Turnout boots after nasty injury

[Daily Rosie]

Hello,
I know there are many posts regarding turnout boots and they have been useful but would like some opinions on this specific situation.
My lovely tb gelding managed to give himself a very nasty, and at the time life threatening injury. He was turned out at summer grazing, and we think mildly colicy where he struck into a bit of wire on the fence and got caught, naturally pulling back. The end result was he cut his pastern to the bone, spurting artery etc. Emergency vet, overall disaster. Its been a long and scary recovery,, there were talks of him not making it at the start. 6 weeks of box rest, plaster casting and weekly vet visits, he was allowed to have a bare leg again. He has been gradually introduced to turnout in small electrified area, eventually after 8 weeks he is turned out during day and in at night. Amazingly, he has healed extremely well and so far seems sound. He will be starting back very quiet long reining and walking work under saddle (more for his mental sanity, and ours) and we are tentatively thinking about turnout 24/7 as he had before.

As you can understand I'm paranoid about turning him out without boots on now as theoretically they would have prevented, if not significantly reduced the injury. the overreach boot covers the area of the wound well to protect, and he has been wearing brushing boots during day and off at night. If he is out all the time, I am thinking about whether to get him the real deal turnout boots, keep to brushing boots, or some level of leg protection. Although, my next concern is over heating,rubbing etc, can you even have boots on all the time?? (bar riding or standing in for a few hours here and there). Just not sure what next sensible move is. I've always been one for let a horse be a horse, and only booted when riding but after this rather rude awakening, I'm not sure I'm prepared to follow that anymore with him... .

Thoughts, advice, previous experiences would be fantastic. Sorry for the essay!!

 

[meleeka]

I think your best bet, if you are able, is to invest in some electric fence so that he can’t get near the wire in the first place. It sounds like a random event and you’d be very unlucky for the same to happen again, so I think boots all day would probably create more problems than they would solve. You can’t really leave them on all the time either so you’d still have the worry some of the time anyway.

Welcome to the forum

 

[Sossigpoker]

Agreed - get rid of the wire or block access to it. Otherwise it's just waiting for an accident like this I'm afraid

 

[Daily Rosie]

Thank you Sorry should have clarified, he was moved from that field straight after injury and won't be going back. His main field which he's in is electrified all round the edges. Logically speaking he shouldn't be able to do it again, just paranoid Very much freak accident, he managed to find the only bit of wire in the whole field that was concealed by a hedge that was recently cut back so we didn't know it was there, we think the striking out was due to irritation caused by what seems like mild colic, so all round a chain of unfortunate events

 

[Flowerofthefen]

Sorry to hear about your horse. A tb I had years ago did something similar. He git his foot caught in some loose wire and pulled back. Severed the back of his coronet band. Vet said touch and go ad to whether he would pull through. Bit of box rest with a great big bandage on and thankfully he was fine. He initially lost at of blood and vet had to cut scar tissue off. We just went round the field and repaired anything that we thought it might happen on again. It literally was a freak accident.

 

[Auslander]

I have one who has to wear front boots at all times, as he's an old man, who skins his fetlocks when he gets down to roll. If I didn't absolutely have to, there's no way I'd boot 24/7, as even the boots that are designed to be super breathable/worn for turnout make his legs hot and sticky. I use the Lemieux Gladiator summer turnout boots, which are the least heating, but he does still get sticky under them. I had to decide whether I'd prefer hot sticky legs, or fetlock wounds that never got a chance to heal, and opted for the former, but it's not something I'd choose.

 

[Mrs G]

I feel for you OP but honestly, horses can injure themselves in weird and wonderful ways in the safest of environments and you can’t wrap them up from head to toe (ear to hoof!?) I’ve turned out in boots to cover delicate/healing skin/wounds but I honestly think once they are healed they are better left as naked as poss as often as poss to prevent rubbing, overheating etc. In my experience TB skin is very delicate and sensitive; mine comes in with hives, huge fly bites, cuts and scrapes and/or rug rubs and fly-mask rubs, whereas his (none TB) paddock pals are all fine without a mark on them! Get a good selection of wound creams and basic first aid stuff and learn to look at every situation with ‘what here could my horse POSSIBLY hurt himself on and what can I do to minimise the risk?” You’ll need to be creative! I do think your initial instinct to let horses be horses is the right one. Your boy has survived this awful accident; now try and enjoy him and don’t worry (too) much!

