My good mare Daisy got a wire cut last week. Not the worst I’ve ever seen, but definitely not something to be taken lightly. We set up a pen for her to keep her out of the mud and cleaned her up the best we could. Since our horses live around a creek and we’ve had an unusually rainy summer, it is impossible to keep them clean, especially on their legs, which is where her cut is located.
I was happy again that we chose to purchase a round pen, because those portable panels found yet another good use as a sick pen for Daisy. She has buddy sour tendencies, so this time of separation from the other horses helped her mind as well as her body. She handled it all very well, I thought, and seemed to love the special attention she has been getting. I don’t pamper my horses very much, as far as grooming them or giving them treats, but I was really worried about Daisy getting infection in her leg, so I spent a lot of time with her this past week.
The cut was a horizontal slash across the outside of her right front cannon bone, and seemed to just be through the skin, not too deep. We gave her penicillin, which seemed to really help, but the cut was uglier by the second and third day, and I was regretting not having the vet out for stitches. I soaked her leg with cold water, sprayed it with iodine, and then put a yellow salve on it called furazone ointment. Followed by fly spray, which she usually hates but made great strides in accepting and is now a seasoned pro at fly spray applications.
It has been five days now, and the cut still looks icky, but I can see it is healing from the inside and filling in where the gash was. My husband went around the fence and located the low place where it may have happened. Barbed wire makes poor fencing for horses, but we cannot afford better, and since we don’t own the land they are on, there is not a good solution for us at this time. I know that if I had the opportunity to improve either my living space or theirs, I would choose theirs in a heartbeat.
But for now, I am happy that Daisy is getting better, she only limps slightly at a trot, and has been responding well to the care we have given her. Here are some photos of her wound:
Day 1—The cut was dirty and so crusty I couldn’t clean it much better than this, but the skin was closer together this first day, and we really should have had a few stitches put in. The yellow color is the ointment I applied to it.
Day 2—I was able to get a little more of the mud off, but you can see the cut is swelling and starting to look worse.
Day 3—Still looking swollen, but getting a little better.
Day 4—This photo is a little harder to see because her leg was in the shadows, but it looked so much better, the penicillin was really helping by then, and the swelling was gone, and the cut looked more dried up and starting to heal.
Day 5—I know this still looks yucky, but that is the yellow ointment I put on, and the reddish tinge is the iodine. The cut itself is really healing much better, and is closing up from the inside.
Here is Daisy enjoying her clean and grassy pen to recuperate in. She will be put back with the other horses soon, but hopefully I will have an update in the future showing her leg completely healed. Can’t wait to ride her again, this summer is too good to not go riding!
