How do I make an appointment?
You can call our friendly reception on 01245 346904, email us at admin@clarendonequine.co.uk or use our contact form/make an appointment request form on the website and we’ll be happy to help. If you have an urgent/emergency visit request, then please call our reception number to enable us to respond to you as quickly as possible. Please don’t use the Facebook message function on our social media for appointment requests or emergency visit requests as this is not monitored 24/7.
What to expect during my consultation/visit?
Our vet(s) will arrive usually within a 30-minute window of your appointment time. We will endeavour to let you know as soon as possible if the vet is running late or has been diverted to an emergency. We try to minimise these disruptions as much as possible, however due to the nature of our ambulatory service these scenarios can occasionally happen, and we do our best to keep to time as much as possible. Our vet(s) will make sure to take a full history from you about the problem/on-going case history if they have seen your horse before. We always aim to re-book clients in with the vet they saw previously as much as feasibly possible, so our clients get continuity of care. We will examine your horse according to the injury/illness present which may involve certain procedures (e.g. dental examination/trot up/lunged/ridden/sedation if required). We will keep you informed throughout the examination of any abnormalities and treatment recommendations and summarise our findings for you. In many cases we may need to re-book your horse back in for further diagnostics such as ultrasound/endoscopy/x-ray/shockwave treatment/dental treatment depending on yours and your horse(s) needs. If you are at all unsure about anything during a consultation, then please ask questions along the way as we’ll be happy to guide you through. Ultimately the process is guided by you and your horse.
Do you provide an out of hours emergency service?
We provide a 24/7 emergency service according to the RCVS code of conduct and as a part of the RCVS equine general practice status which we hold. Our emergency visits are provided by a shared out of hours rota with four other independent equine veterinary practices (Essex Equine Vets Group) to make sure we always have vets available to cover the whole county all seven days of the week outside of our normal opening hours. If you have an emergency, please call our usual reception number on 01245 346904 and select option 2 to be diverted straight to the vet on call. We endeavour to give estimates on request for any emergency as best we can (please understand that it can be very difficult to give an accurate figure prior to attending an emergency since the treatment options may change once we have examined the horse). For new un-registered clients calling out of hours, we require a deposit of the out of hours fee, visit fee and consultation up front prior to attending. Please see the prices of these below (all include VAT):
Out of hours weekday – 5:30-8:30pm and 6:30 – 8:30am – £54.58
Out of hours weekday 8:30pm – 6:30am – £88.00
Out of hours weekend/bank holiday – £88.00
Visit fee – this ranges from band 1 to band 8 depending on location. £46.18 – £86.77
Consultation out of hours – £75.00
What is the half price zone visit scheme and how does it work?
Our half price zone visit scheme runs on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. Check out the map in the services and home page to see what day we are in our area. These visits are for the following services only:
- Vaccinations
- Routine dentistry
- Repeat blood samples/long term medication reviews (EMS/Cushing’s disease)
- Strangles blood samples.
- Passports and microchips
These half price visits need to be booked and paid for a minimum of 24hours in advance of your visit day. We will text you the time of your visit the day before your allocated half price zone visit day. Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate any time requests or booking a specific vet since we must make these visits as economical as possible for the route the vets will be driving that day. Your text message will also contain a link to pay via your mobile if you haven’t paid on booking for the services you’re having.
Do you have a radius for free visits close to the practice?
We operate a free visit radius of 2 miles surrounding the practice during normal working hours of 8:30am – 5:30pm Monday to Friday. This covers the following livery yards:
- Chelmsford equestrian centre
- Parklands farm
- Wood farm
- Haven Farm
If you require an emergency out of hours visit within our 2-mile radius area, then visit fee band 1 applies since our on call vet can be coming from anywhere in the county during those times.
Do you have in-patient facilities?
We have four large loose boxes at the practice for in-patients staying for day procedures, elective general anaesthetics for surgical procedures such as orthopaedic or laser surgery. We can also accommodate horses for supportive care such as fluid therapy for impaction colic or diarrhoea/infectious cases that require isolation. We work closely with the Royal Veterinary College Equine hospital for any horses which require intensive care or emergency colic surgery for example.
Can you perform surgeries and general anaesthetics at the clinic?
We regularly perform elective general anaesthetics for procedures such as orthopaedic surgery (e.g. Arthroscopy), Soft tissue surgery (e.g. tenoscopy/neurectomy) and laser surgery (sarcoids/melanomas/squamous cell carcinomas). These are carried out for visiting specialist surgeons from Rossdales Equine Hospital and Sarcoid Surgery Ltd. We can also perform standing sedated surgeries in our purpose-built stocks in the treatment room, as well as more complex sinus surgeries and dental extractions with the Equine Dental Clinic Ltd.
I need to travel my horse abroad – what do I need for export?
Since the UK left the European union there are additional requirements for the movement of horses over to the EU. All our vets are Official Veterinarians so we are able to complete export health checks and export certificates for all horse movements to the EU and third countries. Should you need to organise this service then we would encourage you to organise your transporter and veterinary visits for export checks with enough time in advance to allow time for paperwork to be checked and processed as well as any blood samples/laboratory tests to be taken and results to come back. Useful information on the export of horses can be found on the government website at www.gov.uk/guidance/esport-horses-and-ponies-special-rules.
What do your routine dental appointments involve?
Our routine dental examinations and treatment are carried out under sedation. We follow the same ethos as the Equine Dental Clinic (www.equinedentalclinic.co.uk) whom we use for referral work, in that we believe this enables us to provide our clients and their horses with the best level of care in the safest way possible for our clients, their horse(s) and the treating vet. We conduct a thorough oral examination with a mirror and chart all the teeth for you showing any abnormalities, recommendations and what routine rasping we have done on the day for you. We provide you with a British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) dental chart via email after the examination so you can refer to it at any time (this is also recorded on your horse’s record with us).
How long does a lameness examination take?
We often get asked these questions and it can be a very difficult one to answer! The main thing to remember with these is it does entirely depend on what we may find at the initial consultation for a lameness. It could be an obvious problem for example a swollen tendon/solar bruise/swollen joint etc. which means we can usually get to a diagnosis and treatment plan quite quickly for you. For more subtle problems (mild lameness/poor performance problems) then this may require further examination, local anaesthetic blocks, ridden examination and multiple imaging methods to get an answer for you. If we suspect this may be the case at an initial consultation for the problem at your yard, we usually recommend your horse is admitted to our clinic for the day in order to allocate enough time and assistance for these longer investigations for you.
