Your horse's history, written down

The daily journal

An entry for what you saw

A horse's health record is made of ordinary days as well as the ones you remember. What they ate, how they were in themselves, whether they worked and what you measured. Writing it down gives each observation a date, rather than leaving you to remember which morning it belonged to.

In HorseDex, Log opens on today and the last seven days. You can record exercise and general observations, then switch on the other fields you want. Appetite, drinking, droppings, urination, energy and behaviour use a plain scale: normal, increased, reduced or none. Nothing is compulsory. You decide what belongs in your horse's journal.

An entry is your account of that day. If you have more than one horse, each has its own record and settings, so one horse's notes stay with that horse.

Readings and history

Your numbers, on the dates you entered

Weight and other readings can be entered when you take them. The history keeps the measurements in order, and Trends draws your entered readings against their dates. The line is made from your numbers. Only the readings you entered appear as recorded points.

Notes, measurements and exercise totals sit side by side over time. You can arrange the Trends cards or switch them off. Looking back through a period means reading what you actually logged, rather than trying to put a month of mornings back together from memory.

Episodes

One thread for an illness or injury

An episode holds an illness or injury together: when it started, the updates you added as it went on and an end date when there is one. Photographs and video can belong to that thread. More than one episode can run at the same time.

Medication records hold the name, dose and frequency as written on the label, the start and end, the reason, instructions and a photograph of the label. Facts your vet has already told you can be recorded against the horse. They are there because you entered them, without a conclusion added by HorseDex.

The vet report

Take the record to the visit

Choose a range of dates and make a vet report as a PDF. It brings the recorded entries, readings, care events and episode and medication changes into a document you can email before a visit. The dates and notes give the conversation a written starting point.

HorseDex records and displays what you entered. Your vet reads the history and decides what it means. The journal gives you somewhere to keep the information they ask you to record, and somewhere to return to when they ask about an earlier day.

Keep your horse's record

For routine visits and due dates, read about horse care records. For the costs alongside them, see horse expenses. The questions page has the longer answers.

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