Horse with Broken Jaw (Open Oblique Fracture of left Mandible)

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Peachaity

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Hi there I'm a newby to this forum, Just looking for some reassurance really :)

My horse suffered a kick to the side of her face a couple of weeks ago, she was diagnosed with a complete open oblique fracture of the left mandible, just in front of the main cheek tooth.

She has had two wires fitted to stable the fracture (looks like a brace) this is two stay in place for 6-8 weeks then she can gradually be reintroduced to previous levels of work.

The vet has said if all heals well she won't have any permanent damage or scarring. (fingers crossed)

She has been reluctant to eat any hard feed or sloppy feed since injury and we've tried everything. Which is strange because she was not at all fusy prior to injury.

She will only eat grass when grazed which is proving hard to provide as the horses on my yard aren't turned out until the end of April.

Since I got her back a few days ago, she has eaten very little and drank very little and had to return to the vets yesterday for this reason.

I am concerned that there is a further reason she is not drinking or eating, has anyone had any experience of this?

Has anyone got any advice or stories they can tell me to make me feel better, it's such a difficult time.
 
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Have her teeth been checked in case one of them was also cracked or damaged in some way? It may not show up on xray.

My horse has teeth problems and end 2011/most of 2012 wouldn't eat much feed, sometimes only couple mouthfuls for many months, she eventually got better on doxycycline. Not totally certain why but there was something wrong with her first lower deciduous cheek tooth, but didn't know that at the time and don't know now for definate that it was that causing a problem. She also didn't drink water properly, still doesn't now at times and still having tooth problems (diastema's, but eats feed okay with them). April 2012 she also had a lump appear on her jaw just below lower left first cheek tooth, it was xrayed and she had a tiny fracture in her mandible bone. The lump did go down and you can only just see a bit of one now.
 
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My horse suffered a broken jaw from a kick too. She was kicked under the chin breaking the right hand side of her jaw in 2 places and coming through the skin under her chin. She had an external fixator screwed into the jaw to stabilise it. Before this happened she was a pig with food would eat anything. Like yours, for about the first 2 weeks after the op she ate very very little making it virtually impossible to get antibiotics and anti inflams into her, was was a viscious circle, as she needed to eat to get the pain relief , but it was just too painful for her. Tried everything, sloppy food, molasses everything. The absolute saving grace was a cheese grater! Would finely grate carrots and Apple's, mix into a small amount of chaff and slowly she got her appetite back. It's a long and hard process and heartbreaking to witness a horse virtually waste away in front of your eyes. Good luck
 
Hi spoo, I'm sorry to hear that :( how is your horse now? I've got the paste versions of antibiotics and painkillers, more expensive but tried everything.
 
The fixation came off around 10 weeks later, by the time it came off horse was almost as good as new, turned out individually to avoid damage to fixator, eating the same amounts as before and slowly putting weight back on. Sadly we lost her a month later to colic just when it was looking like we were out of the woods as far as the jaw was concerned. I remember thinking when I first got her home if I had made the right decision to fix her jaw at all as she seemed so miserable standing starving in her stable but hang in there it gets better, surprisingly rapidly too.
 
Aw I'm sorry to hear that too, mine wasn't eating before her surgery so it was our only option really.. It wasn't obvious it was broken at first but very obvious in the x-ray, I'm worried about her getting colic now but she's okay once the vet has but her on a drip to put water in she's just not drinking by herself for some reason.
 
My mares colic was unrelated to her jaw so I am told but I can't help thinking it played a part. All I can say is good luck, it sounds as if she's very lucky to have you monitoring her.
 
My son's horse broke his lower jaw badly 3 years ago, he had an open fracture between his corner incisor and canine on one side and another between his canine and molars on the other. He had wires in for 12 weeks and at various times they had to be adjusted or tightened and the gum did get get quite inflamed at times with the pressure from the wires. We flushed his mouth out twice a day to clean out anything trapped around the wires and also used a toothbrush for any stubborn bits trapped. He was on painkillers and antibiotics for the first few weeks.

We grated apples and carrots into his feed to temp him to eat but he did eat well after the first week or so. Have you tried steaming or soaking hay or haylage to make it softer for your horse to eat? We weren't allowed to graze our boy till a couple of weeks after the wires came out as the grazing action would disturb the wires, as it was springtime we cut grass and fed it in the stable. Would Readigrass be something your horse would eat?

Our boy recovered well although due to the support the wires were giving the closed fracture the bone didn't reform there well initially and he has been left with a crooked jaw. His incisors have a huge gap between the upper and lower jaw on one side so his tongue hangs out a lot. However the molars are in occlusion so he eats well. He is possibly less sensitive in his mouth when ridden now and he developed a lump in his gum recently over where one of the breaks was. He went back to the vet school and x rays showed that it was a shard of tooth from his corner incisor from below the gum line which had migrated along a bit, probably weakened when he had the wires in and eventually broke away. That corner incisor now has the gum receeding round it so although stable just now we may lose it in the future. Fortunately my son is an EDT so keeps an eye on it.

This horse was a 2* eventer and we had every intention of him returning to eventing however just before his first scheduled run he injured his tendon :( Having been a very tough, sound horse up until then we decided to call it a day in terms of eventing and he is now my "grannymobile", and I thoroughly enjoy playing about with him on the flat :)

Good luck with your horse.
 
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