Update and Help!

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juliehannah58

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Well further to our nightmare week last Friday, Marey came home from Hospital in super quick time on Tuesday after having an open fracture of her splint bone, whilst also being 5 months pregnant
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She had been moved into an indoor barn when I went to get her on Tuesday, and was much more stressy in there so I think she was very pleased to be going home. She travelled back OK.

The first few days she was a bit off colour but fine, can you believe she is not on any bute or painkillers whatsoever! She seemed fine in herself but was a bit off her haylage. Since Friday she has brightened right up into the old Marey we know, however with this have come problems -Her dressings!

Now she is moving around more we just can't get her dressings to stay up, the just slide down and then irritate her. They are supposed to be on for at least 2 days but I'm changing them daily as she just seems to get so annoyed by them and I've seen her biting them! It goes from her pastern right up to just under her hock and has 7 layers. The vets gave me strict instructions on how to put them on but the elasoplast round the top and bottom is not enough to keep it in place.

Any ideas anyone?! Open to anything, costing me a fortune in vet wraps etc!

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Glad to hear she is making progress. Could you not put a travel boot over it all or would it make it too hot?!
 
Would a neck cradle or a rug bib help as I have both if you need to borrow? They would stop her getting at the dressings anyway. Also, what about a travel boot over the dressing to help it stay up?
 
Also could you try Crib Stop sprayed on the bandage as long as it didnt soak through and affect her wound?
 
I would definitely spray it to stop her biting at it or use a cradle. It may just be technique..I had no probs with slipping when ponio had a similar sounding bandage. Its hard getting it tight enough to not slip but loose enough not to stop the circulation. Did they have probs in the hospital? How about a hock boot with the bandage somehow attached?
This is my ponio with his bandage on..Sounds similar although his was only about 4 layers thick..
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the top part would slip down but the rest stayed in place for 2/3 days at a time..
 
To help the dressing stay up you could use more outer bandage and continue up into a hock bandage. This should stop it slipping down and then put a boot over that. Also water with mustard powder or seeds in should make it taste less appealing, as long as could be applied without getting to the wound.
 
Thanks for all the ideas. At the moment it doesn't go above her hock as the picture shown. She was fine for the first two bandage changes here but since she's feeling better she seems to get really annoyed with it being on and kicks her leg out and bites it. I'm going to try and put it over her hock like the picture posted as that might help (at the moment it stops just below, injury is actually on mid-upper cannon area at back).

The mustard is a great idea and much cheaper! I think I'll try and travel boot too, that should hopefully keep it in place and keep the knashers away.
 
My horse fractured his splint bone 4 weeks ago and had standing surgery to remove it. I'm doing something called a 'Robert Jones' dressing which is an extra big plaster bandage aimed at holding the dressing in place and immobilising the hock and I have to take it right up over the hock. I'm having to put loads of layers on including cotton wool etc to bulk it out to keep the hock still. I'm a former equine veterinary nurse so if you want further details and intructions on how to it, PM me
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Rubbish pic, but shows how it is at the moment roughly. With elastoplast round the top and bottom.

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This was at the hospital. Recently I have been trying to cover a bit more but gawd knows what she does to it. It always looks very secure when I leave but when I come back in the morning it's all sagged down and the stickiness has gone
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Travel boot worked on a firends horse who had a nasty cut in a similar area other thing is a tubigrip up over the hock and tape it on alot higher
 
I had to do the same for my old horse when he had a fractured splint with an open wound as well.

He had a Robert Jones bangdage too but I didn't have any problem keeping it on his leg.

However, it was obviously incredibly itchy as he would go mad trying to get at it every time we removed all the layers to change them. Eventually we found rubbing round the wound with a rough towel took the edge of it before the new bandage went on!

Good luck - you'll be surprised how quickly these heal too!
 
I think to stop it slipping your best bet is to bandage over the hock and fetlock with a Robert-Jones bandage. This will limit her bending the leg and moving, which is probably why it's slipping and then irritating it. Here's my mare in her RobertJones bandage, she had about 10 layers in it. Cotton wool, gauze and elastoplast layers and then to hold it all together flexoplast at the end. The grey stuff is duct tape which was holding on her splint. This is when she first did it back in July
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And this is in September
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I had to gradually reduce the bandage over the last few weeks but once I stopped bandaging the fetlock and she was able to move a lot more, the bandage started to slip. It's off completely now. Luckily my mare didn't pull at her bandage but the foal did and thought it was great fun to tear off chunks of cotton wool! So i painted cribbox on it to stop him. Here he is.
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Wowsers that is some bandage! I'm defo going to take it right over the hock tonight, I'm armed with all sorts!

