Timescale Before Seeking Treatment

[NEHorse]

Opinions please.

Who thinks that taking 2 weeks before calling the vet after a horse was kicked in a so called "violent" attack resulting in a fractured splint bone is too long?

Do you think that lunging and turning out the horse during those 2 weeks prior to vet diagnosis most probably impacted on the injured hind leg as well as exasperating the cost of veterinary treatment (+2K)?

If you were the owner of the horse who inflicted the kick, would you consider your insurance fully responsible for the vets bill or do you think the uninsured-for-vets-fees owner of the injured horse is part responsible for the cost due to their ignorance in seeking professional vet advice sooner?

 

[Donkeymad]

Hello and Welcome.
I sense that these questions are in relation to an issue you are dealing with or someone you know is dealing with?
If this is the case, it is very unwise to discuss it in Public, as it may well jeopardise any results.

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

If the owner didn't see the attack so didn't know the severity of it, and the injured horse wasn't suspiciously lame and there wasn't obvious swelling, then the owner of the injured horse may have been observing the tried and tested "wait and see" option. Exactly the same arguments and caveats apply to lunging the horse. Sadly, I would think that lunging a horse without knowing it had a broken splint bone could indeed cause further damage, depending on a host of ifs and buts. Regarding the owner of the horse that inflicted the kick, no I wouldn't expect either them or their insurers to pay the associated vets bills. Kicking is what horses do, that's why we insure them. And if the "attack" (was it an attack or just what horses do sometimes?) wasn't witnessed and/or videoed, then it's questionable whether there is evidence/proof. Who's to say that the other horse didn't start things? However, if I'd been the owner of the attacking horse, I'd have been mortified if my horse had injured another and I'd be bending over backwards to help eg offering my trailer, helping with the chores related to the injured horse being box rested, etc etc etc. I was present when a very similar incident happened and the injured horse's insurance covered the vets bills. The owner of the other horse was indeed mortified and tried to help in many many ways. But, as we all know, horses sometimes kick each other.

And as Donkeymad has pointed out, a public forum may not be the best place to air this issue. ALso, be aware that you will only get Forum members' thoughts and opinions and they would carry no weight at all in a court case. Besides, we are responding based only on your telling of the story and that wouldn't happen in a court case either.