FOR THE HEALTH OF THE HORSE

Athens Veterinary Service adding spacious equine care center

Athens Veterinary Service will soon open its new equine center, located on the same property as its main office in the village of Athens, to fill the growing demand of more clientele owning horses and needing veterinary care for them.

Dr. Ashley Clarke, Dr. Paul Dlugopolski, Dr. Tom Albrecht, Dr. Taylor Marquardt and Dr. Ben Tegen own Athens Veterinary Service. Dr. Clarke said there’s a shortage of veterinarians in northcentral Wisconsin because of veterinarian offices going out of business. She said the shortage of veterinarians combined with more people owning horses created a bottleneck in the main Athens office of two or three veterinarians treating horses in a small area. It was an unsafe working area for both the horse handlers and veterinarians.

“More people have at least one or two horses, and they are treating them like they are a companion much like a cat or dog,” Dr. Clarke said.

Thus, the owners of Athens Veterinary Service decided to construct a new equine center as a separate building on the same property. Groundbreaking on the equine center began in the fall of 2021 and construction of the building started in spring of this year. The new equine center is almost ready to be open for the public.

Dr. Clarke said the new equine center will have the following areas for horse veterinary care: Treatment stocks to allow veterinarians to be more mobile and treat a horse from different angles; an indoor lameness hallway to allow veterinarians to diagnose and treat horses inside when there is inclement weather; an indoor breeding phantom to allow veterinarians to collect semen from stallions for breeding purposes; a special surgery suite with an overhead lift system to treat horses that can’t walk and a laboratory that has a blood analyzer, microscope and semen processing equipment.

She said the new equine center will make it more efficient for veterinarians in the Athens office to treat horses right here instead of traveling long distances to and from farms.

“We have clientele as far south as Mosinee, as east as Antigo, west as Eau Claire and way up north,” Dr. Clarke said. “In most emergencies, handlers can trailer their horses and bring them to Athens Veterinary Service. Our new horse equine center will allow us to work in a safe and wellequipped much larger area to ensure horses receive the best care during emergency situations.”

She said the new equine center will have additional stalls inside to house sick horses and additional individual stallion paddocks, with gaps in between them for safety of the horses, outside. Dr. Clarke and the other staff at Athens Veterinary Service are looking forward to soon opening the new equine center.