SARAH: Hi, SmartPak fans.
I'm SmartPaker Sarah, and she's Dr. Lydia Gray,
Staff Veterinarian and Medical Director at SmartPak.
And we're back with another month of Ask the Vet Questions.
In addition to all the awesome questions
that we get from fans like you, we also
get some pretty great comments, both on the videos--
DR LYDIA GRAY: Oh, right, yeah.
SARAH: --and also sent to our Customer Care team.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah, yeah.
SARAH: And I've got to tell you, those sometimes make my week.
You guys leave really great comments for us.
And so we wanted to highlight just a couple of them.
DR LYDIA GRAY: (SNIFFLING) Do we have Kleenex.
SARAH: I know.
Some of them are really great.
So the first one was from Kate, posted on YouTube.
And Kate said, "I really want to thank
you ladies for doing these videos--"
which is really nice that she thinks we're ladies.
"In the age of technology, you'd think
we could just Google the answers to these questions.
But in many of these videos--"
DR LYDIA GRAY: Right?
SARAH: "--you talk about conditions like HYPP that
I've never heard of before and therefore wouldn't have even
known about to be able to seek out more knowledge.
Thank you for being so educational
and growing my knowledge so I can keep an eye out
for these things."
DR LYDIA GRAY: So sweet.
SARAH: And a little heart emoji, which is very nice.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah, thank you.
SARAH: So that's awesome.
We love that.
And then we also got a great one from Lola.
Actually, Lola Loves Stra Stable-
almost missed that part--
and also on YouTube.
And I'm just going to read this as best I can.
"OMG OMG OMG!!!"
Three exclamation points.
"I love you, Sarah!"
Exclamation point.
All caps.
And then the heart eyes emoji, which is my personal favorite
to use and I overuse.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Which one is that?
SARAH: The one with the heart eyes.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Oh.
SARAH: She really loves you.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Oh, I haven't seen that one.
SARAH: I'll send it to you in the next time I text you.
She says, "You're my idol and I want to be just
like you when I grow up."
And I think if you knew me better, that might not be true.
She also goes on to say, "I'm nine
and my parents can't afford lessons for me
to ride so I'm going to wait till I'm older."
More heart eyes emoji and then the kissy face emoji--
DR LYDIA GRAY: Wow.
SARAH: --which is very sweet.
And I want to say, do not give up
because we had a fellow SmartPaker Sara, not
me, but my best friend, who was our VP of Creative
and worked at SmartPak for almost 10 years.
And she did not get to ride horses as a kid
because she would repeatedly break her arm.
And she would break her arm doing things like cartwheels.
And so her parents were understandably a little
bit nervous.
And she didn't ride-- she didn't get her own horse
until after she graduated college
when she first got Diem.
DR LYDIA GRAY: I didn't know that, oh.
SARAH: And she was a competitive eventer
and obviously came and changed the world
four hooves at a time at SmartPak with us.
So you have lots of horses in your future
if you stick with it.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Cool.
SARAH: Yeah.
So those are reactions.
We love your comments.
We're always listening.
We read all of them, even though we
don't have time to read all of them in the videos.
But without further ado, let's jump into the questions.
Our first question was asked by Maria,
who used the Ask the Vet form at SmartPak.com/AsktheVetQuestions.
And Maria is wondering, "As it relates to horse health,
what are the pros and cons of straw bedding?"
An unexpected question.
DR LYDIA GRAY: It is.
And it's unexpectedly controversial.
SARAH: Ooh, I like it.
DR LYDIA GRAY: You think, straw bedding, it's just a substance,
there's facts.
Well, there's a lot of opinions, too, when it comes
to what to bed horses with.
Because there's the straw that's very traditional.
You see it in a lot of racetrack barns with broodmares.
There's wood shavings, wood pellets, even sawdust.
At my barn, we use flax.
You can buy hemp.
There's sand.
You can bed horses on sand if you do it carefully.
Peat moss is popular in some areas.
So a lot of it has to do with availability, right, cost,
delivery, storage.
The cleaning style and the utensils, the equipment
you need is very different.
The disposal, like some places you can spread it in fields,
you can sell it to other places.
Some places you can put it in landfills.
I mean, you can compost it.
So there's a lot of opinions and preferences.
A lot of it comes down to preferences.
There is some scientific facts and research
about straw and some others.
