Leg wound - advice please!

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kit279

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My horse had a lucky escape this Saturday - he managed to get tangled up in a haynet in the field and cut his pastern. Luckily the haynet broke and the wound is only skin deep, thank god, and I got him in from the field within minutes. The vet checked him over and gave him a shot of antibiotics (his tetanus is up to date etc.) and he was stabled over night (normally lives out 24/7) with a dressing on the wound to keep the dirt out. I turned him out Sunday with another dressing and a polo bandage over that. The wound is healing up very well and he isn't lame or in any discomfort. He's now coming in at night as the weather is foul and the fields are very muddy and I want to try and 'air' the wound off.

I want to try and get the dressing off him at some point so he can get a proper scab. At the moment the wound is healing well but still oozes a little serum onto the dressing, no blood but it's not drying out. My concern is that with an open wound and all the mud, it'll be hard to keep it clean and I'm paranoid about infection. Any advice on what I should do?

I could either keep dressing it until it heals totally or stable him tonight with no dresing and hope it dries up enough to turn out. What would you do?
 
Equaide is a very useful product to have in your first aid kit. You paint it over a wound and it promotes healing while keeping dirt out:

http://www.equinefirstaid.co.uk/

It was recommended to me by another HHO member and I found it ideal for a cut on my horse's leg that was taking a long time to close up.
 
I've recently had 5 weeks of box rest with a barb wire cut to Gulliver. When he was ready to be turned out we kept the wound dressed and with vetwrap over the top, then at night once he was stabled, I removed the vet wrap and just kept a light stable bandage on it. The wound was banadaged at all times for five weeks before I felt safe enough to give him turnout without it. The I purple sprayed the wound - by this time though, a good scab had formed.

I would (for the time being) keep it vetwrapped during the day and uncovered at night with some spray on it and see how well it heals.
 
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