Vectis Equine Vets

15/12/2025

🎄Merry Christmas to all our clients 🎄

We’d like to remind anyone with a horse/pony on regular medication to make sure you’re fully stocked for Christmas.

🌟Please get your orders for medication in by Friday 19th December 🌟

Below are our opening times over Christmas, please note we are emergencies only for the week of 25th December - 1st January.

🗓️January is booking up fast, if you know your horse will be due a vaccination, dental or other routine procedure in the coming weeks please book well in advance.

05/12/2025

🎄🐴 Christmas Jumper Day… with a VECTIS TWIST! 🐴🎄
We’re joining in with Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day — but this year, it’s all about your horses, ponies and donkeys in their festive finest!

✨ Dress up your equine bestie in their Christmas sparkle
📸 Snap a photo
💝 Donate via the link below
📬 Send us your picture

We’ll create a super festive video featuring all the entries, and our favourite will win a FREE vaccination next year!

Send your photos to:
📧 [email protected]

💬 or message us on Facebook

💗 All donations make a real difference
You can donate any amount through our official link — and Vectis Equine Vets will match every donation (to max. £150) to help children who need support this Christmas.
(Please make sure you use our Christmas Jumper Day link so we can see your donation!)

✨ Get festive, get snapping, and let’s raise money for a wonderful cause! ✨

We're taking part in Save the Children's Christmas Jumper Day on Thursday 11th December! Every pound we raise will give children in the UK and around the world the chance to grow up healthy and happy and change the future for good.

29/10/2025

⚠️⚠️IMPORTANT MESSAGE ⚠️⚠️

We are currently experiencing difficulties with the phone line (29/10/2025)

If you have an emergency tonight through till 8.30am tomorrow please call 07818509717

We hope to have the problem resolved tomorrow Please share the message with fellow clients!

25/10/2025

The veterinary industry has been in the news recently following the Competition & Markets Authority’s (CMA) investigation into the sector and its initial recommendations.

The CMA’s key findings focus on:
• Pricing transparency
• Prescription options
• Transparency in practice ownership
• Improved regulation and governance

We’re pleased to share that we already meet — and in many cases exceed — many of these expectations.

💙 Independent Practice
VEV is a fully independent practice, and we’re extremely proud of this. Our dedicated team works hard to provide reliable 24/7 equine care across the Island.

💷 Transparent Pricing
We believe in clarity and trust. Our pricing is already publicly available on our website, in line with the CMA recommendations 👇
🔗 https://www.vectisequine-vets.co.uk/pricing-page-2
We always discuss all treatments options and associated costs with our clients to ensure we find the correct option for both you and your horse.
We’re also happy to provide written estimates for any service on request.

💊 Prescriptions & Online Pharmacies
The CMA has proposed a standardised prescription fee. At VEV, we already offer prescriptions so clients can choose to benefit from discounted online pharmacy prices.

Our prescription fee covers:
• The professional veterinary advice leading to the prescription
• Clinical governance and practice overheads
• Maintaining our own stocked pharmacy for rapid treatment when needed

As a small independent practice, we don’t have the bulk purchasing power of large online pharmacies — so in some cases, their prices may be lower.

🐴 Investing in Our Community
We continually invest in our people, our facilities, and our equipment to ensure we deliver leading clinical care for the Island’s equine community — now and for the future.
We sponsor local charities such as the Isle of Wight Donkey Sanctuary and events such as the Pass Wide and Slow campaign.
We give free of charge client evenings to help you learn and understand how to give your horse the best possible care.

✅ Looking Ahead
We welcome the CMA’s focus on transparency and consumer choice, and we’re proud to already be aligned with many of their proposals.

We remain mindful of how any wider changes may affect small independent practices like ours, but we’ll continue to navigate developments professionally and proactively.

Thank you for trusting Vectis Equine Vets with your horses’ care. 💙

16/10/2025

🪱BRING US YOUR WORM EGG COUNTS🪱

Before the weather gets colder we’d love to receive your pots (or whichever vessel you use) of poo!