 

[Daily Rosie]

Sorry to hear about your horse. A tb I had years ago did something similar. He git his foot caught in some loose wire and pulled back. Severed the back of his coronet band. Vet said touch and go ad to whether he would pull through. Bit of box rest with a great big bandage on and thankfully he was fine. He initially lost at of blood and vet had to cut scar tissue off. We just went round the field and repaired anything that we thought it might happen on again. It literally was a freak accident.

I'm so pleased your boy got through it, it does sound very similar to what he has done. It's scary what they can do to themselves!

 

[Daily Rosie]

I feel for you OP but honestly, horses can injure themselves in weird and wonderful ways in the safest of environments and you can’t wrap them up from head to toe (ear to hoof!?) I’ve turned out in boots to cover delicate/healing skin/wounds but I honestly think once they are healed they are better left as naked as poss as often as poss to prevent rubbing, overheating etc. In my experience TB skin is very delicate and sensitive; mine comes in with hives, huge fly bites, cuts and scrapes and/or rug rubs and fly-mask rubs, whereas his (none TB) paddock pals are all fine without a mark on them! Get a good selection of wound creams and basic first aid stuff and learn to look at every situation with ‘what here could my horse POSSIBLY hurt himself on and what can I do to minimise the risk?” You’ll need to be creative! I do think your initial instinct to let horses be horses is the right one. Your boy has survived this awful accident; now try and enjoy him and don’t worry (too) much!

Thank you, vets reckon he may need to live in overreach boots due to where the wound will leave a scar, due to his propensity to idiocy, we don't want him catching it and reopening, even further down the line . Overreach boots aren't a problem though and are pretty minor. Your right, I think I'll need to brave the bareness! I've had him 2 years and have certainly already adopted the what can he kill himself on mindset, other people with their non tbs look at me like I'm mad sometimes, but it's things they'd never even imagine he could harm himself on. thanks for your message

 

[Daily Rosie]

I have one who has to wear front boots at all times, as he's an old man, who skins his fetlocks when he gets down to roll. If I didn't absolutely have to, there's no way I'd boot 24/7, as even the boots that are designed to be super breathable/worn for turnout make his legs hot and sticky. I use the Lemieux Gladiator summer turnout boots, which are the least heating, but he does still get sticky under them. I had to decide whether I'd prefer hot sticky legs, or fetlock wounds that never got a chance to heal, and opted for the former, but it's not something I'd choose.

Your old man certainly managed to get you between a rock and a hard place with that one. I think I'll opt for leaving him bare, just wanted to hear what people thought as it's easy to be over the top after accidents, thank you

 

[Alibear]

Amber likes to throw shapes in the field, only for 5 mins but is incredibly talented at injuring herself in those 5 mins. So she wears equilibrium all sport boots for turn out, they're a cooler style boot, and the overheating effect is generally less for turn out as they don't run around for extended periods of time. It's a case of weighing up the risks; at the new yard, she lives out 24x7 in summer, so once she'd fully settled, I took the boots off, but she did wear them 23x7 for a few weeks. They go back on for windy or bad weather days, as that's when she's more likely to throw a few moves. She wears overreach boots 24 x 7 as she has form for losing shoes; currently only has 3 on again at the moment; bigger overreach boots should arrive today.
As you've managed to move away from the cause of the issue and overreach boots cover the injury, I'd be tempted to see how things go. It took a 2nd injury in safe fields for me to decide to go the boots route.

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

I wouldn't want to boot unless absolutely necessary so as his going into a different field with different fencing I would just use over reach boots, if wanted to really protect the scar site how about neoprene pastern wraps.

 

[Birker2020]

Thank you, vets reckon he may need to live in overreach boots due to where the wound will leave a scar, due to his propensity to idiocy, we don't want him catching it and reopening, even further down the line . Overreach boots aren't a problem though and are pretty minor. Your right, I think I'll need to brave the bareness! I've had him 2 years and have certainly already adopted the what can he kill himself on mindset, other people with their non tbs look at me like I'm mad sometimes, but it's things they'd never even imagine he could harm himself on. thanks for your message

Over each boots: Lari had these on 24/7 both winter and summer when shod and I made sure they didn't rub by putting mud shield powder on the inside rims.

I also used to hose the mud off daily and have two pairs, one which I hung to dry on the radiator overnight at home, the dry from home on him, before rotating again.

When he came off box rest I made him wear air boots to allow for circulation.