Hillside Vet Services

10/10/2026

Dr Tommy is proud to be a part of the important committee! We give a lot of our unpaid time to causes such as this to further improve the health care provided and knowledge delivered to horses and their owners across the country.

08/10/2026

Do you want to know the secret to a shine like this? 🌟

Not only are we passionate about preventative health care, dental care, hoof care and everything in between, we love equine nutrition and diet plans!

If you want your horse to look and feel this good inside and out contact us today!

30/09/2026

A little snap shot of some of today’s patients 🦷 We enjoyed seeing these two 4 year olds for their first dental procedure! They were both well behaved and enjoyed their sedation recovery 💉

20/09/2026

HVS is proud to sponsor one of our favourite local clubs! How lucky are us show jumpers to have this kind of facility and events for young horses right through to World Cup jumpers. We look forward to supporting many more events in the years to come. 🌟

16/09/2026

🐴 Pregnant Mare with a Caslick? Don’t Leave It Too Late to remove.

As foaling season begins, it is important to check whether your pregnant mare has a Caslick vulvoplasty in place.

A Caslick is commonly used to help protect mares from contamination and uterine infection, particularly in mares with poor v***al conformation. However, once that mare is approaching foaling, the Caslick needs to be opened before labour begins.

If it is left closed too long, it can increase the risk of:

• Tearing during foaling
• Vulval and perineal trauma
• Delayed delivery
• Pain and complications for the mare
• Increased stress during an already time-sensitive situation

As a general guide, Caslick’s are usually opened around 2–4 weeks before the expected foaling date, or earlier if the mare is showing signs that foaling may be approaching.

Signs to watch for include:

• Udder development
• Waxing up
• Relaxation around the tail head
• Softening of the v***a
• Changes in behaviour
• Milk calcium or pH changes suggesting foaling is close

If your mare is due this season and has a Caslick, now is the time to check your dates and make a plan.

At Hillside Vet Services, we can assist with:

✅ Caslick opening prior to foaling
✅ Late-pregnancy mare checks
✅ Foaling preparation advice
✅ Newborn foal checks
✅ IgG testing
✅ Mare and foal health planning

The key message: don’t wait until she is in labour.

If your mare has a Caslick and you are unsure when it should be opened, contact us so we can help time it appropriately around her expected foaling date.

📩 Message or call Hillside Vet Services to organise your pre-foaling mare check.

04/09/2026

These prices haven't changed since the day we opened our doors. That's about to change — but you've got until the end of September to make sure it doesn't change for you.

When we launched Hillside Vet Services in February 2025, we set the pricing on our Annual Equine Health Packages based on what things cost us back then — fuel, medications, equipment, our time on the road.

Eighteen months on, almost everything behind the scenes has gone up. Significantly. We've absorbed as much of that as we possibly can, because we know what it's like to budget for your horse's care, and we didn't want to be the reason that budget blew out.

But we can't hold 2025 pricing on 2027 costs forever. So here's what we're doing about it, honestly:

📅 Our Annual Package prices are going up.

🔒 But if you lock in your package by 30 September 2026, you keep today's price. It doesn't matter if your actual appointment isn't until January 2027. Book the package now, and we honour the price you booked at.

And remember what we showed you a few posts back — even at today's price, you're already paying close to half what the same care costs booked separately. After the increase, that gap gets even wider. Locking in now isn't just about avoiding a price rise — it's about locking in the biggest gap between what you pay and what you get that this offer will ever have.

This isn't a gimmick or a "sale ends Sunday" trick. It's us trying to do right by the clients who've done right by us since day one — the ones who show up for their horses. You're the reason we've been able to keep these prices as low as we have for as long as we have.

If you've been meaning to get your horse onto a package, this is the window. After 30 September, new pricing applies to every new booking, regardless of appointment date.

📞 Message us or call the clinic to lock in your horse's package this week.

04/09/2026

Next gastroscope day!

🐴 Gastroscope Day — Wednesday 7th October

Is your horse trying to tell you something?

Equine gastric ulcers are common, and the signs can be subtle. Some horses continue to eat, work, and look “mostly normal” while still having clinically significant ulceration.

