Lies down every day & injures herself - help!

[greyday]

Hi all, new here, hoping you guys can help. I have a young mare who is amazing and she loves to sleep. When in on a night she lies down and sleeps flat out - this is fine and I like that she gets proper rest but the amount of knocks on her legs from getting up and down as a gangly youngster is now concerning me. She has marks on her fetlocks and bulbs from her hind legs and she has knocks on her tendons and hocks too.

She has a deep shavings bed on rubber matting but the depth doesn’t seem to make a difference here.

I’m now considering stable boots or bandages but am I going to introduce a new problem by having her legs wrapped all the time?

She is a young competition horse so any damage to legs makes me nervous! Thoughts?!

 

[eggs]

I've had a number of big youngsters but never had this problem so would be a little concerned as to why your mare keeps on knocking her own legs.

I had a mare that had a historic injury to a hind hoof which made it more susceptible to knocks so I used to put a sausage boot on that leg when she was in the stable.

 

[brighteyes]

Get a camera rigged up. Is she getting cast or have you observed the scuffle and scrape?

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

My arab would do this when he was young I used thermatex wraps or the thinner fleece ones in summer from snuggy.

 

[sbloom]

I wonder if some work to improve her proprioception might help? TTeam bodywrapping (have a search online, there are a few bits here and there about it) may help, though it may not "transfer" to this situation. Could she be on 24/7 turnout instead?

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

I think its because they are young they tend to lie down more it stopped happening when my horse was about 5. He also had a rubber floor with a really deep shavings bed and I had no idea how he managed it, although they were only little scrapes nothing serious.