Some people think that straw is very-- it can
be very clean and dust free.
However, for the researchers who are studying airway disease,
respiratory inflammation, when they want to challenge a horse
and create the allergic signs-- the coughing and the heavy
breathing so that they can then try a treatment to see if it
works--
they bed them on straw.
So that says, if you already have
a horse that has a respiratory illness,
straw maybe is not a good choice.
A lot of people have gone to the shredded paper or cardboard.
That's very, very clean.
You learn how to clean the stall, the wet and the dry
with it and then how to dispose of it.
I will say, personal experience, because I have
a horse with airway disease.
I put the paper bedding in the trailer as my travel bedding.
And that wasn't a good choice because it's very light.
SARAH: No?
So when the windows open, it's--
DR LYDIA GRAY: And it blows away.
Yeah.
SARAH: I can only imagine what you looked
at when you opened the door.
DR LYDIA GRAY: It was kind of a mess.
So it's good in the stall.
SARAH: Poor Newman.
DR LYDIA GRAY: And in the stall even you
might have to just dampen it with like a watering can
or a hose on mist or something.
So there's the dust and the mold aspect.
And that's a big one.
The other is, it's potentially edible for horses
that might not be so picky, might be on a diet,
and they're like, "Huh, roughage, I'll
just nibble on this."
And you think, on the one hand, that's OK.
It's just sort of, you know, filler.
But it is so stemmy that it tends to cause impactions.
And that's not something you want.
So that's worrisome.
And then it's not very absorbable.
Straw is great for cushion and padding.
But you have to bed super, super deep.
And then you have to learn how to clean
a super deep bedded stall.
But still, the urine doesn't get absorbed by the straw.
It travels down and is underneath it.
So then if you have a nice mat or mattress, even of straw,
they don't ever touch that urine.
But you have to bed so deep for them not to get wet from it.
SARAH: Right, right.
DR LYDIA GRAY: So some people just
can't deal with that issue of it in general.
And they skip straw.
But if it works for you, great.
If it's not in your horse's best interest for medical reasons,
there's lots of good alternatives.
SARAH: Awesome.
One thing I want to call out from your answer
because I know it's important to you personally--
DR LYDIA GRAY: OK.
SARAH: --you mentioned that in some areas,
you can dispose of it by spreading it on a field.
You never spread manure on a field
that the horses go out in.
DR LYDIA GRAY: No, not-- never a live grazed field.
SARAH: Yes, because that would be potential to spread
parasites to those horses.
Because by spreading the manure, you're
just spreading the parasites right
where the horses are grazing, which is exactly what they want
and not what we want.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Right, right.
SARAH: So if you have, like, farming fields
and you want to spread it as a fertilizer,
depending on your bedding source,
that's great, never for grazing.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Right.
SARAH: I didn't want you--
DR LYDIA GRAY: Thank you for bringing that up.
SARAH: I didn't want you to watch it later and be
like, what have I done?
DR LYDIA GRAY: Oh!
[LAUGHS]
SARAH: Question two, this is a name that I am not sure.
Agnieszka.
Agnieszka, very sorry because I'm
certain that is wrong, on YouTube.
"When should one call the vet for the horse?
And please do not say 'in any situation when you are not
sure.'" Ooh, I love that.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Darn.
SARAH: "Because that is almost all of the time
and would become very expensive and bothersome to the vet.
Aside from trauma, what are some obvious signals to do so?"
And this is a great question.
Because I think anyone who looks at their horses is like,
that seems minor, but could also be terrible.
Should I call the vet?
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah, right.
And I looked at something last night
for someone here who was like, "Is this something I
should call the vet for?
What should I do?"
And so I triaged it right there for her.
I love-- can I just say I love being told what I can and can't
say on an answer.
SARAH: Yeah, this is clearly someone who's watched before.
DR LYDIA GRAY: All right, so I got this question a lot
in my career.
And I divided this up into three categories.
And so situation one is the true emergencies.
And the vet has to come out right now.
So I'm just going to read the list so I don't leave anything
off, because that would be bad.
To me, anything dealing with the eye--
squinting, tearing, cloudy, those are all emergencies.
Because the eyes can go bad fast.
