Canterbury Equine Clinic

01/05/2025

Combined emergency on call services Canterbury Equine Clinic & Prebbleton Veterinary Hospital.

Dear Equine Clients,
We are writing to inform you about an update to our on-call emergency services that will benefit both our valued clients and our dedicated veterinary team. As you know, our veterinarians work tirelessly to provide the highest standard of care for your animals, often under challenging circumstances. With the ongoing veterinary shortage, it has become even more important to ensure that our team is given the opportunity to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
To help support this, we have been trialling a shared emergency on-call service within our practices Canterbury Equine Clinic and Prebbleton Veterinary Hospital. This initiative allows our
veterinarians to take well-deserved breaks while still ensuring that you have access to reliable emergency care.
We are pleased to inform you that we will be continuing with this shared service moving forward, as it has proven to be an effective and sustainable solution.
This collaboration will ensure that, in the event of an emergency, a qualified veterinarian will always be available to provide timely and expert care for your equine companions, while allowing our
veterinarians the opportunity to recharge and maintain their well-being.

We kindly ask that you pre-organise any non-urgent matters with your primary practice prior to the weekend. The on-call emergency line is solely for urgent matters requiring immediate attention.

To support our team’s well-being and ensure they have time to rest and recharge, we kindly ask that all communication be limited to business hours (8:00 AM – 5:00 PM) for routine matters.
Additionally, we respectfully request that you refrain from contacting team members via their personal social media accounts. For any enquiries or communication, please use the official
practice channels—phone, email, or our clinic’s social media profiles.

Canterbury Equine yard staff are available to help you pick up and drop off horses between 8 -10am and 4-5pm on both Saturday and Sunday, but again, please organise prior to the weekend.
Rest assured; nothing will change for you in terms of accessing emergency care. If you require assistance, simply call your primary clinic’s emergency number, and you will be promptly connected to the on-call veterinarian, who will be ready to assist you.
Finally, please be advised that if you require a telemedicine consultation with our on-call emergency veterinarian, applicable charges will apply. These consultations are provided to offer
immediate advice and guidance in emergency situations, and the associated fees help cover the cost of providing these critical services outside of regular office hours.

We appreciate your understanding and continued support as we work together with our partners to provide our emergency services and ensure we can continue providing the best care possible for
your animals.
Should you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Thank you for entrusting us with the care of your animals.
Kind regards,
Canterbury Equine Clinic and Prebbleton Veterinary Hospital.

12/03/2025

21/01/2025

🩺💉STRANGLES UPDATE💉🩺

There have been some reports of a Strangles outbreak in North Canterbury. Currently, only one horse that travelled from the North Island has been diagnosed with strangles. The horse has been isolated and no in-contact horses have shown symptoms of infection. The risk of a large strangles outbreak is low.

Strangles is a respiratory disease caused by the bacteria Steptococcus equi equi. It causes purulent nasal discharge and abscess formation in lymph nodes of the head and neck. The mortality rate is low but horses can be very sick and recovery from the disease can be slow. Clinical signs to look for include:
⁃ high temperature (>38.3°C)
⁃ Nasal discharge
⁃ Swollen lymph nodes
Please note that these signs can also be caused by diseases other than strangles.

There is a vaccine available for strangles. The initial course is 3 vaccines, each given 2 weeks apart. Booster doses need to be given every 6 months to provide adequate protection. The vaccine is not 100% effective against strangles so your horse can still get infected despite vaccination.

15/01/2025

🐎UPCOMING LAMENESS CLINIC🐎

We are very fortunate to have a world-renowned expert in equine sports medicine and surgery visiting Canterbury Equine Clinic in February through the Altano Group. Dr Frans van Toor is a resident of the American College of Veterinary Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation and is
ISELP (International Society of Equine Locomotor Pathology) certified. Dr van Toor works at Sporthorse Medical Diagnostic Centre (SMDC) in Holland. He specialises in lameness and poor performance principally in show jumpers and dressage horses.

Dr van Toor will be visiting Canterbury Equine Clinic from the 3rd-7th of February and will be working alongside our veterinarians looking at cases as well as providing additional training in advanced ultrasonography to our veterinarians.

We are pleased to offer our clients the opportunity to book an appointment with Dr van Toor for a lameness investigation. This is a fantastic opportunity to access one of the world’s best lameness veterinarians. Bookings are strictly limited on the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th of February, 8am, 10am and 12.30pm. Please contact the clinic if you are interested in booking an appointment.

