Electric tape causing injuries

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seadog

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I brought my horse in on Sunday and discovered a 10 inch long (!) cut on her rump. The cut was slightly open, quite deep at the start and getting more superfisical (sp) towards the end, it wasn't bleeding at all. It looked so clean it could have been cut with a knife.
I compleatly racked my brains thinking what it could be and walked round the field about 100 times while waiting for the vet, looking for anything that could have caused this kind of injury, so despirate in the end was looking for flint in the field! Found a spot of blood and some hair on the electric tape, so I am guessing she went to ich or something on the electric fence, it gave her a wee shock and she moved away quickly and it gave her a paper cut type wound, the cut is exactly the right height for this aswel.
The vet agreed that this was what it was and she had seen a few but not many similar injuries by electric tape.

Anyone had any experience of this?
 
Wow - have never come across that.

I suppose the positive side is that she is highly unlikely to make the same mistake again.

If you want to be totally sure, how about changing from tape to rope?
 
I cut the edge of my thumb lifting the tape (electricty off!) to get the wheelbarrow under. It looked like one of the wires in the tape had snapped and the edge was just the right angle to give a clean cut about 2cm long where it ran through my hand.
 
Gluttonforpunishment said:
Wow - have never come across that.

If you want to be totally sure, how about changing from tape to rope?
Click to expand...

Rope can cause even worse injuries, particularly to legs. There was a post on here a year or so back showing horrific injuries to a leg going right to the bone caused by electric fencing.
 
legaldancer - I hadn't even thought of that.

All my paddocks are post and rail now so haven't used electric fencing for a while - thankfully never had any issues.
 
I heard that about rope aswel, always thought there would be no issue with tape, but horses will find issues with anything!
I've got some pics if you want to see?
 
Just after the vet had been....hence the blue around


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A few days later


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A very good friend of mine had to have her horse put down a couple of years ago due to an electric tape incident. The horse had got it wrapped round its legs and it pulled really tight. There were a few cuts and the horse had to go to horsepital whereupon he was operated on. The tape had severed the horses tendons in areas where it hadnt even cut the skin. He was patched up at great expense but when he was checked a few days later his tendons had shredded so he was sadly put to sleep.

The stuff can be evil!
 
I'm sure that will heal quite quickly. You're right about horses finding issues with anything. I've has horses run straight through post & rail & hurt themselves.

Our pony ran straight through the electric tape as I was doing the gate up & got it caught round her rear fetlocks, cue her going completely berserk. She got no more than a small scratch thankfully. Could have been very nasty.
 
Most people at our yard use electric fencing to section off their individual paddocks and it never ceases to amaze me what a bad job they do of it!! They turn horses out in fields with electric fencing posts just stuck in the ground - with no tape between, or with the fence put up but trailing on the ground. All accidents waiting to happen. Its not hard to do the job properly and as safely as possible but still, they don't.
 
tbh she wasn't too bothered about it when she first did it, I think she was wondering what all the fuss was about! Yes, I am very pleased with the healing so far. It's amazing how quickly a healthy horse can heal. Hopefully it wont scar.

Unfortunatly brandy the fence was perfect and tape was taught, just a paper cut type wound as I said. It does amaze me though what a bad job some people do of it....and they never have any problems lol
 
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