If you're completely unable to bear weight on a limb
or to stand, or you can't move at all; laminitis, which
is the front feet, usually; colic; neurologic signs, that's
an emergency; profuse bleeding, clearly; full thickness skin
lacerations; punctures or wounds, actually
near joints, because they might look insignificant,
but they could be career and potentially life threatening;
choke, which is not in people where they get something stuck
in the airway, but it's something stuck
in the esophagus - still a problem;
difficulty breathing; extremely high fevers,
and those I would call like above 103;
and then difficulty foaling, that's clearly an emergency.
So those are the ones that you don't wait on.
You don't worry about what time of day it is
or if your vet is going to be mad or whatever.
But you just, you just call.
SARAH: Can you explain how you can
tell if something is full thickness on a skin laceration?
DR LYDIA GRAY: If you can see the underlying structures,
I guess, generally if there's flaps
I think they're full thickness.
I guess if you can see the complete edges of the skin.
That's a really good question.
I'm not sure.
I'll have to think about it and maybe answer next time.
SARAH: OK.
DR LYDIA GRAY: But yeah, versus like a scrape.
Like a scrape, a horse walked into the stall
and scraped his hip might be a partial thickness.
Versus the one I saw last night was unfortunately
full thickness, had cut across the fetlock.
And you could see the underlying structures.
SARAH: So that's two strikes.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah, it was a really big--
SARAH: That's near a joint and it's full thickness.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah, yeah, it was bad.
And so that's situation one, always an emergency.
Situation two, it's an emergency,
and the vet still needs to come out, but like that day.
So these are drop everything, doesn't
matter what the vet's doing, they're on another call,
they're on the phone, you drop it and you come out.
The next category is, I need to see it, I need to see it today.
But I don't have to drop everything.
I could do it maybe the end of the day or around lunchtime.
And two examples of that one would
be, like, lameness, serious lameness, a three
or four out of five, not a five out of five like a top one.
And then hives, because you don't
know if the hives is going to get worse or the same or better
on its own.
So may as well have the vet come out
and prescribe something that makes
the horse more comfortable.
Because hives can get--
I had a horse once that somebody put not just dilute iodine on--
they meant to give an iodine bath for, like, rain rot
or something.
They used tincture of iodine.
All over the horse.
And this horse was like somebody just--
I mean it was violent.
And that was an emergency.
And then the last situation is, you call your vet
and you both agree it's not serious, an emergency right
now.
And maybe you have the skills to manage it.
So this is an example, those not full thickness
wounds so the partial thickness wounds
and also like a low grade fever, like it's 102 or it's 101.
You're like, mm, I think I'll just watch that.
Because I haven't seen any respiratory signs yet
or I haven't seen any diarrhea.
So maybe it's just a mild low grade fever and in a day,
it'll be totally fine.
The point of all these is, and this person
is not going to like this answer,
but I would always call the vet.
And together between the two of you--
because you have to know your comfortableness, your ease
at handling these, and your experience with horses and what
equipment you have on hand.
And then talking through the full and partial thickness
wound I think was really good.
Call your vet.
And between the two of you, decide,
do you need to come out right now, drop everything,
do you need to come out later today, or maybe I just watch it
and maybe you come out next week or you don't come out at all
because I can handle it.
Those are the three situations.
SARAH: And in a lot of instances,
your vet will be able to ask you questions
to help determine which of those criteria it is--
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah.
SARAH: --just in terms of the location of the injury
and how deep it is.
And they can give you things to look for or not look for
and rule out that can help them decide,
is this something that I need to interrupt my day for
or is this something that we can both decide
we can deal with this later, we can keep an eye on it,
we can monitor it and check in tomorrow.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yes.
SARAH: I will agree.
I was a surgical vet tech for a few years.
And I still call my vet with almost every concern I have.
Because that was the biggest thing
that I learned at the clinic was,
if you try to manage it on your own,
you often end up in more trouble and with a more expensive
treatment on the other end.
DR LYDIA GRAY: That's exactly right.
SARAH: Yeah.
DR LYDIA GRAY: And don't think of your vet,
don't think of it as an adversarial relationship.
You know, they want you to call them.
It's better for you and your horse if you call them.
They're your best advocate.
I mean, so I would talk to them.
I call lots of vets all the time.
SARAH: It's true.
I do too.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah.
SARAH: And I will say, it's not--
the reaction is never like, "Oh, this person
thinks that they might need a farm call, that sounds
like a lot of money for me."
Their reaction is usually like, "Oh, boy,
how am I going to fit this into my day?
