Box rest?????? I am not sure I agree with this in most cases

I don't like box rest, but last xmas had no choice with Rocks, as he had an absess so needed his hoof in a poultice for a few days, and he couldn't be turned out as poultice just came off because the mud was up to the top of their fetlocks! And the boots and stuff I tried just came straight off, so he was on forced box rest until the poultice could come off.
He was also on box rest when he had his shoe off for white line disease - because it was summer, the ground in the field was solid and his feet are the worse you have seen, he went out in field and came in with basically no hoof left! So had to stay in until shoe was back on.
 
When blossom broke her hip, she had 6 months cross tied, but having more space would not have worked, she could not have walked. I think it was possably abit long she was clearly healed as the day she was let out she jumped into the feild.
Ginga had a few weeks in for an abcess, but that was ok.
We were advised to box rest a warmblood who had broken both front fetlock and there was a slim chance he would come through. We didn't want to put him trough that so he had a month out in the feild and was then PTS. as he was getting worse.

Haz
 
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What would you have done in my situation then?
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Just curious?
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Is 3 months too long to be in?

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I just prefer horses to be out, sometimes I know you need to do it!

Just going form experience - for instance someone I school the horse of's horse did a suspensory - after 5 months in he still wasnt sound, she was thinking of having him shot, and advised to by the vet. I suggested 6 months out in a field and then see - she is now competing (and winning) at local RC shows....

Another horse I know with dodgy tendon, same thing - field rest for a year, now 22 and still hacking.
 
I see what you are saying and glad thoses horses were OK
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I suppose I dont have enough experience to go against what my vet advised. Happy to say though that Oscar was OK on box rest and now back i progressive work.
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I hate it when I hear a vet has 'prescribed' a certain amount of box rest.
The fact is, they think that is the absolute maximum it is going to take for the injury ot heal, and that no damage will be done to kick on at that time.
It is also a fact with tendon and ligmanet injuries, that there is no set time frame for healing. If the horse is kept immobile for too long, the elasticity of the structures involved will be comprimised. These things have to be taken week by week.
Basically what im saying is that your horse would probably have been ok to go on restricted turnout after 4-6 weeks, but because the vets couldnt be sure you were experienced enough to know when, they have played it safe.
When I bust my ankle for the second time they got the xrays mixed up with the ones from the year before. They put a cast on as if treatiug a simple crack and told me to come back in 6 weeks. After a week I went in as my knee was the size of a watermelon and the cast was straining. They relaised the mistake and I had the whole joint pinned, screwed and wored together. I then ahd no cast and was told to keep it as mobile as I could. Becasue of that one week of immobility my achilles shortened and I am still lacking an inch of movement each way and walk with a limp.
Too much box rest does exactly the same thing to a horse. The scar tissue forms with no elasticity around it. Yes it heals, but too rigidly.
 
It depends on each situation,, I can also name several cases where the horse would have come sounds on box rest but the owners didn't want the hassle (mucking out) so thre horse out in a field for 6-12 months and hey presto permenantly lame horse/horse PTS.

In or out you have to put the time and effor in to the post/op injury care and do as your vet advises. Even then it can still go wrong.
 
My 2 box rest sessions for the year...

15hh gelding, manages to cut large (3-4" long) and deep (can put finger in wound up to knuckle) laceration on neck about a hand's width behind ear. Is box rested for 10 days as being outdoors he would graze/lower his head almost permantly & burst his stitches while in a box we could feed him everything (water/hay/feed) at chest height.

Yearling colt, small puncture wound to inner face of hock, some infection treated outdoors for 2 weeks but keep getting re-infection from the ground despite judicious care of the wound. Hock joint itslef ends up infected, horse has surgical flush under GA - is kept at vets for 2 weeks to agressively treat the infection (MRSA-type) & is further box retsed for 2 weeks at home with progressively longer hand walks built up to 2 hours to ensure the original wound & surgical incsions are tottally healed & dry before turning out again

In both those circumstances I fail to see how a pen outdoors would have worked....
 
