Warning those who use shavings....

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Salcey

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Last friday I mucked out and topped up my mares bed as normal. When I came up on saturday morning I found my mare on 3 legs hopping lame. Checked the leg, couldn't see anything so I hosed it down. I noticed a small piece of bedding that hadn't moved it was about 2cm long on her coronet band I went to pick it off but couldn't move it, it was stuck. To cut a long story short the vet came out, sedated the mare and pulled a 2 1/2" shard of bedding out of her coronet band. Obviously because of the depth we then had x rays etc to check the joint. Shes now on bucket loads of antibiotics and bute, box rest for the forseeable.......
I use a reputable national shavings supplier and in 20 odd years have never experienced anything like this - maybe I should sieve it in future
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My gosh, sorry to hear about your mare, I hope she heals quickly, I have never heard of horses injuring them selves from shavings before, but these horses seem capable of hurting themselves on anything
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I have taken pictures and will write to them because I really don't think shards that big should make it into the bedding as much as you level the bed out and look at it you can't go through it that thoroughly. Will be interesting to see what they say.
 
I've come across quite a few large, sharp pieces of wood in my shavings too which have pierced my hand and I was going to write to the manufacturers but never got round to it as I've changed to straw so its no longer a problem.
 
We had to pretty much throw a few half bales straight onto the muckheap last winter when the shavings got really short due to poor quality, pieces a good 6 inches long
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However we a) use different shavings now (though they were supposedly top quality!) and b) ALWAYS thoroughly turn over new bedding to check for anything that shouldn't be in there!!
 
Alison27 - I must admit I've not seen many large bits, certainley not any large enough to cause injury!! And i've been on shavings for a loong time.

But, I'm now on bed-down Excel and its fantastic, never been so much as one large bit.
 
Sorry to say these were shaken out, no clumps and levelled with fork as I'm a bit OCD with the beds. I never just cut a bag and slide it all out, I always pull it out bit by bit.
 
We buy reputable shavings too and a similar thing has happened twice to a horse on our yard but stuck in his heel. Shavings arent like what they used to be, the quality changes with each batch, some are dusty although advertised as dust free, weve had them full of MDF too. They dont seem nice and fluffy anyore.
 
Sorry to hear of your problem Salcey and thank you for posting this. How gutting. I have had my new horse - a gelding - on shavings that have some rather big sharp bits in. For the last few months I have been battling a swollen sheath (vets/antibiotics). I have come to the conclusion some sharp shavings have worked their way in and caused a problem. I now have him on Megazorb. I am going to change suppliers for the other horses still on shavings. Why can't people actually do their job properly these days and supply a product fit for purpose!
 
God how horrifying, I too would be contacting the company for the vets fees tbh.

I stopped using shavings a couple of years ago as I just kept finding bits of wood in them, they were top quality too so no excuse for it, I now use rape straw.
 
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