Pre-purchase vettings, breeding services and castration may continue during lockdown in order to support horse welfare.

In guidance released last week, the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) stated that these are “not normal times” and it is not “business as usual”, but equine veterinary services cannot reasonably be provided without travel, so vets should continue to travel to their workplace (hospital or keepers’ premises).

“BEVA recognises that equine vets play an essential role in supporting the UK horse sector (an £8.5bn industry) and that their role is no less necessary than that of nannies, cleaners or tradespeople,” read the guidance.

“Many equine veterinary services can take place outside, and non-emergency veterinary activities can, with appropriate facilities, be performed in a Covid-safe fashion (following a risk assessment and appropriate mitigations to minimise the risk).”

BEVA considers that to comply with Government guidance, vets are bound to provide veterinary services in support of both equine welfare and the UK horse industry.

“This means that, where a risk assessment has provided a ‘Covid-safe’ way of working, vets should be able to carry out work that is essential to support horse welfare and the horse industry, despite the fact that it may not be considered essential to prevent immediate suffering,” it read.

Examples of these situations include vets attending race meetings, providing services for breeding, carrying out pre-purchase examinations for horse sales, and performing castrations.

“Breeding is a significant industry that has not been required to close by the Government,” read the guidance, adding that preventing veterinary involvement in breeding would either compromise welfare or fail to support the breeding sector.

“Castration is, given the structure of the industry, necessary to protect horses, protect humans and minimise inappropriate and unwanted pregnancies. Stopping castration will compromise animal welfare.”

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BEVA added that horse sales are an important part of the industry which are allowed to continue under Government guidance.

“Pre-purchase examinations are an essential part of the sales process. Stopping veterinary involvement in horse sales will compromise animal welfare with horses left unsold and sellers unable to look after unsold animals and it will stop horse sales (fail to support the sector),” read the guidance.

“BEVA is of the opinion that any guidance which arbitrarily blocks essential veterinary activities in support of the horse industry would compromise equine welfare and go against Government guidance on supporting sectors.”

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Two new healthcare and castration clinics will be held this autumn, following the success of pilot projects run earlier this year by the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) Trust.

More than 40 vets volunteered their services for the limited places available.

Due to the success of the clinics in May — a castration project in Southampton and a SPANA (Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad) regional CPD Meeting in Morocco — two new healthcare and castration clinics have been confirmed for the autumn. They will be in late September/October in the south west and south east.

Suitable colts and stallions will be identified and recruited at each location by charity welfare officers, and volunteer vets will castrate up to 30 horses at each event. In addition as many horses as possible will be wormed and vaccinated against tetanus, courtesy of animal health company Zoetis, and will also be microchipped and “passported”.

Bell Equine Vet Julian Samuelson, chair of the trust review committee, said: “These events not only reduce the opportunity for unintentional breeding but, more importantly, have also proven to be a great way of getting new groups of horse owners engaged with veterinary care. By coordinating the necessary veterinary expertise we hope BEVA Trust will make a significant contribution to their success.”

The BEVA Trust is the British Equine Veterinary Association’s philanthropic arm and was established almost 50 years ago.

The clinics have been organised by the BEVA Trust, together with the British Horse Society Blue Cross, Horseworld, Redwings Horse Sanctuary, the RSPCA and World Horse Welfare, and many veterinary volunteers have already offered their services.

Further clinics will be arranged over the next 12 months. For further information visit www.beva.org.uk.

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A new “Snip n’ Chip” programme — offering reduced-cost gelding and micro-chipping — has been introduced in Dublin to help tackle the growing horse crisis.

Thousands of horses are being neglected, dumped and in some cases left to starve due to overbreeding.

Dublin SPCA (DSPCA) is running the scheme. Horses will be collected and taken to University College Dublin for the procedure costing €100 (£79), which would usually cost around €250 (£156).

The plan has been in action only for a couple of weeks but a DSPCA spokesman told H&H they had already had some uptake on it.

“We are hoping it will go some way towards alleviating the overpopulation of unwanted horses in Dublin, but it will be a while before we will see the results,” she said.

“Each uncastrated and stray stallion can be responsible for fathering many foals over their lifetimes and this has to stop.”

In Britain, in an attempt to overcome the problem, the British Horse Society (BHS) runs a castration scheme, which has held a number of clinics this year.

“Providing subsidised castrations, micro-chipping and health checks has made such a difference to our work in tackling the UK horse crisis and we look forward to expanding the scheme further in 2015,” said the BHS’ Lee Hackett.

In July the RSPCA joined forces with the police, council and vets to hold an action day in Derbyshire to promote responsible ownership.

For a donation of £20, owners brought horses to have a health check by an specialist equine vet, micro-chipping, a passport application, worming and assistance with future castration.

A spokesman told H&H more days are planned.

This news story was first published in Horse & Hound magazine (6 November 2014).

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Equine groups across the US are campaigning for state-subsidised castration of the country’s stallions to reduce the number of unwanted horses.

The programme — Stallion to Gelding Support — was created by the Horse Protection Society (HPS) of North Carolina and has been taken up across the nation.

Both the Kentucky Horse Council and the Minnesota Horse Council are promoting the campaign which allows horse owners to claim a $100 voucher towards castration costs of stallions by a registered vet. The scheme is tax deductible for the equine groups.

Director of HPS, Susan Lurz, said: “This programme is the future. We cannot continue to let our rescues be inundated with horses that have been neglected or are in poor health as a result of poor breeding practices.

“People are putting stallions and mares together in the same pasture, letting them be, and they’re just producing foals like crazy.”

For more information, visit www.stalliontogeldingsupport.org

The Minnesota Horse Council will make owners attend eight horse husbandry seminars, designed to give the average owner a basic understanding of horse care, before the vouchers are handed over.

Essie Rogers, director of education for the Kentucky Horse Council said: “It is much more expensive to feed two extra horses every year than it is to castrate the one creating the extra horse.”

Tawnee Preisner, founder of NorCal Equine Rescue, agreed with the programme: “Everyone loves the cute little baby horses but there are thousands of babies produced every year who are unwanted.”

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Castration is a routine operation, but should not be taken for granted. As equine vet Richard Payne explains, every case is individual — and while most operations go smoothly, there can occasionally be potentially serious and expensive complications

“Castration, or gelding, is usually done for management reasons and can be carried out more or less at any age,” explains Richard, of Rossdale and Partners, Newmarket.

“Racehorses are usually castrated at the end of their two-year-old season. In other disciplines, breeders like to geld colts before weaning, because they feel it is less stressful.

“There are also occasions when mature stallions are castrated: with the older, fully developed horse there is a potentially greater risk of complication, such as herniation of the intestine.”

Local or general anaesthetic?

The horse’s age, size and previous handling may influence the vet’s decision about where and how to carry out the procedure, either standing under local anaesthetic and sedation, or under general anaesthetic.

There are pros and cons to be considered with each scenario, as Richard explains: “Under the standing category of surgery, it should be done as an open castration, where you open the site, remove the testicles and leave the wound to drain.

“This is a clean but not sterile operation: you try to make it as near sterile as possible, but you’re not in an aseptically prepared operating theatre. I feel that in standing surgery the wound should be left open, without tying anything off or putting in ligatures, because if there is any infection, it drains.

“There is a risk that if you put in a stitch or two, you can think you’ve done a really good job in keeping everything clean — but if infection creeps in, sutures can act as a focus for infection because bugs love ‘foreign bodies’. The worst scenario is that you end up with an abscess.”

In a perfect world, standing castration is performed in a clean environment such as a veterinary hospital, but Richard acknowledges that not all owners have easy access to these facilities. However, this procedure does demand that the horse has a reasonable temperament and has been handled correctly.

Tim Mair, a vet at a Kent equine hospital, says: “It’s usually impossible to castrate a foal when it’s standing, and small ponies are difficult and potentially dangerous to castrate standing. Also, certain breeds such as Shires and Standardbreds may be at an increased risk of evisceration (prolapse of intestine through the surgical wound) following the procedure, and this may affect how it is performed.”

The advantage of castration under a general anaesthetic is that surgery can be carried out in a sterile environment and the wound can be closed — but the risk of death under a general anaesthetic is currently estimated at about one in 100, for all types of surgery.

If either one or both of a colt’s testicles have not “dropped” then standing castration will not be an option. The testicles will have to located before they can be removed, which might involve keyhole surgery.

Aftercare

Correct aftercare means recovery from castration is usually quick; a racehorse can be back in canter work in seven to 14 days.

“After surgery, horses usually need some degree of controlled exercise, such as going on a horse-walker or walking in-hand for half an hour twice a day,” says Richard. “Strict rest is not a good option because it doesn’t reduce the swelling.

“With open castration, you need to wash the blood off the legs, but not interfere with the surgical site or you may let in infection. If horses are gelded in the paddock, you need to keep a close eye on them for the first 48hr. Muddy fields and dirty stables are not a suitable environment for newly castrated horses.

“I usually give five days of antibiotics, plus anti-inflammatories and analgesics as standard. To withhold pain-killing drugs is old-fashioned and inhumane.”

Potential problems

Routine castration is usually straightforward. But there can be complications, ranging from mild infection to serious risks such as evisceration, or peritonitis, an infection of the abdominal cavity.

“A lot of people worry about the risk of haemorrhage, but if surgery is done correctly it isn’t usually a major problem,” says Richard. “The occasional horse will bleed more than average and this should never be ignored, but it isn’t common.”

Schirrous cord is another rare but recognised problem. This is caused by infection in the stump of tissue left behind, which can result in the formation of a closed abscess.

“Over the first three to six months after castration, the horse will develop painful swellings in the groin,” explains Richard. “These may burst out, making you suspect that things have got better, but then you get a cycle of bursting and healing.”

This veterinary feature was first published in Horse & Hound (19 May, 2005)

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A true rig is a male horse that is carrying either one or two testicles concealed in its abdomen, making it visually appear to be a gelding, while behaving like a stallion. These horses are medically described as a cryptorchid, literally meaning “hidden testicle”.

