I feel awful, need box rest advice.

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Elvis

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I feel so guilty, Elvis has really buggered up his fetlock, he jumped the electric fence but caught himself and has effectively cheese wired his fetlock joint. It's not good, severed a blood vessel so there was blood everywhere, but we are hoping no ligament or tendon damage. He's been bandaged up and dosed up on bute and antibiotics, and once the wound looks okay he will be put in a cast for 2 weeks to immobilise the joint. This means at least 3 weeks box rest, he's been in less than 24hours and is clearly very upset, box walking, tense, sweating etc. He has no company as everything else is out, and I think this is 1/2 the problem, but I don't know what I can do. I'm sending him home (I'm at uni, and moved elvis with me) once he's got his cast as he will have company on the yard at home, plus there are people on site all the time. But what do I do in the mean time? Let him get on with it?

I feel so guilty as he had been showing signs that he was bored in his field as he's out of work waiting to see the physio, and I should have bought him in to give him more of a routine, but I didn't and look what's happened now. And it's my fault he's in pain, my fault it happened, and now he's stressed and it's going to be a long recovery.

Any advice is welcome, I hate seeing him upset and I just don't know what I can do... :(
 
My tb did 18 weeks box rest for tendonitis and even though his background was in racing so had been used to spending a lot of time in his box he was horribly stressed. A mirror helped greatly (quite often caught him making eyes at it ) ,radio on low and out of reach (he put his box rest to good use and learnt how to twiddle the knobs :P ) lots of little feeds and tried to make it interesting so I had a few differernt chaffs/pony nuts etc on the go, triple haynets and again I moved between hay and haylage as he is fairly fussy with forage at the best of times,buckets of grass and cow parsley for him to pick through, regular grooming as he literally wasn't allowed out his box so was getting quite stiff and bringing his friends up for a groom over the door :0 Good luck - its crap but hopefully you will get a positive outcome :) x
 
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Oh bless him - least you have been a kind mum and he has cool green bandages - mine got pink and purple - not thebest look when you are very large and ginger :)
 
aw bless, ours was in for just over a week due to a small cut at the top of the same leg which got an infection, was kept occupied with toys hide and seek with pony nuts, triple bagged hay nets and believe it or not pet rabbit lol. He was also alone due to rest being out, hope he is quickly on the mend, he is a stunner by the way :)
 
One of mine slashed an artery last year on her leg. Immediately the blood pumped out by the gallon. I ran to the house to get supplies and I strapped the injury as tightly as I could but I was unable to fully stop the bleeding. It took the vet almost 3 hours to get here and she kept collapsing for about half an hour before the vet arrived. She was very weak. Anyhow the vet got to it straight away and did a fab job of cauterising the artery and stitching her leg up. She was bandaged similarly to your horse and I had to change the bandage every day, then every two days, etc. I left my mare out with her herd (broodmares and foals) and all was fine. All of my pasture fields have holding paddocks/corrals within them (the corrals are only little, the one in her field is only about 2 acres) so I closed the gates to their pasture field and just kept them all in the corral. Tbh the broodmares hardly ever go in their big field anyway so no-one was perturbed by it. Mare healed up just fine.

Would you be able to fence a small corral/paddock to keep him in so he can share with a friend for the time being before he moves home?
 
Mine did similar with electric fencing round his pastern - only survived because it didn't cut the blood vessels under his heel. He had box rest for two months, and I was able to use a box where he could see he others (or two, because I found the key to keeping it relatively sweet smelling was to use one for day and the next door one for night, so they had time to air for a few hours). Mine is very chilled anyway, loves to just doss in a box, but the key was that he overlooked he field - can you arrange for him to be able to see other horses?Failing that, I know people have had success with mirrors, and stable toys too, and possibly some low dose sedative to stop him doing any more damage? Ask your vet. Good luck, I hope he mends quickly.
 
Your vet has plenty of meds to help settle the horse, bromide, acp both do not compromise the chew swallow reflex. Don't let him stress get help.
 
Speak to the yard manager, surely something can be brought in to keep him company, there must surely be plenty of horses on an university yard to take turns.. If he were on my yard I would leave one of mine in with him. If they can't/won't help, speak to the vet about sedation to help him. I agree, get a mirror. Spend time with him. Perhaps leave a radio. And lastly, its not your fault. It would only have been your fault if you'd literally chased him through the fence! These things happen.
 
Any chance of you borrowing a companion for him for the period he'll be alone - a little Sheltie or even a sheep? Company is everything to a horse. One of our cats used to keep stabled horses company, sleeping on their backs. They loved it.
 
My boy is on box rest at the moment after having an operation on his hind suspensories. He normally gets very stressed with any change to his routine and when on box rest for a couple of days previously he was a nightmare. This time I purchased a valerian based calmer called v-calm and gave hime the full dose (20ml) morning and evening in his feed and first thing in the morning before the other horses were turned out gave him a dose of sedalin. It has worked a treat, he doesn't appear dopey but he is very chilled and calm about being in.

Now he has got used to the new routine he no longer has the sedalin and I am slowly reducing the dose of the calmer.

All the best, I know what a worry it all is.
 
Unfortunately his field and stables are miles away, and it's a small DIY yard and no-one would be willing to bring their horses in to keep mine company when they are all happily living out. His stable, and all the stables are too small for me to put a companion in with him. I think my only choice is to speak to the vet about mild sedatives until he moves yard. I hate seeing him like this. There was a time he didn't mind being stabled alone (ie when he was on quarantine) so I'm hoping he'll start to settle. :(
 
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