I too agree that horses need to (as far as is possible) live a natural life.

I have had to have my old boy confined for a short time when he had Uveitus as he was at risk of loosing his eye and needed to be in a darkened room. I did however as soon as I could, turn him out with a fly mask sewn in with a towel to cover the affected eye.

I think over use of box rest can have negative affects, but in some case is needed for short periods of time.

I'm lucky in that my box has a pen about 4 or 5 times the size of a regular stable, so they can walk even if confined to rest - much like penning.

On the same token, I find it hard to come to terms with many yards that have restricted turn out, racing stables for example, the horses are ridden for an hour, then stabled for 23! not fair really!

Bx
 
My horse is about to have an operation, and she will need months box rest after, with walking out in hand. As I'm paying for the operation and its the last ditch attempt to get her sound I will follow the vets advice so to maximise the success rate. He's the expert, not me, and I'm not going to start pretending I know more than a specialist.

BTW she has been sat in a field for the last 3 months and doesn't look any sounder.
 
I do understand what you are saying
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but I didnt know about the "elasticity of the structures" etc so had to go along with what my vet told me was best for my horse.
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Maybe if I had a little more knowledge in this area, as you have, I may have challenged his suggestion of box rest, but I dont, and so had to go with what I was advised to do.
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Anyhooo - as long as I get the best result possible for my horse and hes happy I dont care how he gets fixed
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I just hope theres isnt a "next time"!
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In Great Britain the standard size for a horses stable is 12 feet x 12 feet. Foaling boxes are larger.

It does depend on the injury but at the initial stages of treament some conditions such as fractures, strains, Laminitis require box rest to allow healing or prevent worsening the condition or injury.

Once progress is made then the horse may be required to be turned out in a well fenced hospital paddock of say 60 feet x 60 feet.
 
When my horse was diagnosed with SI strain they advised box rest. Knowing my horse, and his temperament, I knew this was never going to work. He started box walking, which I would have thought placed strain on the areas he was supposed to be resting. I then constructed a pen made of electric fencing but he just paced in that too. In the end I decided to let him graze in his own field. He seemed perfectly happy, all the pent up energy and repetitive walking stopped. 9 months later he was perfectly fine.

It's important to look at each horse as an individual and to weigh up the horse's mental requirements versus the physical IMO. I would only box rest a horse if absolutely necessary. I think vets are often very quick to recommend it.
 
I don't like keeping horses on box rest unless absolutely necessary. My mare fractured 2 bones in her hock 7 weeks ago and has been on box rest since. The vets wanted to minimise the damage to injury and prevent the joint breaking down further. She had a follow up xray yesterday and the injury is healing but she will have to go on another 6 weeks box rest for it to completely heal. This will be 3 months box rest altogether. This does sound a lot but if she can heal and spend the rest of her life retired at grass then 3 months isn't actually that long. She's perfectly happy, is fed adlib hay and grazed in hand once a day.
However she has a foal who is now 3 months old and has had to go on box rest with her. This is what I was worried about as before this happened he was out in the field all the time and it was hard for him to be suddenly in a pen all day. But he's coping fine, is let out a few times a day to have a run around and I think it would have been harder and more stressful for him to be weaned a 5 weeks which would have been the other option. The plan now to allow him a bit more freedom is to fence in a field shelter for the mare but to leave a gap which he can fit under so he can then go in and out of the field when he wants.
I havn't read any other replies but I think 3 months box rest in the space of 20+ years is no that much if it means my mare can live a long, happy and healthy life and I don't think the foal will be that traumatised, as a result of the box rest he is very well handled and friendly little individual.
 
Just to add after having read some of the other replies they're in a pen 16ftx16ft in a lean to where they can see the yard and arena. The vet still thinks it's too big as she can move around quite a lot and the foal is able to comfortably canter around.
 
