draining a wound

[Loopypony]

Around 2 weeks ago now my boy sliced his back leg open (presumably with the hoof of his opposite leg). We had the vet out who said it didn't need stitches but to bandage it tightly for a week and see how it goes.
He's now had the bandage off since monday and it all seems to be healing nicely, its scabbed over well and the inflammation has mostly gone down.

However, I had a good look at it this evening and it seems to have a slight fluid build-up around the whole area. It looks as if the scab is stopping the fluid from getting out.

Is there any way I can drain it myself or will it need the vet?

 

[classicalfan]

Don't try doing it yourself. It probably doesn't need draining. When a wound is healing the body produces a fluid to help with the healing process. Some swelling is normal. However, keep an eye on his temperature to make sure that there is no infection.

 

[chameleon]

My boy got a kick at the top of his front leg on the inside. Initially he had staples put in and everything was fine but over the course of about a week the wound healed nicely on the outside but this then didn’t allow any fluid to drain out and consequently his leg filled up gradually from top to bottom. Vet was there virtually every day, first giving me powder antibiotics for his feed, then a few days later with the leg getting bigger he went on to IV antibiotics and had the staples removed and a few days after that they cut open the wound as they though he might have an infection inside. A massive amount of clear yellow fluid came out of the wound. I then had to boil a round ended teaspoon and insert it into the wound as far as I could twice a day for a few days so that the wound did not seal back up and the fluid could continue to drain out, I also had to massage the leg and it was amazing how with every upward massage stroke the fluid literally squirted out - but then the swelling that he had was excessive. This was all under vets advice, so I would get your vet to recheck the wound before trying this for yourself. The worry with my boy was that the initial wound was only a surface wound but when they opened up the wound again there was a tract that went nearly to the bone so I would get the vet back out to recheck the wound before trying to do anything yourself.