Did someone say there was a new Equine Clinic in town??

I swear my horses are accident prone. It seems like every day there is a new scrape, puncture wound, lameness, etc. I don’t know if my horses are going buck wild in the pasture or just down right clumsy!

My farm has gone from a riding heaven to a medical center for hurt horses. Remember my last trip to Mt. Rogers? Well that trip was awesome but Spur came home lame and when I say lame I mean he was so sore he laid down as soon as he got to his paddock. After a few days of bute and his lameness not getting better we called the vet. Come to find out he had a huge abscess in his hoof. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever had a horse get an abscess but let me tell you from experience, a lot of care goes into keeping the hoof clean and doctored.   His shoe had to be pulled off and his hoof had to have medication put on daily as well as wrapping it with a diaper. Yes a diaper! There is a bit of humor that comes from seeing this huge animal wearing a diaper on his foot. Can’t believe I didn’t think to take a picture..bad me!

Anyway, it’s been a week since Spur got a shoe back on with a pad to help keep the underside of his hoof protected until it can heal completely. Tonight I got to ride him for the first time in a month and it felt so good. He was such a good boy and did everything I asked perfectly. 🙂 Hopefully I can get him back in shape and make it to a barrel show that’s right up the road in late June. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Any who. Back to hurt horses, where was I? Oh yes, so in the midst of Spur being lame, I go out to the pasture one afternoon and see Vinni with a very swollen, red leg. Of course, I’m the typical parent who started freaking out and having a panic attack thinking my horse is going to lose his leg. Ok maybe I wasn’t that bad but it did scare me a little. It would scare you too, right?!  I grab a halter and get him into the wash stall and start hosing off his leg. As the blood subsides I see a dime size puncture wound right under his right knee. Yuck and $h*^ are the first two words that came to mind. Now this isn’t my first rodeo with puncture wounds and luckily I still had all the necessary wound medicines left over from the last time. I hosed off his leg for a good 20 minutes until the swelling went down. Then I cleaned out the cut with Betadine scrub and proceeded to cover it with a powder given to me from the vet and then Nolvasan on top of that.  This was the routine for about a week. It has now been a little over 3 weeks and the wound isn’t healed completely but it’s getting there. It is healing perfectly from the inside and out and hopefully won’t leave a big scar. Fingers crossed please! 🙂 A little tip I learned from my vet when it comes to puncture wounds – Did you know it’s best to scrub the wound everyday so that it bleeds a little? This helps the wound to heal from the inside and not the outside in. When it heals this way the scarring is minimal and sometimes no evidence of a wound is left.

So on top of Vinni and Spur being hurt, just this past week my paint Te ended up with some scrapes. It looks like he might have rubbed up against the fence or stall too hard because he has patches of hair missing. These scrapes aren’t nearly as bad as Vinni’s but they still aren’t pretty to look at. I’ll be glad when they heal up though!

This story isn’t over just yet. As you guessed the only other horses I haven’t talked about, Jet, also got hurt. Now let me preface this with, Jet is my dare devil and likes doing everything that scares most horses. This is probably my fault because I’ve desensitized him to everything and nothing scares my boy anymore.    With that said here’s how he got hurt. My barn has 4 steps leading up into one side because it sits on a hill. Well Jet, being the dare devil he is, decided he would climb the steps into the barn. Can you guess where this is going???

If you guessed the step broke, you’re right! The very top step broke in two as he was making his way up them and into the barn. Of course, his left front leg goes down to the ground with the piece of board and as he pulls it out..bam..wound number 4! Luckily his wound wasn’t nearly as bad as Vinni’s but not as superficial as Te’s so I still had to doctor him for a few days like I did Vinni.  I’m happy to report he is all better now.

So as you can see, my farm has been an equine hospital instead of a horse training facility. Well training facility might be a slight over exaggeration but hey a girl can dream…

Questions for you:

• What do you think the best wound ointment is on the market? I love Nolvasan but it is no longer being manufactured. I’ve found Vetricyn is pretty good at healing wounds like the Nolvasan.

• Have you had to care for hurt horses lately? If so, what happened to yours?

• What’s the craziest thing your horse has done that has wound up getting him hurt? This incident is high on Jet’s list of crazy things he’s done that didn’t have to good of an outcome.

  
  

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