Let's see if this is really an emergency or not."
So it's not like, "Oh, good, the opportunity to go to the barn."
DR LYDIA GRAY: No, and you're not bothering them.
I get that question a lot.
And it's just not, that's not how vets think at all.
SARAH: I mean, they went to four years of school
to talk about this kind of stuff.
All right, question number three is submitted by Jen K and Ray
or jen_kandray, I don't know which, on Instagram.
And Jen is wondering, "My gelding
makes weird noises with his sheath when we work."
I can't believe it took us this long to get this question.
DR LYDIA GRAY: I was thinking the same thing.
SARAH: "I'm told that it's air.
Is that true?
What is the cause?
Is there anything I can do about it?"
DR LYDIA GRAY: You know, this was something
that I didn't understand until I got to college.
Yeah, because I was somewhere and the horse was making it.
And I was like, I wonder what that sound is.
And all my friends stopped and went, "you don't know?"
So I know now.
But so we'll make sure that does not happen to you.
SARAH: Yeah, well, we don't know how old you are.
DR LYDIA GRAY: That's right.
SARAH: It may be too late for you.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah, it may be too late.
I found a description of this on something.
And I just want to read it because I can't say it better
than this person said it.
And it's quite short.
And it's just very good.
But it's an app called Horse Side Guide.
And they call it "an odd groaning or squeaking
sound originating from the sheath can
occur when a male horse--" so that's an important point--
"stallion or gelding trots.
And it's thought to be caused by a tensing
of the abdominal muscles, causing air
to be sucked into the sheath.
It's especially noticeable at the extended
or the animated trot as pressure is
created in the sheath with the stretching
of the abdominal wall with the increased length of stride."
I put this in all caps because it's really important.
"it is considered a normal finding.
Since the sound is caused by muscle tension and pocketed air
pressure within the sheath, it may or may not
lessen or disappear after sheath cleaning."
People think, well, it's making a sound
so I should clean it, which is a reasonable conclusion,
but not necessarily, like--
SARAH: Not a squeaky wheel needs the grease situation.
DR LYDIA GRAY: No, and that was an excellent analogy.
SARAH: Thank you.
DR LYDIA GRAY: So it's not a cause of concern
unless other signs accompany it.
"In rare cases, sounds can come from deep wounds
to the armpit or groin.
A sucking sound can be heard sometimes
after a horse has been castrated.
And in this case, the sound is caused
by air being sucked into an open incision.
But it's a very different sound.
And it occurs at the walk."
So the last point they make is, "if you
remain concerned about this observation,
then talk to your vet."
From some other places I found, someone
called this "the gelding sound," which I thought was great.
SARAH: Yep.
DR LYDIA GRAY: And they likened it
to less of a veterinary medical issue
and more of a training issue or behavioral issue.
So that if your horse is tense, tight, stiff, even unbalanced,
stressed, then they tend to be tight
and the factors are set up for the sound to be made.
But if ridden correctly with a long, stretched round top line,
an engaged core, and sort of relaxed in the head, you know,
mentally, then the tension that causes that squeak
or that groaning, it doesn't, it doesn't happen.
SARAH: Interesting.
DR LYDIA GRAY: So might be a question
that you want to pose to a trainer instead
of a vet or both and see what they say.
SARAH: I have not heard that.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah.
SARAH: Wow, all right.
DR LYDIA GRAY: So there you have it.
SARAH: There we go, the gelding noise.
DR LYDIA GRAY: The gelding noise.
SARAH: I would have put money on episode
one we got that question.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Me too, me too.
SARAH: Because it is a very common one.
Although, I get it a lot--
DR LYDIA GRAY: Or at least year one.
SARAH: Yeah.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Gosh.
SARAH: I get it a lot from non-riders.
My husband was very disturbed the first time
that he heard it.
Question four was submitted by Emily on the Ask the Vet Form.
And Emily is wondering, "I was wondering
what you thought about using bone health supplements
on a horse with navicular.
Horse in question was first X-rayed in 2011.
Since then has had a regular Osphos and has stayed
sound for normal work.
Would a bone supplement help keep the horse sound
as she gets older?
Will one even help with a horse with navicular?"
DR LYDIA GRAY: This was a great question.
Obviously, this person has done a lot of their homework,
their research on navicular.
We have answered a navicular question in general on this.
So I would encourage you to look that one up.
