections, everybody knows that their mares have to be swabbed before going to stud each year but all too often stallion owners forget their obligation to swab their stallions in advance of the breeding season. Please let us know if you want your stallion swabbed. Also, for his sperm - feed Omega 3 oils starting now. (Mitavite Performa-3 has the highest amount). Accounts. Some of you remain in arrears from the last breeding season! While we try to be lenient with those who are experiencing difficulties, I am sure you will understand that we cannot continue to offer credit forever. I must insist that all accounts remaining outstanding from the 2004 breeding season are settled before we start on the 2005 season. If you are experiencing difficulties, please let us know so that we can come to some arrangement. I can assure you that ignoring the problem will not make it go away. (I know because I have tried it!!) Similarly if you have a problem with your account, please let Vanessa or Lindy in the office know so that we can sort it out. Mistakes do happen & it may simply be our mistake. Many of you have been generous enough to point out to us when we have made mistakes to our expense, so please let us know if it happens the other way round.
No doubt there will be no more newsletters until after Christmas so let me take the opportunity of wishing you all a very early Merry Xmas & all the best for the breeding season ahead. No doubt it will be full as usual with our share of triumphs & disappointments.
MAX