to wash daily or not? to bandage or not?

[Jericho]

Am getting lots of conflicting advice from my vets about a wound on my horses heel so would appreciate some thoughts......

I suspect its an over reach or he has sliced it on a stone, which happened on Tuesday. It was quite deep about half an inch deep 3 inches across and gaped about 1.5 inch wide and dripping blood but this quickly stopped.

The vet said clean it, keep it dry and bandage it but becuase of the weather I am having horrendous trouble keeping it clean and dry. The bandage is still getting dirty basically because the wound is so low down and any bandaging is in direct contact with floor and poo and wet!!! I have tried wrapping duct tape right over the dressing and the vetwrap but its not doing his hoof any good (coronet going very white and spongy) and the lack of air and the contact with the dressing is seeming to make it worse.

Everytime I take the old dressing and bandage off (becuase they are covered in poo and wet) the wound always look dirty so I feel I need to clean it again with hibi scrub and then rebandaging but I am now considering leaving it unbandaged because I just think it needs to dry up.

However he is on easibed and rubber matting so I guess the the easibed will get straight in it and I will still be cleaning.

At the moment there is no heat or swelling but it has started bleeding again today and there is a yellow fluid seeping out and although he is not on antibiotics - vet thought not necessary - its only a matter of time.

Soooo should I bandage or not? should I keep cleaning it with hibiscrub? should I just cold hose regularly to get the worse off? Should I just give it one last clean, put antiseptic spray on and leave him in until it looks dry?

 

[Rowreach]

Well I am not a vet, but I can tell you a story from my own experience when I was doing hunters. We had two horses come home from hunting with what we termed "Hampshire Hunt injuries" (which is where people get so close behind you their horse treads on your horse's heel - so similar to an overreach injury)

One belonged to a client, who asked that the vet came out. He recommended wound gel, dressings and antibiotics. The horse didn't hunt again for more than 3 weeks because the injury took so long to heal.

The other horse was mine. I cleaned the wound thoroughly, squirted it with purple spray, covered it for the first night and thereafter left it open, but made sure it was reasonably clean. He was worked on the road and not turned out for a few days, and he was back hunting the following week.

Hope this helps!

 

[Jericho]

It does sound a lot like your Hampshire Hunt kind of injury and your advice helps a lot, thank you so much for taking the time to reply.

I have left him to amble round the concrete yard this afternoon after I had cleaned the wound and sprayed it with antiseptic spray. It was quite bloody but no yellow fluid but importantly it looked clean. I was going to bandage it back up after tea.

But after just 3 hours of being in the air and clean and unaggravated it is looking better already so at the risk of really annoying my horse I have fed him and put his haylage out in the yard and am going to leave him for a few more hours and only put him in his stable much later this night.... All being well it should have hardened off enough to stop his bedding getting into it and hoepfully I can stop this hosing and let the healing start!!!

 

[Rowreach]

No problem, hope he is better soon

 

[sueeltringham]

My horsey had a similar injury over Christmas. It was REALLY deep so the vet put a few stitches in and it was kept bandaged for several weeks and intracite gel applied underneath the dressing. It's healed beautifully and he's now living back out in the mud. I'm not keen on hibiscrub as it can affect wound healing, so I tend to wash with cooled boiled water or saline. Intracite gel is fab stuff. When he did go out, he had several layers of intracite applied which were allowed to dry so the wound had some protection. Hope that helps,

Sue

 

[Christmas Crumpet]

My old mare did this last year and after vet had seen it we left it open and it healed fine. Obviously we cleaned it when it was dirty with salt water and all ok.

 

[only_me]

when ever my horse over-reaches, i hose above it to give it a quick wash and then smother in intracite gel. and thats it

i keep an eye on it for a few days to make sure that it isnt warm/inflamed etc. but i dont put anything on it or hose it, unless the whole foot upto the fetlock is covered in mud

imo i wouldnt bandage it; letting air at it will heal it a lot faster. keeping him on the concrete yard sounds like a good idea, and at least you dont have to worry about an infection settling in

 

[Jane44]

With hunters we always used to, and still do, get the injury clean and dry, then use stockholm tar over the whole area to seal down the flap. Then just carry on hunting.