What happended to your poor mare? PM if you prefer, hope she gets better soon
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Robert Jones bandage seems the way to go. Glad to hear someone elses horse got itchy, I was a bit worried at first but I guess it would get a bit uncomfortable with all those layers on.

Thanks for your tips
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She got her leg stuck in a gate and slipped in the muck and wrenched her leg, fracturing 2 bones in her hock. She's been on box rest since July. The foal was 6 weeks and I was so worried about what to do with him as there was no way he was going to cope being on box rest, he was only in the vet hospital for 5 days and he was bouncing off the walls! So I fenced in the field shelter and left a gap so he can go in and out of the field, which has worked really well. The mare has also coped surprisingly well, the stable is 16x16 ft and she is on adlib hay. I tried her on all sorts of licks, stable toys etc. to occupy her but tbh the foal ended up playing with them more than her!
You wouldn't believe the amount I've spent on cotton wool, gauze, elastoplast, flexoplast, gamgee, duct tape. The first bandage, which they put on in the vet hospital, used 100 euro worth of coton wool! Since then it's had to be changed about every 10 days and used, on average, each time, 2 large rolls of cotton wool, 3 elastoplasts, 3 gauze wraps, 2 rolls of gamgee, 2 flexoplasts and roll duct tape. Watch put for pressure sores though, myself and my vet were very careful about them but the last time she was in the vet hospital they used flexoplast (the really sticky bandage) on the first layer but left a huge chunk stuck to her skin which rubbed her very badly and left a horrible sore. I was very p****d off because I'd only ever used flexoplast at the end to hold the whole thing together.

Hope all goes well with your mare and her pregnancy! Who's she in foal to?
 
Gosh what a nightmare! Glad to hear they have both coped well with it though, how stressful for you all!

Our vetwrap (same as Flexoplast it sounds) only goes on after everything else and before the elastoplast so hopefully she won't get any sores.

It's come as a bit of a shock, when she got this injury the last thing I thought about was the cost of dressings! Her's is changed every two days so you can imagine the cost.

She is in foal to Alme des Nids, who sired this years Foxhunter Champ. Marcolas G. She's an old fashioned Irish horse though with King of Dimaonds breeding and I love her to bits. She's an excellent jumper herself upto 1.30m so hopefully we'll have a nice jumping horse but at the moment I'm just praying for a health and happy mum and baby, the stress is such a worry
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She's got a horse ball at the moment and she loves it, i fill it up with loads of diced veg in the morning and she plays with it for hours. That's another expense, frut and veg by the ton, LOL! She did 3 months box rest with a tendon (which is why she was suibsequently retired to stud!) so we know she's usually pretty sensible.

Thanks for all your help, keep me updated on yours, the foal looks smashing, who is he by?
 
I saw her pics in PG, she looks lovely, not that dissimilar to my mare, another Irish liver chestnut!! Your foal sounds like it's going to be lovely, if she's kept it through all the stress of the accident and initial treatment, the chances must be good that she'll hold on to it now. In some ways it's probably easier that it happened now and she has to rest while she's pregnant rather than next year with a foal at foot. Although my little guy has coped ok it has been hard for him not having mum to play with in the field and having to be boxed in to the vet hospital every 6 weeks while she gets her xray. He is very well handled though and has a lovely temperment. He's by a RID, Grange Bouncer, a very good performance stallion. The mare was also a really good competition mare, although very quirky. The plan was to bring her back into work next year but she'll now have to be retired as a broodmare as she'll never jump again.


I know what you mean about the expense, although you know the initial treatment is going to be expensive, you don't realise all the other extra costs- dressings, vet check ups, extra food (my mare is on a large round bale of hay a week!) extra bedding (my girl was very messy in the stable anyway but with the foal aswell and her dragging her leg around it's like a pigsty every morning, she gets a bale of shavings every 2 days!), extra things like toys and licks,( the foal has developed a taste for lickits, I'm sure they're not good for him as they're full of sugar!) bags of carrots, turnips and apples. My girl was not impressed with the horse ball as she's too greedy and got really annoyed with it, so I just hide carrots and apples in her hay.

I think the end is in sight though, and it's passed much quicker than I thought. Keep us posted on her progress, all the best!
 
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