13/01/2025

Now is a great time for a mid-season check up your horse’s mouth and teeth. We are very fortunate at Canterbury Equine to have Dr Katie Kindleysides, who holds a post graduate certificate in equine advanced veterinary dental practice and has over a decade of experienced in equine dental work ranging from routine dental checks and floats, to treatment and management of dental disease (including radiography), and routine extraction. Our specialist, Dr Shelly Hann, is also very experienced with equine head surgery providing high level support for those complex cases that require difficult extractions or the likes of sinus surgery.

Equine dental problems can have a big impact on your horse’s health and ridden comfort, but are often tricky to spot. Use of highly knowledgeable practitioners experienced in spotting subtle signs of abnormalities on the teeth or gum tissues is vital to early identification and treatment of conditions. Please contact the clinic today on 03-349-4791 to book your next appointment either at your property or in our dedicated equine clinic.

26/12/2024

We hope everyone had a lovely Christmas 🎄🎅 we are on emergency only over the weekend and new year period, normal hours resume on the 6th of January 2025 ⭐️

Please call our afterhours number, 0274714608, if you have any concerns 🚑

14/10/2024

🐴 Breeding Update 🐴

As many of you will have heard, Dr Harriet Walton has embarked on her exciting new adventure of companion animal medicine. We will miss her skill and care she took to create your next superstars 🌟

We will still have all your breeding needs covered. This week we welcome reproduction veternarian, Dr Rikke Munk, from Denmark. She will be joining us for 8 weeks to cover all your breeding needs from routine insemination to infertility to embryo transfer. We look forward to benefiting from her extensive knowledge.

We will also have, Dr Caitlin O'Connor, from Ireland joining us in November. She has a keen interest in reproduction and will be upskilling under Rikke to keep all your breeding needs covered for the rest of the season.

Please get in touch if you are interested in breeding your mare this season 🦄

19/09/2024

Weekend Stable Hand Position

We have a part-time/casual position opening up at the Canterbury Equine Clinic as a weekend stablehand.

The position involves:
- primary responsibility for the feeding and mucking out of horses
-Assisting the vets with treatments
-Keeping the outside area clean and presentable

This can range from 4-14 hours per weekend, with at least one weekend a month as a requirement. There may also be the possibility to work some weekdays.

The ideal candidate would be
-confident and competent around horses, including stallions and young horses
-reliable
-posess good time management skills
-be able to work both independently and as part of a team
-physically fit

If this is something that interests you, please send through a CV and coverletter to [email protected]

22/04/2024

🐎🐎🐎SPEAKER ANNOUNCEMENT 🐎🐎🐎
Dr. Hamish Ranken
BA BVSc (Hons) MANZCVS and Dr.Danielle Guiver BVSc

Dr. Hamish Ranken graduated from Melbourne University in 2000 and practised in Australia for two years prior to completing an internship in equine surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. He joined Canterbury Equine Clinic in 2004 and continues in his roll as a director. He has completed his membership examinations (MANZCVS) in equine surgery. In addition to his surgical skills, Hamish has a keen interest in sportshorse medicine and lameness investigations.

Dr. Danielle Guiver graduated from Massey University in 2019. Since then, she has been an integral part of Canterbury Equine Clinic, where her passion for all aspects of equine veterinary medicine shines through.
Dani enjoys working with all facets of the equine industry, from racehorses to beloved pets.
With a commitment to continual learning and improvement, Dani has pursued additional training in equine dentistry and is interested to expand her skills in internal medicine.
Her personal experience as a keen show jumper, coupled with her own horse's battle with gastric ulcers, has provided her with hands-on experience in dealing with this issue.

Dani and Hamish will discuss Gastric Ulcer Syndrome - The hidden culprit behind Performance Problems.

09/04/2024

It’s that time again - free ACTH testing is back!
We have limited availability for free ACTH testing. Please note that this is only valid for horses and ponies that haven’t been tested before.
Please contact the clinic on 033494791 to book your test.
Please note that the laboratory fee is free but there may be a sampling and processing fee.

05/04/2024

We love being able to see ex patients so healthy 🐴 'Dennis the menace' as he became known at the clinic had an unfortunate start to life but is now thriving and we are excited to see his future 🏇

19/03/2024

Exciting news! 🐴 🦷 🩺🪱
For the remainder of March and all of April we are including a complimentary health check and a Faecal Egg Count with every dental performed by one of our experienced equine vets.
To make the most of this, contact reception on 033494791