A false rig is an aggressive gelding that displays male dominance-type behaviour, despite having both testicles removed. The stallion-like behaviour displayed by false rigs is not driven by testosterone, and can only be controlled by the correct management techniques.

Normally, the testicles migrate from the abdominal cavity into the scrotum just before or just after birth, but occasionally they may fail to descend or may get lost en route. This is called cryptorchidism. Approximately 15% of two- to three-year-old colts are rigs, so it is fairly common.

The male hormone testosterone is produced by the testicles, whether they are in their normal position in the scrotum or lurking somewhere inside the horse’s body. This means that rigs often display similar masculine behavioural characteristics (such as trying to cover in-season mares) to a stallion.

Rigs may be affected on one side (unilateral) or both sides (bilaterally). The unilateral rig will have one descended testicle in the scrotum and one undescended testicle, which is not visible from the outside. The bilateral rig, on the other hand, will have no testicles visible externally, with both retained somewhere inside the body.

Vets base their diagnosis of cryptorchidism on the horse’s history, palpation of the scrotum and blood tests, which identifies the male hormones secreted from the concealed testicle.

Unless a vet explores the area surgically, it is extremely difficult to feel accurately the position of the misplaced testicle. Most colts do not take too kindly to being groped and diagnostic aids such as ultrasound can yield confusing results.

The surgery (called a cryptorchidectomy) required to remove a retained testicle will depend on where that testicle is located. Various techniques are used depending on the location of the testicle and the surgeon’s particular preference and expertise. It is desirable to avoid a full abdominal exploration, as the risk of complications is higher and the recovery period longer.

Laparoscopic surgery, which involves a keyhole approach, may now be a better possibility for rigs that have the missing testicle located in the abdomen. In some cases, it can be performed on the standing, sedated animal, with the advantage of much smaller wounds and a faster recovery, but it requires appropriate equipment and a capable surgeon.

If the missing testicle can be seen with a laparoscope it can save a lot of the time that is sometimes spent searching the abdomen — meaning less stress for both horse and vet.

This veterinary article was published in full in Horse & Hound (5 August)

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Q: Should I have my 18-month-old colt castrated?

A: Your colt is already at an age where he is capable of fertilising a mare. If he’s allowed to remain an entire he will become more of a handful as he grows older.

Unless you are experienced in handling stallions and have the time and correct facilities, it would be kinder on all concerned to have your colt gelded. Otherwise, you’ll find it impractical to keep him with other horses.

Turning him out with geldings or stallions would increase the risk of serious injury while the presence of mares poses the problem of unwanted pregnancies.

Gelding your colt will not only make him sterile, but ensure he’s more docile and easier to control, especially around mares.

Q:What does the operation entail and will it hurt?

A: British law requires castration to be carried out by a qualified vet, using anaesthetic – so no, your colt won’t feel a thing!

The operation involves the removal of the testes, which will prevent your colt from developing further stallion-like characteristics.

Castration can either be carried out while your colt is standing – one method is when anaesthetic is injected deep into the testis – or lying down under general anaesthetic.

Most castrations are performed “open” – the wound through the scrotum being left open. The ‘closed’ technique seals off this opening.

Q: At what age should I have my colt castrated?

A: Castration can be carried out at any age although between six months and two years old is usually the norm, so now is certainly a good time.

However, some breeders prefer their colts to be gelded at three or four because the longer timespan allows them to develop further physically, although they’re likely to retain more sexual behaviour.

Q: When should the operation be carried out?

A: The best time of year is either spring, before there are too many flies about to pose the problem of infection, or in the autumn.

Most standing castrations are done in the stable and many colts are successfully gelded under general anaesthetic in a field.

However, some owners and many vets prefer to take their animals to an equine clinic in case complications arise.

Q: How long is the recovery period and when can I turn him out?

A: You’ll need to keep a close eye on the patient for 12 hours after the operation and then check him at regular intervals for the first week.

Turn the patient out afterwards as this will help encourage drainage and reduce the likelihood of swelling. In fact, exercise from the second day of recovery is recommended. Cleanliness, too, is very important.

Your vet may give post-operative antibiotics and will ensure your new gelding is protected against tetanus.

Ask him for any additional advice on nursing care. The wound should take about two weeks to heal. The neutered horse can remain fertile for some weeks so it’s advisable to keep mares and newly-gelded colts separate for at least a fortnight.

Q: Are there any risks or side effects to the operation?

A: Although castration is an uncomplicated and straightforward procedure in most cases, problems can still occur, although these are rare. Watch out for the following warningsigns:

• Bleeding — it’s common for a small amount of post-operative blood to drain away, but anything more than a trickle should be dealt with by a vet.
• Excessive swelling — some swelling is normal after castration but if it hasn’t resolved by 12 days after the operation, call your vet. Swelling probably indicates active infection.
• Anything dangling from the wound, such as when the abdominal contents escape, or herniate, through the gap — call a vet immediately.

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