Because it delves more into the difference between navicular
syndrome and navicular disease, and the diagnosing,
and treating, and managing and farrier work and all that.
I think it's important to say here today that navicular now,
with our enhanced imaging modalities,
it used to be thought of as just a degenerative bone disease,
there's a navicular bone.
And now we know that, with MRI and other techniques,
that the navicular apparatus or all
of the soft tissue in the bursas and joints that
surround that bone, they can be affected too.
So it doesn't have to be bone that's the problem.
It can be the deep digital flexor tendon.
It can be the navicular bursa, the impar ligaments.
There's a lot of other structures there.
SARAH: Which is why I think more people are
starting to refer to it as caudal heel pain syndrome.
Because it just generally describes back of the heel
is what we're dealing with.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yep, yep.
So in her case, it does sound like maybe they
have either identified it as the bone itself--
at least it's working.
SARAH: And she talks about the X-rays in 2011.
DR LYDIA GRAY: And the Osphos is working.
SARAH: Right.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah.
SARAH: And so it seems like they've identified
and are monitoring bony changes.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah, so the Osphos
is a bisphosphonate, which is a bone--
it keeps the bone from remodeling and turning over.
And the osteoclast, which tear down bone,
it slows down that process.
And so the bone doesn't sort of dissolve, disintegrate away.
In that case, I think a bone health supplement
might be appropriate.
Because that's-- having those ingredients on board,
if this process is really going on, might be beneficial.
Because there's a couple of things.
The category of ingredients in bone health supplements
are big macrominerals like calcium and phosphorus
and magnesium that actually go into building
the matrix of the bone, the mineralization phase of it.
But then there's microminerals and vitamins and other factors
that are important in the actual construction
of this scaffolding, you know, if you
think of it, things like boron and silicone
and strontium and manganese, copper, zinc,
there's lots of little things that
are important in the reactions and the actual building
and construction of bone.
So I think it's a great question to ask your veterinarian
because you're on a prescription medication
and you have a diagnosed disease.
That's a good question to ask your vet.
I think it does make sense.
Now for the ones that are navicular syndrome because
of the soft tissue, it might not.
Because they probably wouldn't positively
affect like a deep digital flexor tendon or an impar
ligament or something, so.
SARAH: Right, but there certainly
are supplements that can help with soft tissue health
and normal function.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah, yeah, and medications
too so once you've diagnosed it and you
know what the tissue is that's the problem, bone,
joint, soft tissue, then you can go down
the path of, what does that particular tissue need
for support?
SARAH: Yeah.
If you are in the market for a bone health supplement,
we do have a subcategory within our joint supplements category.
And you can find some of these products that I have behind me.
And you can always, of course, call our supplement experts
for help, getting a list of options
that you can then go over with your veterinarian,
look at the ingredient list and figure out,
is this going to be right for what we think the diagnosis
and what your horse's situation is?
DR LYDIA GRAY: Right, exactly.
SARAH: OK, last but not least, littlegreyjumper
on Instagram, which is just an adorable name--
DR LYDIA GRAY: It's cute, yeah.
SARAH: --is wondering, "what's the best
way to deal with ticks?"
Oh, god.
Ticks.
It really is.
It's that time of year.
"As summer is approaching, more and more riders
are trail riding, and trails mean ticks.
I always find them on my horse and I'm not
sure about proper removal.
How should we treat the wound after pulling the tick out?
Any good prevention tactics?
My horse gets nasty swollen bites.
Any SmartPak supplements or products to help?"
DR LYDIA GRAY: Fun fact, when I was looking this up--
because I don't, where I live, I don't have a lot of ticks,
so I had to look some stuff--
I used to.
SARAH: This feels like bragging.
DR LYDIA GRAY: I used to.
Ticks have been around for 100 million years.
And they think that they probably
preyed on the dinosaurs.
So T-rex was walking around with his little arms and he
couldn't get ticks because he got--
SARAH: Can you imagine how much grosser Jurassic
Park would have been?
DR LYDIA GRAY: With ticks.
SARAH: It's just combining?
DR LYDIA GRAY: You're like, wait, stop,
I have to pick a tick off.
SARAH: Dino DNA.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah.
Well, anyway, ticks-- let's talk about prevention first.
And then we'll get to removal and all that.
SARAH: Yeah.
