By Dr. Julie Wilson
Day 2 was also hugely successful. I haven't tallied the numbers yet but I suspect we looked at ~ 60 horses. The worksite today was once again just off a major road, but graced by several trees with low branches that provided shade. Just a few paces away was a soccer (futbol) goal post that suited Dr. Turoff well for dentistry as he prefers to work in the sun. The first cart horse arrived just a few minutes after we did. The site was soon humming with at least 8 farriers working at once around the base of the biggest tree. The veterinary squad was set up with 2 tables commandeered from the Army base, and the use of the University of Honduras van for the medications and surgery supplies. The veterinary students were split into 2 groups, with half heading off to the state lab to process the fecal and blood samples from Monday. Two of the five that remained were assigned to Dr. Turoff to help him with dentistry. The other 3 immediately got to work assessing the horses and many foals that turned up, many of them in poor body condition and loaded with ticks. The scenario was at times very chaotic with horses erupting suddenly due to interaction with another horse or resisting the farrier's urging to pick up a hind foot, all with many small barefoot boys underfoot or hanging on to the horse's heads. The majority of the horses were stallions or mares with order cialis foals at their side
s. We did succeed in interesting the children in the great coloring books that Angie Gebhart put together. The World Horse Welfare harness team arrived midmorning and immediately began addressing harness fit for the many horses that had harness sores on their withers, chest, or girth area. Fly fringes (browbands) were provided to any horse with ocular discharge until the supply was exhausted. By early afternoon, the 100 doses of tetanus toxoid were used up, but more horses still awaited the team. The original 5 students rotated so the remaining 3 could participate in the dentistry. After lunch, the 5 students that had gone to the lab rejoined our group and were soon hard at work. The most interesting cases of the day included a horse with a fractured scapula, several different forms of dermatitis, a number of pale horses, one of which had a fever, that may potentially have babesiosis, a horse with a fractured incisor, and a horse with sweeney. Despite the hard work, at the end of the day, the students were still smiling, and eager to continue their hands-on learning. The 5 veterinarians that came to participate were fascinated with the dentistry and eagerly await Dr. Turoff's presentation at the dinner tonight. Per Dr. Turoff, the mouths that he worked on were not too bad, other than a number that have serious overbites. All were gray so he suspects a genetic basis stemming from a popular local stallion. A number of the horses had very darkly stained enamel on their incisors. Local opinion was that it was due to eating bananas and banana leaves, which is an interesting theory. Tonight Dr. Turoff is going to do a presentation on equine dentistry in Spanish which everyone is looking forward to.