Testimonial 28

Equine First Aid & Ailments invaluable – a nationally Accredited course

Laura Hutchinson – Kenya. Laura comes from a non horsey family and since 13 has had her own horse.

Laura says there are, in the whole of Kenya, probably 2 very good horse vets, both of whom live over 4 hours away from her home. In Kenya few have the luxury of vets on call, so have to do a lot of general medical care on their own. In Laura’s case this means handling a lot of things normally carried out by professionals including genuine emergency situations.

Laura has had no choice but to learn to do IV injections, foot trimming, stitches, and tubing – (emergency insertion of tube into stomach via the nose/oesophagus for introduction of medicine – e.g. for colic). These are often the things that need doing as soon as possible rather than waiting half a day or more for the vet to arrive from hundreds of miles away.

Fewer drugs are readily available in Kenya so owners like Laura often use beer, liquid parafin or kombucha (a fermented tea drink) to get the gut moving in colic cases! For many medical emergencies in fact they have to improvise and find suitable replacements or they have to intervene themselves to save their horse’s lives!  Laura concluded that ‘she personally found courses like the ones on offer by Lingfield invaluable’.

Read more from Laura on our articles page.

Lynette Keyser in Namibia