Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

> Question for the vets:
>
> a) How much fluids do you bring to a ride?
> b) How much fluids do you usually use?
As others have pointed out, the vet handbook pretty well covers item a).  As
to how much one usually uses--the same fluids can well ride around in the
truck for a year, and then you might use them all at one ride.  Amounts put
in any one  horse can vary from as little as 10 or so up to 60+ with more
going in at the hospital later.

> c) How much fluids do you give to the horse before you say
> "this is enough for the horse to recover on its own?" or
> alternatively "This horse needs way more but I have given it
> enough for the horse to be sufficiently stable to transport
> to a facility that is better equiped to deal with such a
> compromised horse?"
Well, depends on whether UF is just down the road (or a good equine
hospital) or if you are a hundred miles from nowhere.  It also depends on
the weather.  At early spring and late fall rides up here in the "frozen
nawth" in the high desert it can go from quite pleasant to downright bitter
in the several minutes after the sun goes down.  I'll make a lot more effort
to transport a horse under those weather conditions (will transport just
about anything that blinks an eye wrong) than I will on a July day when it
is still pleasant outside at 2 in the morning.

> Maybe it is the trained EMT in me ("stablize and transport")
> that says that treatment vets at endurance rides are not
> supposed to "fix" the problems that horses might encounter
> at a ride, they just need to be able to stabilize them well
> enough so that they can be taken off-site (which may be
> home, but is probably the hospital if the condition is
> serious enough) where they can be treated properly in order
> to properly recover.
Again, that depends if there is anywhere to transport.

> Am I missing something here?  The last thing in the world
> that I would expect a treatment vet to run out of at an
> endurance ride is IV fluids, my home vet carries enough
> fluids around with him on a regular basis (just for the
> things that he might encounter in the field treating horses
> that never leave home) that he would have enough with him to
> have treated every horse that I have ever seen treated with
> IV fluids at an endurance ride.
I doubt that many regular ambulatory vets in practice carry around several
hundred liters--which may be what they need at a big ride where the weather
conditions are indicative of problems.  Even the 60+ that one horse may need
(that's 5 cases!) takes up a lot of room on a day-to-day basis.  I always
had a "stash" that went into the truck on the way to rides and came out
again when I got home.  And as I said, it might well get packed around for a
year or more and never get opened.  But when you need it, you need it NOW.

Heidi


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