DR LYDIA GRAY: So--
SARAH: Prevention is the first step, ideally.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah, that's the ideal thing
because ticks can pass along a variety of really
bad diseases--
Lyme disease, and anaplasmosis, and there's some other ones.
But they all depend on the part of the country.
And also the kind of tick you're dealing with,
it ranges in different parts of the country.
In general though, they like the same habitat.
They like a shady, out of the sun, a little bit
damp, nice humidity, sort of a brushy overgrowth kind of area.
SARAH: Like a trail.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Like a trail.
SARAH: Like exactly like a trail.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Like a trail, yeah.
They like trees.
They don't like open pastures that just have grass.
So the first thing is, manage your habitat.
And if you're riding on the trail, I mean, you know,
that's something different.
But at home, don't pasture your horses in wooded areas.
Maybe temporary fencing to keep them out of the brush.
You might have to use a pesticide,
like a perimeter spray that's safe for everything,
every kind of creature.
You've got people, kids, dogs, horses, whatever.
Keep the property clear of brush and overgrowth and lawn
trimmings and that sort of thing.
Because places where ticks would live, and breathe, and breed,
and all that stuff.
The second thing is, then I think
this is the trail appropriate part, is the products.
So when you're picking a product that is to repel ticks,
use something that says ticks on the label.
The best product it appears, if you
don't go with a natural product, is a Permethrin.
Permethrin looks like-- I mean, it
has the best evidence that it repels ticks.
And if you go to, like, the CDC or the NIH website
for human tips--
because it's also very important that you don't get ticks--
they'll tell you to spray your clothes
down outside with a Permethrin-based product.
SARAH: Spraying your clothes down
and also you can spray your horse's boots down.
If you can go really heavy on things like your horse's boots
and your shoes is a good way for you
to kind of avoid having to douse yourself
or your horse in Permethrin.
DR LYDIA GRAY: On your skin.
SARAH: Because obviously, some of those things
can be a pro and a con.
DR LYDIA GRAY: And they tell you concentrate,
because the ticks aren't like flying.
They don't have wings.
They're not jumping.
What they're doing is-- it's really cool.
They have eight legs, right?
So on a blade of grass or a leaf of something,
they hang on with their six bottom legs.
And they stick their two top legs out.
And they wait for you to walk by.
And then they catch your pant leg or your horse leg
or whatever.
SARAH: Terrible.
DR LYDIA GRAY: So they say to concentrate your product
on the horse's legs or the underbelly.
And then I changed to undercarriage, which
made me think of a car wash.
You know, when you're getting the salt off your car?
SARAH: Yep.
DR LYDIA GRAY: So think of that.
Think of ticks are coming from the ground up.
They're always seeking up.
And they're finding the movement and the vibration
and the heat and the carbon dioxide.
And they've got those two front legs out.
And they're just catching on.
But if you've got a product, something low,
they're less likely to be attracted to your horse then.
That's good.
SARAH: If you have your horse out in an area where you think
he's grazing, like my horse, we'd
go back and graze in some parts of the property
that we'd definitely get ticks when go back there,
so I use a roll on around his muzzle.
DR LYDIA GRAY: OK, OK.
SARAH: Because they will absolutely
crawl right on the face.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah.
SARAH: Because he's in there.
DR LYDIA GRAY: And so once they do crawl on,
the places they like, they prefer, they
have not much hair, so thin hair, and also thin skin.
So the head, ears, the throat latch,
so the underside of horses, the armpits, and the groin area,
so where the legs attach, those are big areas.
They also like to crawl into the mane and tail.
It's very thin skin when you get in there deep.
And it's protected.
And so you might find a lot of ticks in a mane and tail.
And the best way to find them-- because now we're on the tick
check portion of the program--
is not looking so much, because it
might be the same color as your horse,
but it's getting your fingers and nails
in there and like feeling, which sounds a little gross,
but you've got to do it.
All right, so now we're on the removal portion.
Let's say you find one.
There's a lot of old wives tales out there about what to do.
I just heard five minutes ago--
SARAH: Not from me.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Not from her.
"Put dish soap on it with a cotton ball and smother them."
[BUZZER NOISE] We need like a buzzer.
I have heard, put something hot on them,
anywhere from a hot knife.
SARAH: Heat up a butter knife, yeah.
DR LYDIA GRAY: I've heard of like light a match
and let it burn out and then put that on him.
Even a cigarette butt--
no, no, no, no, none of those things.
