News Straight from the horse's mouth

News

WIN a Westgate prize bundle

By sharing your favourite horsey moment with us

🎂 To continue our 20th birthday celebrations we have 2️⃣0️⃣ prize bundles to give away! We love to see the animals we test. To enter simply send us a picture or short video that captures a best, funny or favourite moment with your horse. Our top 20 will each receive a parcel of Westgate goodies and feature in a compilation video.

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Diagnostic blood test for small redworm to launch in September 2019

to launch in September 2019

Austin Davies Biologics, the laboratory behind the EquiSal tapeworm test, has yesterday, 5th August 2019, announced a second innovation into the equine market. A diagnostic service to detect small redworm, including encysted larvae, will be available as a blood test from September 2019. The test has been developed by Prof Jacqui Matthews’ group at the Moredun Research Institute (MRI) and primarily funded through The Horse Trust.

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Westgate Labs supports horse health on the front line with World Horse Welfare

Providing free worm egg counts for field officer cases

Leading laboratory Westgate Labs has forged a successful partnership with World Horse Welfare to tackle the ever present threat of parasite infection in horses. Worm burdens are a significant feature of the nearly 2000 situations that the 16 World Horse Welfare Field Officers attend annually. Westgate Labs is providing free worm egg count tests to assist in identifying potentially life threatening problems and give meaningful evidence to help officers engage with horse owners.

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Five key factors in positioning a muckheap

💩🐴 Carefully choosing where to position your muckheap and managing it appropriately will help to protect the health of your horses and the land.

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Summer Parasite Control 2019

☀️🐴🕷🐛 Every season brings its problems and even though we look forward to the long light days, summer is no exception. So while the battle to control flies is a visible daily trial at this time of year it’s important to remember about other parasites too such as intestinal worms, pinworm, bots, ticks and summer sores that might affect the health of our horses.

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Westgate Labs helps to highlight World Horse Welfare’s vital work

by Sponsoring Frodo on the World Horse Trail

We’re delighted to be supporting World Horse Welfare, helping them to raise awareness of their vital work by getting involved with this summer’s World Horse Trail. The first leg kicked off at Windsor Horse Show, 8-12th May, where ten beautifully painted horse sculptures were positioned around the event. Each one portrays the story of a welfare case and Westgate is proud to be sponsoring the journey of Frodo’s sculpture.

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Easter Opening 2019

🐣🐇🥚 Counting eggs this Easter? Two bank holidays are definite cause for celebration; they also mean no post in the lab and consequently no samples to test! As a result the office will be closed both bank holidays, Friday 19th April and Monday 22nd April.

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REACT Now to Beat Colic

1- 7 April 2019 is National Colic Week

To help horse owners combat the life-threatening condition of colic, The British Horse Society and The University of Nottingham have teamed up to create the REACT Now to Beat Colic campaign. Highlighting common causes, management tips and symptoms, national colic week aims to raise awareness of one of the most common emergencies affecting horse health.

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Faecal sand testing now available for horses

to help reduce the risk of sand colic by monitoring sediment levels

Colic is one of the most common emergency problems in the horse and has many different causes, one of which can be sand in the horse’s gut. Animals ingest it as they graze and it can accumulate in the colon over time. Here it irritates the gut lining and, in sufficient quantity, also has the ability to cause impactions which, if not treated in time, can be fatal.