❄️ Whilst worm egg counts can be done throughout the winter months, they can be less useful when the temperature drops. This is as small roundworms go into a dormant state producing less eggs. ❄️

⭐️If you are part of our horse health club then you should have a final pot left to bring us that last sample for the year! Please do bring a sample as it helps us tailor next years personalised worming plans to your horse. ⭐️

29/09/2025

🔔ACORN POISONING🔔

In the past 2 weeks we have seen a huge rise in colic cases. Whilst colic can be caused by a variety of things, we are suspicious that a number of these cases were caused by acorn consumption.

Whilst acorns are typically bitter, horses can develop a ‘taste’ for them, especially those that are kept on restricted grazing. When eaten in large quantities or over a prolonged period of time, they can cause kidney disease, oral ulceration and impaction colic.

Signs to look out for
- Dull / Lethargic
- Inappetance
- Colic
- Diarrhoea (may be dark in colour)
- Constipation

If you notice any of these signs and know that your horse has access to an oak tree, please call us for some advice. Acorn toxicity can be fatal if not treated promptly.

🌳Please take a moment to check your grazing and fence off areas surrounding oak trees where acorns have fallen 🌳

20/09/2025

✨ A big thank you to everyone who joined us for our Yard Managers Evening on Thursday! ✨

Yard managers and owners are often the very first point of contact in an emergency or disease outbreak, so we hope the refresher session gave you some useful takeaways (and let’s be honest… who doesn’t love a goody bag? 🎁🐴).

👏 A special shoutout to everyone who got stuck into the quiz – so many correct answers showed you were really listening!

🎉 Huge congratulations to Kelsie Kenneavy, winner of the gorgeous Le Mieux saddle pad. Well done!

22/08/2025

⭐️ YARD MANAGERS ⭐️

Can we please ask for you all to check your emails!

All yard managers should have received an invite to our yard manager evening in collaboration with Boehringer. All details can be found in the email invite.

If you are a yard manager and have not received this email please let us know ASAP

Horse owners - don’t worry another client evening is being arranged for you too!

24/07/2025

A massive thank you to whoever nominated us for Practice of the Year in the 2025 Petplan Veterinary Awards. 😍 Nominations are anonymous so we can't thank you individually but we are very grateful. 😃

The practice has been nominated every year since we started in 2012 so we're incredibly proud to see this trend continue.

Nominations for awards are open until 12th September and can be made in several categories:
🐴Practice of the Year
🐴Vet of the Year
🐴Practice Manager of the Year
🐴Practice Support Staff of the Year

If you feel we have gone above and beyond for you or your horse this year then this is a lovely way to let us know and gives us a huge morale boost. That certificate on the wall that says you've been nominated can really lift you on one of the tough, sad days.

Nominations can be made here:
https://awards.petplan.co.uk/

17/07/2025

🗓️ Appointment times & booking 🗓️

We just wanted to remind all our clients about shared visit fees!

Visit fees are split per number of owners and are free if we see more than 5 horses at one time. So it really does pay to be organised and communicate with your fellow liveries!

🌟Here is a reminder of our pricing 🌟
Visit - £44.10
Visit shared between 2 - £22.06
Visit shared between 3 - £14.69
Visit shared between 4 - £11.03

⏰ Appointment times ⏰
We offer 8.30am (first call) & 4.30pm (last call) routine booked appointments as set times only. Other appointments are either morning, lunchtime or afternoon. When booking please let the team know how much notice you need before the vet's arrival to make it to the yard and have your horse ready for their appointment.
Not having set appointment times allows us to make sure a vet is always available for emergencies
For things such as sedating for clipping and shoeing, post grazing insulin bloods and similar, we will of course agree a pre-arranged time.

📖 Our diaries are getting busier and busier and it's becoming tricky to squeeze in last minute vaccines, dentals and other routines at short notice. Please double check when your horses are due their vaccines and book well in advance so we can arrange a time and day that suits you best!