Rehab post bone chip surgery

[bouncing_ball]

Hi,

My 11 year old WB has successfully had bone chips removed surgically today from both hocks and his right fore coffin bone. He was 1/10th lame right hock with a bog spavin swelling.

I will get discharge notes from the vet next week, but I wondered if anyone has had similar and could suggest how much box rest / when allowed turnout / what sort of rehab plan? Any tips or suggestions welcomed.

Thanks

 

[eggs]

Some years ago my WB had chips successfully removed from his front fetlocks.

For the first six weeks he was on box rest with in-hand walking. From memory it was twice a day starting with 10 minutes each time increasing by 10 minutes each week. He then had another 6 weeks of box rest with ridden walk work. He did his first 6 weeks of in-hand walking at a rehabilitation yard and then came home when ridden work started.

Unfortunately 2 weeks into his ridden walk work he fractured his jaw which put paid to his rehab work. His jaw was successfully rewired and he had to be on box rest and couldn't be walked/ridden. When the vets were happy that his jaw had mended well we was then turned out (sedated!) for a couple of weeks to get the buzz out of him and then started again with ridden walk work.

The walking was to be on straight lines as much as possible.

From hand walking other horses I have found it best not to do it in the school as they seem more likely to misbehave when on a surface compared to a tarmac yard/drive.

I keep my horses at home so have the flexibility to always keep another horse in to keep the one of box rest company and also have a very small turnout paddock - approx 15m x 45 m to use for hand grazing and initial turnout.