Sedating to clip

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Rosiejazzandpia

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Hi all, numpty question incoming..
Thinking ahead to winter and needing to clip my girl. Shes a very stressy horse and it's taken 6 months to get her standing well for the farrier. I'm planning on doing a bib clip or similar and taking her raggy feathers off but she is very explosive so I think for the safety of clipping she may need a mild sedative. Do I just ring up the vets and ask to buy a sedative, do I need a prescription for it? If so can I buy online afterwards? What sedative is vet likely to recommend?
Thanks in advance :)
 
Get the vet out and have IV sedation. If shes explosive there is a very real risk that she will snap out of the sedation. Mine can look out of it on sedalin etc, but put the clippers on his legs and he flips.
 
I would try her with the clippers they sometimes surprise you if they have never had a bad experience they can be remarkably accepting if you take it quietly and don't make a big fuss, at least you will have some idea if she will need sedation and to what degree, oral sedative should be enough and the vet may let you buy some for the purpose and should give the appropriate drug depending on how sedated she needs to be, it does need to be used with care, they are unlikely to give a prescription for it as it is not ongoing treatment.
 
Thank you both. She watched her horsey friend have his legs clipped yesterday and wasn't happy with the noise. We've tried for the past month just to get her used to the noise of the clippers but after speaking to a friend of a friend who knew my mare at the last yard she seems to have had a horrible experience with clippers. She's very funny with her legs and is extremely head shy, when stressed she tends to panic and use her strength against you to get away from you.
I'm going to ring the vets tomorrow and have a chat, see what they suggest for her
 
Rosiejazzandpia said:
Thank you both. She watched her horsey friend have his legs clipped yesterday and wasn't happy with the noise. We've tried for the past month just to get her used to the noise of the clippers but after speaking to a friend of a friend who knew my mare at the last yard she seems to have had a horrible experience with clippers. She's very funny with her legs and is extremely head shy, when stressed she tends to panic and use her strength against you to get away from you.
I'm going to ring the vets tomorrow and have a chat, see what they suggest for her
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In that case get the vet out to sedate otherwise you run the risk of her having yet another bad experience if she comes out of it at the wrong moment, you will need to be organised and get on with it as there will only be so long before she comes round, the last one I had to do was the fastest full clip ever as he was coming round but I started with the most tricky bits and had got them out of the way first, so start with the legs as you don't want to have them half done and then do the bib as that can be left a little smaller if time runs out.
 
I take zero risks with clipping, especially if you want to do the legs. If she is "explosive", ask the vet to come out and sedate, although they might also suggest dormosedan (sp?) gel, which is very good.
 
I wouldn't count on doing the legs even with IV sedation. I had one horse who had enough sedation to almost put her on the floor and she would still kick off if you went near her legs. She was fine to clip without sedation anywhere else. Also my Cob arrived with a stinking hole in her hind end vet filled her up with sedation and we still couldn't clean it safely. Some horses just don't sedate well and if she is a difficult one anyway I would be very wary!
 
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If a horse snaps out of sedation whilst you're clipping it's lethal, though hopefully the dope would last long enough to do a bib clip.

It's possible to do a pretty tidy trim of feathers with scissors and a mane comb. Lie the comb flat on the leg and cut the hair that sprouts through them. This protects the horse from being nicked, and you can do a little each day.
 
The downside with IV sedation in some is that they sweat buckets - not helpful for clipping. So you might find you pay for the vet to come out and can't actually clip....I speak from experience sadly!

My mare has sedalin from the vet which takes the edge off but doesn't stop her throwing herself around if she is so inclined. Cordless clippers are very useful as you can keep going more easily. Mine isn't scared though - just very jumpy, ticklish and also opinionated. The Domonsedan gel is much better but it has to go under the tongue and I can't get it in her mouth unfortunately (she has sedalin and wormers in a feed). Both Sedalin and Domosedan you can just get from the vet on request.

IV sedation is much more effective sedation wise but if they sweat on it as my pony does it is hopeless. I had to have her IV sedated to travel this week to the vets and she arrived after 20 mins looking like she'd had water poured over her!

If you can gradually desensitise her to the clippers by turning them on every day and holding them against her that will help loads. I wish I had taken more time to try and do that with Molly - she is now 19 and still as adamant as ever that she does not like clipping!
 
I have one who has oral sedation and is then sedated by the vet. We have done hours of clipping work, and she has had behaviourists and all sorts but she simply doesn't like it. If she is very bad, I would do both, and have the vet stay to top up if necessary. That said, I'm hoping that now said horse is mine, and much happier in general, I may eventually be able to clip her, although one of the others still needs sedalin as she is ticklish and hates it.
 
The vet stayed with me while I clipped. I managed to get nearly all of his legs off before he started coming round, so he got a top up which lasted till I'd done all of him. He doesnt need sedation for anything other than the legs, but even working quickly and doing a bodge job I wouldnt have got them done without a top up
 
FfionWinnie said:
I wouldn't count on doing the legs even with IV sedation. I had one horse who had enough sedation to almost put her on the floor and she would still kick off if you went near her legs. She was fine to clip without sedation anywhere else. Also my Cob arrived with a stinking hole in her hind end vet filled her up with sedation and we still couldn't clean it safely. Some horses just don't sedate well and if she is a difficult one anyway I would be very wary!
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Definately this, sedation isn't a guarentee. When my mare needed stitches she had two full doeses of sedative, she was almost on the floor. She was also twitched and I was holding one of her legs up. Still managed to stand on the vet. When the vet went to leave she said "oh she will probably get sleepy again once she is in her stable without the external stimulus of everything going on here."

Nope. She literally snapped straight out of the sedation and that was her box walking for 3hrs before I could placate her with food.

Definately ask the vet to be present.
 
Another for IV sedation especially for legs. Sedalin used to take the edge off mine but you wouldn't get near legs, face or boy bits without IV.

He's grown out of it now luckily
 
I found Domosedan worked when Sedalin/ACP did not. Plenty of time to do a chaser clip. But then he's the sort that objects to clipping generally rather than particular bits. I've had him stand quietly for head and between legs only to object suddenly to neck on the other side.
 
Domosedan is definitely more effective that Sedalin. Sedalin had very little effect on my boy once we reached his problem areas. He woke up instantly even if we did those areas first. We've finally found the way to clip him and that's Domosedan which is great for 98% of him and we have to twitch for the final 2% around his ears and the top of his neck. We've always been able to clip 85% of him without sedation and the twitch for the last 15% but getting the twitch on him is the biggest issue. He literally throws us round his stable. With the domosedan we can twitch him much later in the process for about 2 minutes max (which I prefer as I hate twitching) and his reactions are much slower so we can get the twitch on him!

It does sound like your mare could do with IV though OP, at least this time, maybe you could then persevere with getting her used to them over the next few months until she needs doing again and if she improves you could try domosedan in future?
 
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