Practitioners need to quickly assess an acutely recumbent (unable to stand) horse’s prognosis, and that can be difficult. Putting a horse in the Andersen Sling Support Device (ASSD), the gold standard for equine slings, requires at least six people and an anesthetized horse. University of California, Davis, veterinarians recently applied a new sling in a clinical setting and found that it was easily applied by fewer people and could be used with minimal to no sedation.

Charlie Andersen, John Madigan, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVIM, professor of medicine and epidemiology and section chief of equine medicine at UC Davis, and Richard Morgan–the team that developed the ASSD–developed the UC Davis Large Animal Lift (LAL). They wanted a sling that was lighter than the ASSD, could be applied safely by two to three people, was well-tolerated by the horse, and was not too expensive for the average veterinary clinic or equine rescue team.

Nicola Pusterla, DVM, PhD, assistant professor in equine medicine at UC Davis, has recorded details on the use of the LAL in 16 cases. He’s presenting the specifics at an upcoming Swiss veterinary meeting, but he gave The Horse a preview of what he’s found.

“The problem we’ve had in the past is the recumbent horse that needs to come into the hospital has to be sedated, he’s put on a trailer, must survive a trailer ride, be extracted (from the trailer), diagnosed, then you have to put the horse into a permanent sling to see if he’s ready to stand,” Pusterla said. “The Andersen sling is probably the most state-of-the-art sling–it supports the weight with the skeleton, does not put a lot of pressure on the abdomen, and is an ideal sling if the horse is able to stand. There are lots of applications for the ASSD,” but putting the sling on the horse is cumbersome and physically demanding