In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas of developing counties, families’ livelihoods and welfare remain dependent on the health and longevity of their working horses, mules and donkeys.

That is why Steamboat Springs-based nonprofit Equitarian Initiative works to sustainably improve the health and welfare of the working equid population and their owner families.

On a Equitarian Initiative service trip Feb. 8-16 to Honduras, Steamboat veterinarian Dr. Taylor Karlin and mission colleagues treated 234 animals in five communities for everything from an infected broken jaw to screwworm. The service teams set up under temporary tents in soccer or dirt fields working in triage, dentistry, farriery and surgery.

Karlin illustrated the level of need by recounting how an owner rode his asthmatic horse more than three hours and crossed a river to arrive at a service site. That horse used for farming and cattle work arrived overheated and in respiratory distress. Karlin administered fluids and got the horse’s fever and respiration under control, while she gently explained to the owner that the horse needed to be used a lot fewer hours per week.

Another animal, whose owner had no access to a veterinarian, had a fractured jaw that had become infected and abscessed with little pieces of bone working their way out through the mouth.

On another day, the service team staying in Choluteca, Honduras, drove several miles, boated across a river and then hiked 1.5 miles to a field site. The service team also helped to train 18 Honduran veterinary students.

Many of those animals that pull heavy work carts for goods, water or trash services suffer from low body weight and poor nutrition with inadequate foraging opportunities, said Karlin, a veterinarian with High Country Equine Veterinary Services in Steamboat.

“The design of the carts and inappropriate tack often leads to pressure sores along the horses’ withers and backs,” Karlin said.

The teams diagnose and treat a variety of preventable health and welfare issues such as malnutrition, exhaustion, dehydration, eye and respiratory infections, skin and dental disease, parasites, back pain, lameness, fractures and wounds.

The farriers on the trips are in high demand as most of the working animals lack proper hoof care. Dentistry is another top priority for the team as dental issues can lead to periodontal disease and malnutrition.

Karlin said she and most of the U.S. team had never treated a screwworm case until the Honduras trip. One horse had a barbed wire cut over a joint that had become infected with hundreds of screwworms, which develop from larvae deposited from screwworm flies.

The Steamboat veterinarian said the productive service trips are “exhausting but rejuvenating” and revitalize her love for veterinary medicine. She said the work trips strengthen her diagnostic skills and physical exams of horses because the teams “practice the most basic of medicine” without the advantages of ultrasound or X-ray machines or lab blood work.

Steamboat resident Annie Henderson, executive director of Equitarian Initiative, said many of the working animals “do not have the luxury for pasture rest because the owners rely on the animal for their own survival and income.”

“Horses are often owned by the world’s wealthiest and the world’s poorest demographics,” Henderson noted. “While working equids arguably provide the most value to their owners and communities, they also are the most underserved when it comes to adequate health and welfare. This isn’t a result of cruelty; it’s an outcome of poverty.”

Henderson said paradoxically many veterinary students in Central America do not learn in depth about equids in urban vet schools. Karlin said most of the vet students learning during the February service trip had never treated or even touched a horse.

The Equitarian Initiative, founded in 2010, trains equine health professionals to provide education and veterinary services to working equids in low-income nations. The group harnesses the expertise of veterinarians, veterinary technicians, farriers, animal scientists, students and educators who pay for their own flights, contribute funds and volunteer their services to share their knowledge with on-site veterinarians, vet students and animal owners at the field clinics.

Equitarian Initiative currently conducts 14 service trips per year including to Native American reservations in South Dakota and Arizona as well as internationally to Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The nonprofit treats more than 3,000 working animals each year, and in 2024 the group educated more than 250 students and utilized more than 150 volunteers.

Dr. Carlos Melgar, veterinarian and faculty member at the partnering Universidad Nacional De Agriculture in Honduras, noted Equitarian Initiative “contributes greatly to our students, putting them in a context of the reality of our equines in the country.”

“Likewise, for us as teachers, it enhances our knowledge since they have highly trained professionals in different specialties within equine veterinary medicine,” Melgar said. “It is very satisfying to maintain these partnerships for the benefit of teachers, students, owners and, above all, for the well-being of the equines.”

Karlin said she hopes to go on the next Equitarian Initiative service trip in July to Guatemala and again to Honduras in the fall.

Individuals interested in learning more about or getting involved with the nonprofit can visit EquitarianInitiative.org or email Annie@EquitarianInitiative.org.