Oh dear- what do you reckon vet is going to say?!

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seabiscuit

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Cheeks has thrown a small splint
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it is just luke warm and about 5 cm diameter, quite close to tendon unfortunately.

The owner wants my vet( who is also his vet) to come and he wants to have it ultrascanned.......great....

My vet is the type who says 6 weeks box rest for everything....

Am dreading this!!

Anyone think they could give me a best case scenario and a worse case scenario here of what you think the outcome will be?? I know some vets say push on and work them, others will be the opposite extreme and say 3 months box rest!!
 
splint.. nest case is that the vet could say work him.. if its a younger horse they usually do..
Worst case is that the vet says it needs taking away.
lou x
think this is right LOL!!!!
 
The horse is somewhere between the age of 4 and 6, the owner changes his mind about how old he is every time I speak to him, LOL !

But yes a young horse anyway!

God I had forgotten that they operate on splints! No, am sure that wont happen *positive thinking!*
 
I have never had a vet come out and look at a splint unless causing lameness. My vet does tend to apply common sense and say carry on if not causing a problem.

Keep your fingers crossed that you can just carry on. I don't see how box rest would help it as once started forming it has to finish - if sound I would of thought worse case scenerio should be light work and little no road work / hard ground. If unsound then you may have to give time off but surely not box rest?

Fingers crossed you can just carry on.
 
Is he unsound? If not, I'd just lay off the road work/fast work for a few weeks, but keep going as normal otherwise.

I've had 6 horses (that I can think of) that have thrown splints and none have needed to be rested, none have been unlevel with them and all have gone cold within a few weeks and slowly reabsorbed. Obvioulsy, if they are unlevel, you'll have to rest them until they're right.

Why does it need to be ultrascanned? will that affect the treatment of it?
 
That is good news Jemayni!

Sarah_Jane, Cheeks is sound but the owner is adamant that he must have an ultrasound...IMO box rest achieves nothing but will have to follow along with what the vet/owner wants!

Fingers crossed!!
 
The ultrasound scan will be to check that the splint isnt rubbing on the tendon for piece of mind..

I quite agree with you, just hope that vets thinks so too!
 
My first pony threw a splint as a 6yo, I only noticed as she was slightly lame uphill on hard ground but fine any other time. I was young and inexperienced and didn't bother with vets or anything, just gave her two weeks off (was out 24/7 so not box rest) and one week easy work and once it settled she was fine. Mine has a splint on the outside splint bone of one leg, it did get bigger when I got her but is now slowly getting smaller. She's never been lame with it though so never had time off, so they will go without rest too!
My friend's horse has the most mahoosive splint I ever did see but he's been fine with it. She's trying out that Splintex stuff at the mo, hopefully that will help.
 
The owner is paying for everything thank god!!

No am having a lot of good luck this year!! everything is going MUCH better- my other horse is in super form!
 
If the horse isn't lame then I doubt the vet will say to change anything to be honest. I personally wouldn't box rest for a splint - seems counter-productive to me
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I have a horse who threw a splint a month or so ago. He was unsound and still is slightly, but I don't need to use him over the winter so he is just turned out and will be left until the Summer now. Some days he seems fine and then he larks around and starts to limp ever so slightly. Nowt the vet can do, so no point in having here specifically for it, although one of the pregnant mares will be seeing vet for her pre-baby jabs so I will have him look at the splint horse at the same time.

Good luck and don't worry, unless he is a totally niave vet OR the horse really does have an issue, then he will just say to carry on as normal I would think.
 
cold hosing and splintex worked well on one of my show horses. He put it up age 4, I carried on working him, but not hammering him, and used the splintex and spent a lot of time hosing. He went on to have a very sucessfull show career, even with what went down to a miniscule splint, which never ever affected his performance.
Im not a big fan of splint removal operations, never seem to turn out quite as planned.
 
If the horse is being used for showing (now or in the future) then I can understand why she may want to call the vet just to ensure nothing is being done to make it bigger. However, there is not much that can be done other than let the splint settle. Sometimes the position of a splint will cause problems, but not normally.
 
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