Horses under general anesthesia are prone to considerable risk of morbidity and mortality. The present study was conducted to evolve a safe and a reliable total intravenous anesthetic (TIVA) protocol to effect minimal cardiopulmonary alterations as well as to reduce post anesthetic morbidity and mortality in horses for field practice. Group I horses were premedicated with dexmeditomedine-acepromazine-butorphanol, induced and maintained with ketamine –midazolam mixture and in group II horses xylazine-butorphanol as premedicants and induced and maintained with ketamine alone. Anesthetic, cardiopulmonary, venous blood gas analysis, serum biochemical and horse grimace scale parameters were recorded. The mean sedation time was significantly less in group I. The group I horses required half of ketamine dose for 30 minutes of anesthesia as compared to group II horses. There were no significant variations in mean arterial pressure, the heart rate progressively decreased and returned to base value after recovery. The horse grimace scale revealed that the group I horses showed less pain score as compared to that of group II horses. Dexmeditomidine –acepromazine-butorphanol premedicated horses, induced and maintained with ketamine-midazolam mixture is an evolved total intravenous anesthetic (TIVA) protocol which is safe and reliable with no or minimal alterations in cardiopulmonary parameters. The new anesthetic protocol minimizes untoward post morbidity and mortality in horses. This TIVA protocol was found to be an ideal anesthetic for field practice producing 30 minutes of safe anesthesia.