Signs that may suggest gastric ulcers include:

• Girthiness or sensitivity around the belly
• Behaviour changes under saddle
• Poor performance or reluctance to go forward
• Dull coat or poor condition
• Picky eating or reduced appetite
• Weight loss or difficulty maintaining weight
• Recurrent mild colic signs
• Changes after stress, travel, competition, injury, or training changes

At Hillside Vet Services, our gastroscope days allow us to properly assess the stomach and make an evidence-based treatment plan if ulcers are found.

Our next Gastroscope Day will be held on:

📅 Wednesday 7th October
📍 Beerwah Sportsground

Gastroscopy is the only way to accurately diagnose and grade equine gastric ulcers. Guessing, trial treating, or relying on behaviour alone can miss important information and may delay the right treatment plan.

If your horse has been showing signs of discomfort, poor performance, behaviour changes, or you simply want answers before the season ramps up, this is a great opportunity to book in.

📩 Message Hillside Vet Services to secure a spot for Gastroscope Day on Wednesday 7th October.

Limited spaces available.

02/09/2026

We priced out what it actually costs to book this the "normal" way — separate visits, separate call-outs, separate consult fees. The difference surprised even us.

Every one of these services has a standalone price. But nobody books a dental float, a farrier X-ray day, and a round of vaccinations as one visit if they're not on a package — realistically it's 2 to 4 separate appointments across the year. And every one of those appointments carries its own standard consultation fee on top of the procedure cost (before travel, which we haven't even added in).

Here's what that actually adds up to, using our own published pricing:

📊 Base — around $1,618 booked piece by piece, vs $829 as a package.
📊 Old Timers & Retirees — around $1,311 booked piece by piece, vs $829 as a package.
📊 Elevation — around $2,177 booked piece by piece, vs $1,099 as a package.
📊 Summit — around $2,531 booked piece by piece, vs $1,425 as a package.
📊 Performance — around $3,148 booked piece by piece, vs $1,762 as a package.

In every tier, the package works out to close to half what the same care costs booked separately — and that's before you count the travel/call-out fee that applies every single time a vet comes to your property, not just once a year.

Put another way: the Base Package works out to about $2.27 a day to have your horse's core health non-negotiables covered, on call-out priority, for a full year.

📩 Numbers speak louder than we can. Message us to lock in your package before 30 September.

31/08/2026

A vet visit is only part of what you're actually paying for.

Beyond the exams, the bloodwork and the vaccines, every Annual Package includes things that quietly save you time, money and stress all year round:

✅ One consolidated visit day, instead of four separate call-outs (and four separate call-out fees)
✅ Digital vaccination certificates, ready whenever an event or agistment centre asks for one
✅ A written, photographed record of your horse's dental and hoof findings — so you (and your farrier) are always working off the same information
✅ Priority scheduling and exclusive after-hours phone access

And coming soon: we're building a client portal, exclusive to our Annual Package families, with resources on first aid, bandaging, and day-to-day horse management — so the support doesn't stop when we drive off your property.

We built these packages to be worth more than the sum of their parts. That's the whole idea.

📩 Want all of this working for your horse? Message us to lock in your package.

30/08/2026

By the time you can see it, it's already been brewing for months.

Some of the most useful information about your horse's health never shows up as a limp, a dull coat, or weight loss — it shows up in bloodwork first, weeks or months before there's anything to see with the naked eye.

That's the thinking behind the screening and joint support built into our Old Timers & Retirees, Elevation, Summit and Performance packages:

🩸 Seasonal blood screening to build a baseline for your horse, so we know what "normal" looks like for them specifically — and can spot the moment something drifts from it.

🧬 Cushing's (PPID) testing for older horses, because the earlier it's caught, the easier it is to manage and the more comfortable your horse stays.

🦴 Joint support plans — 4Cyte or Arthropen, under vet guidance — to protect comfort and mobility through training blocks and the normal wear of getting older.

None of this is glamorous. It's quiet, unremarkable, in-the-background care. It's also exactly the kind of care that adds years of comfortable, sound work to a horse's life instead of an expensive scramble once something's already gone wrong.

📩 Want your horse's baseline on file before anything changes? Message us to book.