Broken Tail - Anyone have any experience?

[NagsEquestrian]

Had the vet out last night to my mothers mare, she's not been lifting her tail to go to the toilet or swish flies away.

Vet says it's 'trauma' and possibly a broken tail. It's in a difficult place to xray and insurance wouldn't cover it anyway, but she may get the use of it back, but it may take months.

Anyone had any experience with a broken/paralyzed tail?

 

[Tnavas]

Years ago I Say a chiropractor do wonders with a tail supposedly broken - horse had reared up and flipped over backwards landing fair square on it's tail - it too couldn't lift its tail.

Chiro pulled very strongly on the tail, stretching the vertebrae - tail straightened and filly walked away carrying her tail as per normal.

Could be worth considering.

 

[WelshD]

I'm sorry it's not the same exactly but my cat couldn't lift her tail after a fall, it was nerve damage and she regained use of it again gradually over a period of about two weeks

 

[texas]

Yep I loaned an old boy with that problem. Just make sure you use loads of fly spray and I'd plait the sides of her tail round to keep them clean.

 

[siennamum]

Yes, as a 4 year old mine paralysed his tail, couldn't move it at all. Vet couldn't find any cause or obvious trauma and we concluded it was probably nerve damage, he was generally sore around his back/hips and I think he went over backwards when playing.
He was bought in during the day to get him away from the flies, he was really upset by flies and would overreact to anything landing on him & still gets tetchy about it.
Apart from that he just needed a long rest, he's completely fine now and has no after effects, but as I say he may have not permanently damaged anything to begin with.
He was turned away for the Summer - 3 months, and I was fairly careful about bringing him back into light work only for a while.

 

[flaxen]

We had 2 competition horses admitted after a long lorry journey from abroad with injuries from too tight tail bandages, 1 worse than the other. The worse one completely broke down and a large part of her skin sloughed off almost down to bone, to treat her we clipped the rest of her tail hair away and while treating it, we also found that she had broken her tail after xraying as it wasn't healing at it should, ( no more risky than taking stifle xrays ) the mare had a plate inserted into her tail to stabalise the fracture and it did heal although her tail hair never regrew. It took a long time and the horse was an inpatient for a good six months and longer but some of that was because of a long court case.

A tail guard and bag will also keep her tail clean or put her tail in a rectal glove and put a piece of Elastoplast around the top of her tail to hold it in place ( doesn't have to be tight it will stick to her hair ) all our colic surgeries have their tails this way as it keeps them clean. Hope this helps.

Where does the vet think the damage is as to why its not xrayable and why wont ins cover it?

 

[AmyMay]

Why won't insurance cover diagnosis?

 

[NagsEquestrian]

She does have a cut/rub on her tail, and the bottom of her croup where it meets her dock has developed a very steep slope. She's still got feeling in her hindquarters and is completely sound (as she demonstrated this morning cantering around whilst avoiding being caught) but we are keeping an eye on her incase she starts to get 'wobbly' on her back end which might mean it's nerve rather than broken.
She's had her tail completley clipped off at the dock and last night I put the tail flap from her old ripped Rambo protector fly rug on another of her fly rugs so she's got some protection.

I'm unsure about her ridden future though, she will have as long as she needs off, she's 21/22 so if she needs to be retired that's fine, and my mother has another horse to ride over the summer if she wants to.