Equine Imaging & Diagnostics

Radiographs are often the first diagnostic imaging modality used to evaluate lameness. Digital Radiography allows for potentially greater detail than conventional radiography by having each image be processed by the computer.

Digital radiography services for equine patients both in our hospital and on the farm allow us to diagnose issues such as fractures, laminitis, wounds, foreign objects, and penetration of joints. They can also be used for pre-purchase exams and lameness evaluations.

Pre-purchase Exams Lameness Evaluations

Ultrasound uses sound waves to offer a non-invasive, painless, and radiation-free method of imaging your horse's internal organs, tendons, and ligaments.

Compared to radiographs, ultrasound highlights soft tissue changes such as tears in a tendon or ligament. This can be used to diagnose an injury, but also in advanced management of an injury and to guide you and your horse on the track to recovery.

Ultrasound can also be used to guide technical joint injections such as the cervical spine (neck), lumbar spine (low back), and the sacroiliac joint (SI). Ultrasound is also useful in diagnosing masses or lumps. This can be used not only externally but internally as well.

Endoscopy is a very safe, quick procedure that can provide valuable insight into a horse's health status. 

With an endoscope, we can evaluate your horse's upper airway and stomach, as well as diagnose urogenital or reproductive problems. We can also identify poor performance issues. 

This minimally invasive technology can also act as a critical step towards improving your horse's health and helping them to perform at its best.

At our vet lab in Ocala, we can run several common and specialized blood tests to determine the health of your horse and to diagnose illness.

Some of the most common veterinary blood tests we do are CBC (complete blood count), white blood count, hemoglobin and MCHC (mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration), hematocrit, platelets, eosinophils, and blood serum profiles.  

Cytology, which is the study of cells, involves the collection and examination of cells and fluid from organs, tissues, and body cavities. Cells are naturally shed from the surfaces of mucous membranes, organs, and skin lesions, and they can be collected for examination.

Veterinarians can collect fluid and cells from difficult-to-reach tissues like the respiratory tract, the guttural pouch, and the reproductive tract.

Laboratory examination helps characterize the cell types and evaluate the fluid present to determine health or disease status. 

Gastroscopy describes a complete examination of the two lining tissues of the horse's stomach using a flexible video endoscope.

It is performed under light sedation and images are captured at specific points around the stomach and are graded and defined by type.

By conducting a urinalysis, we can gain essential insight into the physical and chemical properties of your horse's urine. 

This key diagnostic test can be used to assess the health of a horse's kidneys and urinary tract system, but it can also help detect issues in other organ systems and is important for diagnosing metabolic diseases such as diabetes.

The urinalysis is a valuable diagnostic test for both sick and healthy horses and should be included in any comprehensive evaluation of their overall health. 

A fecal exam is the microscopic examination of your horse's feces, which can be done at our in-house vet lab in Ocala.

A fecal egg count measures the number of strongyle eggs your horse is passing in each gram of his manure. When you send a sample to your veterinarian or independent laboratory, you get back a number like 50 EPG (eggs per gram) or 500 EPG.

Parasites can make horses uncomfortable, and irritable, and lead to more serious conditions.

Annual fecals protect your horses from problems like colic, weight loss, and diarrhea and protect the pasture from eggs being passed on.