Højgård Equine Hospital
Welcome to Højgård Equine Hospital
Højgård- Focus on your Horse is the largest equine practice in Denmark
Højgård- Focus on your Horse, main hospital, is located in the middle of Denmark on the island of Fuenen, approximately 10 km west of Odense. In addition, we have satellite clinics including Højgård Equine clinic in Jutland, near Århus, The HorseDoctor on Sealand, as well as Højgård Horsepractice, Northern part of Jutland on Mors.
Højgård- Focus on your Horse wants to create and maintain good relations to the horse owners. We strive to become a positive part of the horse world and we are eager to help both horses and their owners in all veterinary aspects.
Our goal is to excel in all aspects of veterinary medicine and to be able to offer horses and owners the best possible options for in diagnostic procedures, imaging and treatments.
It is important for us to be a trustworthy veterinary partner, where the professional competence and the horse is in focus
Continued education, certification and specialization have high priorities in a our team of 20 veterinarians. We each work primarily within the area of our primary interest and we all have individual certifications with the speciality fields. This ensures professional and high quality coverage within all veterinary and equine sport disciplines.
On staff we have a board certified specialist in large animal internal medicine (Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine), a 3 year resident in equine Surgery (Diplomate of the European College of Veterinary Surgery), an ISELP certified veterinarian, a Certificate in Equine Reproduction, a Certificate in Equine Rehabilitation, Certified Veterinary chiropractics and veterinarians with advanced research competences (PhD’s) in both exercise physiology and gastroenterology.
We have a high case load consisting of sport horses, lameness evaluations and prepurchase examinations.
Services
Reproduction
We offer all routine and multiple types of specialized reproduction work, including insemination, embryo transfer, as well as semen evaluation. We also offer to freeze semen. During the reproduction season we perform approximately 200 embryo flushes and have recipient mares available. We also have an Islandic stallion available for natural coverage through the season.
MRI
We can offer standing MRI (Hallmarq), which we have had since 2013. All images are interpreted by Dr. Rachel Murray, (MA VetMB MS PhD MRCVS Dip ACVS Dip ECVS, American Specialist in Equine Surgery
Associate of European College of Veterinary Diagnostic Imaging, Animal Health Trust, UK), as she is one of the top equine radiologists in the world and author of textbooks and scientific articles on the MRI subject. She has extensive experience as an sport horse veterinarian, which is a great advantage for us in communication with her.
We actively seek external evaluation of our MRI techniques in order to provide the highest quality images. Recently, we had an evaluation by Dr. Rebecca Milmine, Technical Head of MRI, Dubai Equine Hospital.
Scintigrafi
We have had scintigraphy on site for 6 years and we are working with the Mie system. We have the ability to interpret the images here, but consults with second opinion experts if it is needed.
We believe that the combination of several imaging modalities, can increase the security of a diagnosis and we feel that scintigraphy can be an extremely valuable addition to radiography and ultrasound examination, as it can provide important information regarding on-going activity in an injured area.
Diagnostic Imagin
Digitalised Radiography
The hospital has both portal (Eklin) and stationary digital radiography available. We have extensive experience in obtaining and interpreting images for national and international clients when it comes to prepurchase examinations. We can send images all over the world via the “easy-image” option, allowing images to be shared in high resolution (Dicom images) for evaluation by veterinary colleagues.
Ultrasound examination
Our veterinarians have several ultrasound devices at their disposal allowing us to evaluate different problems such as orthopedic issues (tendons, ligaments and joints), abdominal and thoracic problems, as well as routine evaluations of the reproductive tract.
The ultrasound machines include several portable devices (Sonocite, M-Turbo) and a stationary ultrasound machine (Vivid 7) located at the clinic.
Ultrasound examinations are extremely valuable for the diagnostic work-up of lameness issues and our approach is highly inspired by ISELP.
Surgical team
The surgical team is equipped with modern facilities and diagnostic and therapeutic tools necessary for all orthopaedic and soft tissue surgeries. These include both surgeries in general anesthesia and standing. We routinely do arthroscopy, removal of fractures splint bones and corrections of orthopedic issues in foals. Routine soft tissue surgeries include correction of roares, retained testicles in the abdomen, tumor removal and colic surgeries.
We also perform chiropractic corrections and specialized dental care, including associated dental surgeries such as teeth exctractions
Facilities and equipment
We can offer excellent facilities for lameness evaluations and prepurchase examinations, including various surfaces and slopes used for gait analyses.
In the barn we have 40 stalls, including foaling stalls, stalls with video surveillance and a stall bedded with sand for laminitis horses. Also, we have multiple smaller paddocks (grass or sand) for horses admitted to the hospital whom could benefit from turnout during their hospitalisation period. Separate larger grass paddocks are used for mares serviced at the hospital during the reproduction season.
We have a well equipped hospital laboratory which enables us to analyze blood, urine and fecal sample, many of which we can offer same day results. If diagnostic tests can not be performed in house, we arrange analysis by individual laboratories around Europe depending on the particular test.
