It’s Tough Being Tough (don’t read if you are squeamish)
Don’t look if you are squeamish, but I think it’s worth writing about. As some of you will know, our biggest grey mare, Earaheedy Margaret, who is over 16hh and was rescued in 2005 by Sheila Greenwell, has a bad hind leg injury as a result of kicking through fences 3 times over a 2 year period. Each time she kicked (at a horse through) a fence, she did it with the same leg and got caught in the same spot, resulting in layers of flesh being taken off each time.
The last kick was about 10 months ago and the whole leg WAS nearly healed. A bit scarred but not much proud flesh and looking good. Anyhow…one of the problems with old bloodline horses is their innate toughness. Like, if they get sand colic (which they occasionally do in some areas), they don’t exhibit symptoms until they are almost ready to drop with it.
Margaret had been in with our young stallion, and had been checked daily. Then about a week ago, I wandered up to check them…and Margaret was standing there with her injured hind leg swollen up like a balloon. The whole leg. But no apparent injury. (Aside from the scarred/healing fence injury.) So we took her out, and despite the fact that her temperature was normal, put her straight on to antibiotic powder in her food to negate any internal infection.
About 36 hours later, the swelling starting to reduce, I noticed that an area around her fetlock on the inside looked mucky. On closer inspection, we could see that pus was breaking through the skin. So…out with the husband’s pocket knife, which we sterilised, and while feeding Margaret to distract her, knicked the spot. Ewwwww. About half a cup of pus shot out. A cavity, obviously. We used syringes of peroxide to clean it out and thought great, whatever it was is coming out.
Daily cleaning and still on antibiotics…swelling almost gone…yesterday we went out and basically the whole cavity area had caved in. All the skin had sloughed away leaving a sizeable hole. Ewwww again.
Under veterinary advice we have left it open and are cleaning it and packing it with good things every day. During all of this Margaret has hardly flinched, even during treatment with my husband getting in there with betadine and water and an old shaving brush to really scrub it out. And Margaret is still running around in our big paddock with her small herd, fully in charge of everyone. Her stoicism and physical strength and healing ability continue to amaze us.
The fetlock was possibly punctured with something very tiny, like a bracken fern sliver, then stewed quietly away for some time before getting so bad, the whole leg began to swell.
Despite how bad it looks in the photo, the wound is actually healing well. We have asked her, however, to give us SOME forewarning of feeling off colour next time, just so we can prepare. Fortunately we have a fully stocked equine First Aid kit on hand, because although illness and injury with these horses are pretty rare, when they do get sick or injure themselves, they certainly seem to do it in style!