Hospital Facilities
Our hospital has stabling for up to 50 horses, with designated stabling for mares and foals, as well as horses requiring isolation or intensive care.
About Our Hospital Facilities
Our hospital is purpose built to accommodate our inpatients and try to ensure their stay is as comfortable and stress free as possible.
Stabling is arranged in multiple small yards, with no “nose to nose” contact but always ensuring that other horses can be seen and heard in close proximity.
We have designated intensive care and isolation units for specific cases.
We have multiple small paddock turnout.
More practical facilities include the trot-up, menage and lunge area.
Stabling
There is a mixture of types of accommodation, with some stabling in a large, well-ventilated American barn and some in loose boxes.
There is also stabling for up to 10 horses and two foals in our intensive care facility for critically ill patients and additional isolation stables for horses with infectious, or suspected infectious diseases.
Our reproduction unit provides large boxes for mares with foals at foot, which are quiet and separated from the rest of the hospital, therefore reducing the risk of infection to young foals.
Most stables have rubber matting and are bedded with shavings or paper, while other types of bedding are available if needed.
Trot-up and menage
Our trot-up area has two different types of surface and a hard lunging ring, which together with the large menage allow our veterinary surgeons performing lameness or poor performance investigations to compare horses’ gaits on different types of surface in a safe, fenced area.
The large menage provides an excellent surface for lunging or riding horses in all weather conditions.
The menage is an excellent facility that is extensively used for lunging, riding or jumping horses, whether for exercising or for performing all types of diagnostic investigation (eg. poor performance and lameness investigations, “wind” assessments) or pre-purchase vetting examinations.
Intensive care unit
We have a designated intensive care unit, which provides stabling and facilities for horses and foals requiring critical care.
Our intensive care unit was rebuilt in 2011 to provide enhanced facilities and stabling for up to 10 critically ill patients and horses requiring intensive care following surgery (eg. after colic surgery).
Each stable is well-ventilated and has separate heating and facilities to allow easy administration of intravenous fluids.
There are two foal boxes for the intensive nursing care of premature or sick neonatal foals.
These allow the foal’s dam to be stabled separate alongside the sick foal, while still being able to see it at all times or be stabled in the same box as the foal.
The intensive care unit also has a treatment area, nurse preparation room and nursing station.
Unlike many other equine hospitals in the UK, our intensive care unit is monitored day and night by two nurses and a housevet, who work closely with the hospital clinicians to ensure that optimal care is provided to our most seriously ill patients.
Biosecurity of critically ill patients is particularly important, and therefore separate isolation stables are available for the stabling of horses with infectious, or suspected infectious, diseases.
Paddocks and Turnout
Turnout is provided in a number of small sized post and rail fenced paddocks, plus also in a high-fenced playpen, which means that inpatients may be turned out if beneficial for their care either alone or with company as required.
