Ideas for restraining horse for wound dressing

[Lou_Lou123]

I have a mare that caused herself a nasty injury about 2 months ago where she managed to kick herself and cut from just above her fetlock down to her hoof, the wound went all the way down to the tendon. She was rushed to the horspital and they operated that evening. The vet thought she was unlikely to live due to the risk of infection. 6 weeks later she was discharged sound in walk and trot

so hopefully sound enough to be a broodmare.

The problem I'm now having is that the wound has to be dressed every three days as there is still a little bit of flesh that needs to finish healing. The dressing consists of honey straight onto the skin, followed by a melonin dressing, followed by gamgee wrapped around the leg from just below knee to coronet band, a similar layer of cotton wool, then vet wrap then an elastoplast bandage.

Understandably the mare is fed up with people bandaging, cleaning and otherwise poking her bad leg. So far we have tried holding up the opposite front leg while I bandage bad one, but this just results in her putting all her weight on the good leg being held up by non-horsey but strong and very patient OH, eventually ending up with her knee on the floor. With some success we tried OH holding up bad leg, which was harder to bandage without bandaging OH to her foot (!). Today she managed to pick up hind leg and kick OH whilst he had hold of front leg! We have also tried twitching her muzzle, and sedalin, neither of which had much effect.

Running out of ideas

Reluctant to call vet for sedation for this, any ideas??

Also in SY

Thanks

 

[Izzwizz]

How about giving her a bucket of feed to take her mind off it whilst other person tends to her leg? If like my mare - shes ruled by her tum and would stand for anything if this was offered to her. Other than that sounds like sedation. Hopefully you dont have too many more times to have to do.

 

[rangerover]

Hi,
Had a similar problem some years ago over the Christmas period when I had no one to help me except non-horsey OH andin the end we resorted, after several phone calls, to Equine America gel - in the red and white packaging. They advised us not to wash it off, just to keep putting a layer on every day. No bandaging. We did this on a gash about 7" long down to the tendon sheaths and ended up with just a tiny black line scar on a grey leg. Good luck!

 

[CBFan]

Why so much bangaging? could you not just do the honey, melonin dressing and then vetwrap or similar? if you need to keep it covered. Otherwise I would echo the other thought of leaving it open to the elements - as long as you apply a 'barrier' in the form of the honey or anticeptic cream etc I can't see it being an issueto keep clean...


I would echocho the feeding idea but also how much sedalin are you giving her and how long are you leaving it to take effect? you might need to up the dosage and give it longer to take effect... I think about an hour and a half...

 

[Lou_Lou123]

Thanks everyone. She has to have all the padding because it was a big open wound, right at the back of the fetlock and because of the skin stretching everytime she moves the vet has advised that there is a high risk of it opening up again as there is so much new flesh forming, and still some swelling stretching the new skin. She is also inclined to chew vetwrap, where as elastoplast on top keeps it in place for three days. I've been giving her 5ml of sedalin, and leaving for just under an hour, so maybe I'll try leaving it longer.

Thanks!

 

[hollyandivy123]

how about using stable wraps to hold the dressing on rather than bandaging it would be quicker than wraping things round

http://www.equilibriumproducts.com/leg_protection/equi_chapsreg_stable_chaps/

 

[alsxx]

This may not help, but when my mare was at the vets having her lameness investigated, she objected quite stongly (understandable really) to having nerve blocks. Obviously you cant sedate a horse you are nerve blocking as you need to trot it up/ride it etc, however we discovered that covering her eye so she couldn't see what was happening worked a treat. We noticed she was watching what was going on, and would start plunging/barging just before the needle went in.

 

[Penniless]

Have you tried grabbing hold of a piece of skin on her neck (about half way down) and twisting it as such. If you do it right, your hand will go numb after a while but don't dare let go, but it acts like a twitch for a horse and will give you enough time to do it all.

We know exactly what you're going through. We had the same thing (and about 10 layers of creams, gauzes, softban, gamgee, etc. etc. etc.) on the whole length of one front leg of our yearling filly at the end of last year. (Accident due to Hot Air Balloon dipping low into our youngstock paddock and opening up its gas/fire cylinders - causing foals and yearlings to bolt everywhere, with this one particular filly going through the post and rail and haing wood embedded at the side of her knee). We also had to dress the wound every day for 3 weeks so can imagine what you're going through. We also went through the "don't you dare do this to me" stage!

Twitching the skin does work 9 times out 10 but make sure you've got a strong handed person. Hope she recovers well.

 

[Lou_Lou123]

I think neck twitching sounds like the way to go, a few people have suggested that (this is also in SY). Wraps sound like a good idea too as it is mostly for protection it doesn't need to be sterile, as long as i get some vet wrap on the dressing part first.

Interesting about the blindfolding too als, I've known a couple of ponies that are really hard to worm/vaccinate and I just used to put a jumper over their eyes and then they were much better. Will try that too.

Luckily the prognosis is now good and it is very nearly healed, just a couple more weeks of dressing hopefully.

 

[Lou_Lou123]

I was dreading changing the dressing today as OH was not around, so me and another girl had to do it. My friend neck-twitched the mare and she stood still from start to finish, didn't flinch once. I was amazed as she has been stamping, barging, kicking out and generally throwing her weight around. So thanks to all who replied! I really couldn't believe the difference, I have heard of people neck twitching with little effect before so had never really thought much of it, but with this mare it worked a treat.