I am in the U.S. and the answer is “it just depends”, lollol
1. On whether or not you live so remote that you better have a truck & horse trailer and know how to load your horse and get it to the vet.
One lady that lives in the U.S., close to the Canadian boarder, had to carry her horse to the vet for something serious because the farm call would have been $200 U.S. just to get him to her farm.
By the time she left the vet’s clinic, there was a blizzard and her normal two hour drive home was four hours. She is used to driving in that kind of weather but was still a nervous wreck because she had her horse in the trailer and the roads were a sheet of glass.
2. Then there is me. I am about 1-1/2 days drive SE of the woman above. There are areas in my state that are as remote for large anImal veterinary care as her area. I live in an Agricultural County but there is no shortage of general vet care or specialists. Some are mobile, some are not.
I have a truck & 4-horse stock trailer. I moved my horses myself, clear across the United States twice. I have carried horses to different clinics for emergencies, never for your garden variety issues or vaccinations.
Farm vets are very common in the U.S. they charge a road fee, which can vary greatly, even in one area. When my farm vet comes to draw blood on my IR/Cushings horse in the spring, he comes up to the house and gives one of the dogs it’s rabies & DPV vaccine.
If I need to see the lameness vet who saved Joker’s life when he first foundered, I now need to carry Joker to his clinic, but that is not possible because Joker also has a twice fractured sacrum and can‘t get step up on the trailer. Thankfully a sports medicine vet from further north married a vet who bought a small animal clinic near me. That means he set up a mobile business, has a portable x-Ray, and can do minor surgeries (including PRP) at the farm, if need be.
3. For those folks in boarding situations — it depends if they are at a small private facility or a big professional place. Private facilities generally put the onus on the horse owner, to find their own vets & farriers. Big barns will have a vet & farrier available but do allow the horse owner to have their own.
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That‘s a lot of confusion to digest, lollol.
Horse veterinary care is far from cut & dried in the U.S. It just depends where you live, but one thing is for sure, if the horse(s) are on your property, you had better have some knowledge of simple veterinary care because vets are so busy they can’t come running every time the horse gets a scratch on the leg.
@horseandgoatmom lives about 1-1/2 days drive ? NE of me, close to the East Coast. Her reply is likely different than mine, especially since she also has goats.