My event horse sustained a tendon injury and had stem cell therapy which involved a controlled exercise programme for recovery. This involved no turn out for 4 months. He coped really well. If the vet recommends it and you want the horse to have a chance of returning to it's full athletic potential then you have to grin and bear it. There is a lot you can do to make it more tolerable. We made sure he had a box where he could see what was going on, he alwasys had some company, ad lib hay, readygrass, carrots and hand grazing etc. It was worth it as he made a full recovery however if we'd turned him out he'd have done more harm to the tendon and had no future as a competition horse.
 
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One other thing occurs - you refer to stalls and I notice that you are from the USA, so it might be different, a box isn't a tie-up stall but a 12x12 'loose box' that the horse has some opportunity to at least turn around in.



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When I refer to a "stall" I mean just the same as you describe...a 12 / 12 loose space.
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That is what most horses are kept in here when "stalled"

I hope that nobody keeps a horse tied in a stall on a normal basis for any length of time
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My mare shattered her splint bone whilst at stud a few weeks ago and needed emergency surgery to remove the chips/repair, etc. She was 'prescribed' box rest for about 3 months however she managed to heal much better and faster than anyone predicted and was able to start going out in a small pen next to the others after a month and by month 3 was living out full time with the others again and has not looked back. I got lucky, however I was fully prepared to have kept her in - at the end of the day, yes I am the first to say I like mine out as much as possible BUT if they need to be in for medical reasons well then I'm afraid I will keep mine in as long as they need to be.
 
My mare required 3 months box rest after having an op to remove a bone chip. The first couple of weeks were ok, then she started getting stressed and bucking in the stable.

In the end after 2 months she got away from my OH during a walk and bolted to the field. It would have been sucide to walk her back to the stable so she went out. Vet was happy with this (he also understood why we didnt want to lead her back in)- in fact even he thought the 3 months advised by the surgeon was too long.

Anyway, the point of that ramble was that box rest is nessecary in some cases, but I think it should be tailored to the horse and their rate of healing- rather than having a blanket box rest time for every horse.
 
I do think that box rest is overdone. There are times when boxrest is the only, or best, option, but not as many as we seem to read about. I have never been advised to box (I know, I'm lucky) but there are times that many people will boxrest, and my vet wouldn't agree.
I noted two posters mention lammi. My first mare got lammi (stress) and the last thing my vet wanted was for her to be boxrested. His ideal was to use a sand school as the sand would support the soles but being able to walk when she wanted, was more beneficial than being kept immobile.
 
I must say that I too have wondered about this. Two years ago my mare went very lame. After all the relevant investigations, it was found that she had a "huge" sidebone that had been fractured at some point and was possibly impeding the movement of the coffin joint. My Vet said that the recommended treatment for this was box rest in the first instance, followed by surgery if that didn't do the trick. However, my mare also suffered from severe, chronic, recurrant lymphangitis for which she had to keep moving. Therefore, box rest wasn't an option. It was recommended we went straight to surgery, but when I enquired the success rate in her type of case wasn't that good. I wasn't happy to put her through it, did a bit of my own research and decided to turn her away for a while - perminantly if necassary (she was lame in the field, but this improved when she wasn't ridden or lunged etc - as has been required during the investigations). My Vet (who is very good) wasn't optimistic. He suggested I try lunging her after 6 months, not because he thought for a moment that she would be sound, but because he wanted to see if she was improving at all. I left it 8 months and found she was totally sound
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I brought her back into work and we have never looked back since
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Flora has to live out due to the lymphangitis, but I do wonder if/when I have another without that problem, it won't be easy to go against the standard wisdom on such things, but maybe box rest is often used when it isn't the only or best treatment.
 
Oh no.
I feel compelled to agree with you, Jade_Wisc....I must be coming down with something...
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I think that keeping the horse mentally happy is often overlooked so don't box rest unless I'm convinced that there's a real need...
I did have to box rest one of mine after colic surgery, but walked her and grazed her in hand, and tried to break up her day...as time went out I managed to put her in a little electric fence enclosure etc....
S
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I am sure we would agree on many things horse related.

The only thing that you have ever posted that I did not agree on was that we were putting the mini in harms way. I had no problem with your other feelings.


Has the brochure for the Equine furniture come out yet?

Awaiting my copy......................
 
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