Don't twist them, don't crush them.
SARAH: Nope.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Just take a device, tweezers--
we sell this thing called TickEase, which has
two different ends for ease.
And just grab onto them as near the head you can.
And slowly and firmly and steadily and quietly
and calmly--
no need to panic--
just pull straight out.
When you've got them out, you don't
have to then cut them or crush them or burn them or do
anything.
Just have a little jar of rubbing alcohol.
And put them in it.
And then if it gets full, throw it away
or dispose of it properly.
It's nothing that you have to get excited about.
One really good thing is you want
to do tick checks every day and after every ride.
SARAH: Yep.
DR LYDIA GRAY: So if your horse is
exposed to a place where ticks are going to, you know,
climb on, then do your tick check.
And it takes about 36 hours or a full day
and a half for an attached tick to begin
releasing the bacteria or the protozoa
or whatever disease he has in him or her,
her I think, into the body.
So when they're crawling, nothing has happened.
And even when they've just attached, nothing has happened.
So you don't have to hurry.
Just pull them out and dispose of them quietly.
Now, I remember back when I was a kid
and my horse had lots of ticks that they do form--
there's a local reaction around the bite.
And they even-- they can ooze and crust and drain some serum.
So you may have to do a little cleanup.
And in some cases even like hot pack
for like an abscess, because it's painful and it gets big.
SARAH: Some horses have a really strong response.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah, and I kind of wondered why that was.
I did read that tick saliva has agents
in it to help it get its meal.
I'm trying to think of a way to say that that's not really--
so they have some anti-coagulants
in their saliva.
They have histamines.
They have all sorts of substances that are
designed to make tissue angry.
And they do a good job of it.
So maybe the first time you remove a tick
and you see their reaction, ask your vet
what would be the best thing to clean it up with
and to put on there.
Because, again, there's lots of old wives tales.
And then you just know when you remove a tick,
just do that every time.
So it's not a really big deal.
SARAH: And the reason you don't want to do any of the old wives
tales to get the ticks off is because that can actually
do more harm than good.
Because before you remove the tick,
they can do things like regurgitate back into the bite
or--
DR LYDIA GRAY: Sure, you're making them angry.
Angry ticks are not good ticks.
You do not want to deal with an angry tick.
SARAH: No.
I know when we talked about the products,
we talked about the Permethrin, which you can use, you know,
on the spot and as you go.
But we do also have a product back there, Equi-Spot.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah, we have a couple of spot on products.
These have really good reviews as far as tick control.
Like people say I used to always have lots of ticks
and then I use these products and I don't have ticks anymore.
These work differently than sprays and roll-ons, though.
SARAH: Yes, for sure.
DR LYDIA GRAY: They're about 14 days
that you put them on and don't do anything.
And then reapply in 14 days.
It's important not to mix and match your products.
So don't do both.
If you think you need both, talk to your vet
first and show them the products you're using.
Because there can be some interaction
between the agents in these products
and the agents in sprays and roll-ons.
So they're not-- don't use everything.
Pick one and that's what you use.
SARAH: All right, terrific.
So those were all of the questions
that we had this time.
Thank you guys, as always, for submitting
such fabulous questions.
We love-- I've learned something.
I learn something every time.
I mean, you learned the dish soap old wives tale, so.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah, and I got to talk about dinosaurs
so that was-- that was pretty awesome.
SARAH: It's true.
Always a good time.
So keep the questions coming.
You can submit your questions on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter, the form at SmartPak.com/AsktheVetQuestions.
And when you use your questions out there on social media,
be sure to use the hashtag #AskTheVetVideo,
so that we can keep track of all of those great questions.
And anything that's received before June 1st
will be eligible for the July episode.
So you guys can get those in.
And then, of horse, you'll be able to vote on YouTube,
Twitter, or our blog.
So keep an eye out for that.
Because voting your question to the top
is how you get answered in the video
and you get a SmartPak gift card.
DR LYDIA GRAY: It's how you get the gelding sound answered.
SARAH: That's true.
I mean, somebody had to ask it eventually.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Somebody had to vote.
SARAH: If your question was answered
in this or previous videos, you can email us
at CustomerCare@SmartPak.com to claim your gift card.
And as always, don't forget to subscribe
so that you can see when the polling goes out
for the next video.
And of course, thanks for watching and have a great ride.
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