Taxes - Wound Progress - Part 1

On 27th July in the morning my three and a half month old stud colt "Taxes" decided that he was going to go through the electric fence to visit with the 2 mares and gelding on the other side. I found him and turned the fence off, unhooked a section of wire and herded him under it onto the right side before we had a wreck. He was fine up until then. As I was reattaching all of the wire so that I could turn the fence on again he promptly went behind my back and suddenly was on the other side again!!! Again he was fine, don't know how he did it so easily but there he was. He and the two mares and gelding then decided to start racing up and down the field. As they came back up the hill he veered off towards his and his momma's pasture and hit the fence, tried to jump it and caught his left back leg in the top wire. He managed to shake it loose but not before he had cut himself really badly. There was a 5 inch flap of skin that had been ripped open. It didnt bleed so it was just the skin but I have had to deal with leg wounds and proud flesh before, that is another story which I will go into later.

I got the vet over immediately but he had already run back into their barn and had got into the sawdust so the vet knew he couldnt stitch it. My first problem was that I was leaving that night to photograph a welsh pony show 89 odd miles away and was due to spend two nights away. The vet told me that I needed to hose the leg for at least half an hour and then wrap it the way he had taught me the last time I had a leg injury. There lay the second problem, I have 20 horses and have not had the time to devote to this little guy and hadnt even got him halter broke so that was out of the question. He said to bandage it the best I could and deal with it when I got back home.

(Taken 27 July 2007 - Immediately after accident)

(Taken 27 July 2007 - Immediately after accident)

After spending an extremely hot weekend at the horse and pony show and worrying about my baby horse I got back home and managed to take the bandage off and see the damage(see below). The flap of skin had shrunk which I knew would happen and it didnt look as bad as I had feared so I started the long haul to healing this wound.

(Taken 30 July 2007)

(Taken 30 July 2007)

Padding and pressure is the key to dealing with leg wounds which always develop proud flesh in horses. If anyone would like to know how I go about it let me know and I will also go into it in more detail when I post about my other experience as I have pictures of it which I took before I knew what I was dealing with.

This is how it looked a few days ago, the black is the salve that I use on the wound but you can clearly see the new pink skin growth. It just remains a matter of time and patience and will probably leave a nasty scar but it could have been a whole lot worse.

Needless to say I will never leave a baby un halter broke again. It would have made life a lot easier but he learned fast and is a star. One good thing on both the occasions of dealing with this is that neither colts have chewed the bandage. That can give you a whole lot more headaches.

(Taken 15 August 2007)


(Taken 15 August 2007)
I will post the progress as I take the photos.

Lori