WWYD turning out horse after box rest

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Ali27

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My mare has been on box rest since middle of August and had surgery on lesion of SDFT and torn manica flexoria. The week before Christmas, my vet said that she could start turnout gradually. With all this rain, I delayed turning out and put her out in lunge pen with hay net instead. She has been very good and has a little wander before munching on her hay. I was asked today if I wanted a little turn out pen making in paddock opposite our other mare. However, it is quite deep mud to get to it although paddock itself is not too bad. My heart says I want her out in field as hate keeping her in on box rest but my head says wait until it dries up more ( which knowing our weather could be months).
If I could magic away the mud from grassy track to paddock then there would be no problem.
What would you do?
Thanks :)
 
hmm tricky, I can understand why you'd be worried but you want to get her out and moving too to prevent any more lesions forming. Can she stay in the lunge pen for a bit longer or walk her out in hand each day gradually building up the distance? What does your vet say?
 
She has built up to 20mins controlled walking am and pm so will keep that up. The turn out is more for cheering her and me up! Just wish it was Spring and ground was drying up. Luckily we are not on clay so mud not sticky but just very wet!
 
How long a distance is there to get over the worst of the mud?.If it is not too far to cross you could put some old carpet down..The carpet will eventually sink into the mud and rot but it could be a short term solution.
 
It is only has a few metres of bad mud. Carpet sounds like a good idea. Just need to find some cheap carpet now! The paddock where turn out pen will be has a fair amount of grass and we can move it around to avoid worst of mud.
 
She has got sedalin for first few days but don't think she will do anything stupid as she will just want to munch. I asked vet about turnout boots but he advised not.
 
I discussed sedation of my fiery wee tb with my vet before turnout after 5 months pen/box rest, our fear was that she explodes out of sedalin as i found out in hand walking to the pen.
We decided to boot her up and just go for it rather than have her running around in a half dazed sedated state where she was more likely to fall or go into a fence.
Thankfully she had her hoon around then settled.
You know your horse so go with your gut
 
wow that is along time! she sounds quite a cool head , if she is then i wouldnt use sedaline. i would wait until the ground isnt so slippy and just let her go. Mine is a muppet after being in one day, i find when shes been on box rest (afew times :( ) she goes potty for ten mins then settles down. Its just the initial ten mins of explosion but thats normal, but horrible to watch - good luck :)
 
I am pretty sure that she will munch rather than gallop around once in paddock. It is the getting her through the mud to the paddock which worries me. She has been a star on box rest in her stable and during controlled walking. I am going up in a mo to look at paddock and mud again. She might just have to make do with lunge pen for a few more weeks. Thanks for all the advice.
 
I think that no matter what you try if the horse is going to explode then it will. We had a similar problem when our mare had been in on box rest for 5 months after fracturing a splint bone in five places. We were advised a short 5 mins hand grazing increasing each day. We decided not to sedate beforehand as we were concerned about slipping on the wet ground, (17.2 DWB). So two of us, with a leadrope each gently led her out - well she took off like a rocket, dumping us both, hurtled up the solid track to open land, did a pirouette turn and hurtled back down the track at full speed. She then jumped the mounting block and landed on her knees, got up, walked slowly back to us and started grazing. We checked her over, called the vet out in case she had re-fractured the splint bone. He declared her fully fit and uninjured. If you think your horse will 'explode' then in my opinion it is better to do it on soft ground in a controlled space.

Good luck.
 
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