Wednesday, August 10, 2011

never a dull moment, but there's a very dull achy pain...

Lucy is quite lame. I took her out for a trail ride yesterday, which lasted only 5 minutes because it started to rain and she was like, oh hell no. That will have to be a battle for another day, I think.

We didn't even go faster than a walk on this five minute trail ride. When we returned to the barn, I took her in the indoor and trotted her around and she was very clearly ouchy on her right side. I am terrible at figuring out if it's hind end or front end lameness but maybe after work I can get some video for you all to pick apart. I gave her some bute and applied liniment to all four legs. This morning she seemed a lot better but not sound. Hopefully she tweaked something or stepped on a rock on the trails and it will blow over quickly.

She has also got a cut on her RH coronet band and it was looking ok until last night, when it looked very much like it was developing proud flesh. Umm, so not cool, Lucy. What happened was that she was being led out to her paddock late last week when she spooked at something dumb and nicked her RH with her LH hoof. It was a small cut and I cleaned it out when I got to the barn and didn't think anything of it. It seemed to be healing well and then on Sunday she re-opened it and it got a bit uglier (but nothing that required veterinary attention, still all very superficial). On Monday it looked like it was starting to scab over again and I cleaned it out well. Then yesterday it looked very puffy and granular:


I scrubbed the crap out of it and went home and posted that photo on FB and got about 15 different opinions on how to treat it (including but not limited to: Furazone is good! Furazone is bad! Corona is good! Corona is bad! Wonder Dust is good! Wonder Dust is bad!). I ended up emailing the photo to my vet because I was more confused than ever, and while he hasn't gotten back to me yet, a vet that I have on my FB friends list commented on the photo and gave me his advice.

SO.

This morning I went out to the barn before work to check on her and discovered that she is still lame but not as bad as she was yesterday. I was trying to be quick at the barn to get to work at a reasonable time, so I walked out to her paddock with a bunch of carrots, surgical scrub, betadine, and a clean sponge. I put her halter on and held her leadrope in my left hand (since she doesn't tie) and crouched down by her injured leg to have a good look. Seeing that it looked much better, I steadied myself with one knee down on the ground and poured the scrubbing solution on her leg and went to town. About three seconds later, she got me right in the forehead with her LH fetlock. I didn't have any time to react or get out of the way before she got me. I heard the impact echo in my head. OUCH!

I fell over and cried like a baby in the middle of her paddock while she stood there and gave me weird looks like, "what the hell is your problem?". Truthfully I do not think she was trying to kick me in the head. It was really more of a "you're annoying me and I want to brush you out of the way" as if I were a fly. I am pretty sure that if she really wanted to kick me, she would have used her RH and she would have aimed better and gotten me with her actual foot.

So kids, here's what we learned today:

1. do not attempt to hold the horses head while you're tending to its back end
2. do not kneel down EVER - it is almost impossible to get up and out of the way in time
3. if the horse is sensitive, have a helper pick up a front foot so that it cannot easily kick out with a back foot
4. keep a good distance away from the hind legs
5. wear a helmet to protect your head
6. do not attempt to play vet out in the paddock...this is what the cleaner barn is for.

Durrrrrr.

11 comments:

  1. SO SORRY!!! I hope you both feel better soon!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. ouch!! Glad you were ok! :)
    I'm sure you have seen my blog post on my horses hoof... basically about to fall off.. but I definitely do all those things you did... and I haven't had anything bad happen yet. let's hope I don't!

    As for the proud flesh... my vet mixed up a 'proud flesh furazone'. I have NO clue what is in it... I have seen them mix it up and it is a bunch of clear fluids, but I have a jar of it I keep in my fridge and that stuff works WONDERS. I can try to find out what it is if you are interested.

    Ever since our first mare fell through the bottom of a trailer and messed her leg up... we don't mess with proud flesh. She died because the particular vet we used didn't know how to deal with it (she scraped it off everyday and it bled and bled and bled), needless to say I don't use her anymore. But the vet I worked for mixed up that concoction the next time we had an injury with proud flesh and it was AAmazing.

    Hope she heals fast!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. The vet who replied to my plea for help on FB suggested a steroid (OTC cortisone and if that doesn't work, something heftier from the vet) and Furazone mix, so maybe that's similar to what your vet cooked up for you?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ouch! I hope you are ok. This happened to me once. My old horse T-Bone had a cut on his left front coronet band but he was hairy and I didn't see it. I went to clip his legs for a horse show and was crouching down and must have run the clippers right over that cut and his jerked and got me in the head with his knee. I think I saw stars!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh boy!! Grayson had a nasty wound on his chest last year that started healing super funky. We cold hosed it and squeeze gook out of it every day (he just stood there while we popped this nasty thing)...then we put Schreiners Herbal Solution on it and it healed right up. Love that stuff.

    As for getting "kneed" in the head, glad you're okay. I definitely have literally butted heads with Grayson and I always let out a nice curse word while he looks at me like "duh! You're always going to lose that one...your head was in my space."

    Hope her boo boo heals fast...I tell ya, these horses are a handful! but we still love them :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. yikes, I hate when theyre legs get you. Hope you feel better....just scrub till it bleeds. Proud flesh is a major pain!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ugh, sounds like it was not your day. I've gotten hit in the forehead by a hoof before and it sucked. I was crouching down brushing off my horse's belly and I even SAW his opposite hind leg swinging up at my face to kick at a fly, but the last thing I remember before he hit me was "he's totally not going to swing his leg THAT far under his belly". Man did it hurt and I had a huge lump on my forehead for a few days.

    Sorry Lucy is off, I hope she continues to improve and that it is just a little stone bruise or something.

    As for the proud flesh I had to deal with a nasty wound on a cannon bone once but it healed fine with debriding and wrapping the heck out of it, but that location is going to be trickier. It sounds like you have good help with it, but if you want another opinion let me know and I can ask around here what people recommend.

    Good luck with everything. =-(

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks for your words of encouragement everyone! My head seems no worse for the wear, despite a small bump still remaining and some bruising coming through. I will wear my new war wounds with pride, though.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Glad it is looking better!! the heftier thing could possibly be exactly what i have... but knowing about the cortisone cream is awesome too!!
    Glad to see improvement in the most recent post!! :)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment!