Bone Spavin

[Neemo]

My little 7 year old TB was diagnosed with bone spavin in September after most of 2014 on field rest. Initially the vet put her on a bute trial and all for about a month was completely fine hacking, despite being not supposed to canter, she took off a fair few times in the old usual canter places. After an abbess and me not being able to get her lightly hacking out during the winter months, I took her shoes off and she's been off work living out 24/7.

Our vet said the more gentle hacking we can do, the faster the bone will fuse and she may be able to go back to lightly competing eventually or at least hacking out again properly. I've read some success stories but I'm unsure if the bone fused naturally and how long it took. She is just a big pet at the min and will be for as long as she is OK, but I am just holding onto a little bit of hope!

 

[JW & MT]

I have a mare that was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis in her hocks 3 years ago at age 3.5. She had a year off to have a foal, and then we x-rayed again after that & had one of the hocks injected as the year off had not resulted in the fusing that we had hoped for. She was then backed (at 5 yrs old), she had some signs of not being completely sound for a short while which we treated with bute but for the last year she has been fully sound and is going well. It might be different to your bone spavin but in our case light work definitely helped and you would not know there had been anything wrong with her less than 2 years ago.