Routine laboratory screening can alert us to changes that may affect your horse’s performance before you have a chance to notice more obvious signs of a problem. For example, annual blood screening can help us detect anemia, nutritional deficiencies, metabolic changes, or possible organ concerns before performance is affected. For horses on long-term medications, such as Phenobarbital, Isoxsuprine or Phenylbutazone, routine screening helps us monitor the effects of these medications on individual organ systems.
If your horse is healthy, baseline screening is beneficial to get an idea of your individual horse’s “normal” results. We recommend baseline Vitamin E and Selenium levels, Complete Blood Count and Chemistries, and Fecal Egg Counts annually whenever possible. For our older patients, we also recommend Cushings and Metabolic Syndrome screening annually.