Here we go again (Fi)

I almost made it to work on my first day back after a fairly difficult Christmas break, when I got a call from my sister to say Fi had hurt herself and she was calling the vet. She couldn't tell me how bad it was as Fi wouldn't let her near it. This is what I found when I got home later the same day.

Beneath this, I was told, was one deep gash (stitched up) down to the tendon near the bottom of the hock joint, and another place that had needed stitches. A subsequent visit down to the stables they had been in revealed this - firstly on Fi's side:

and then from Dudley's side !

They had moved the horses up to the stables by the cottage once the vet arrived so they could have access to light, water etc. As it turned out, we have since had some really cold weather so it's been the better place to keep them fed and watered too !

 The vet was visiting on a regular basis to redress the wound - so Fi initially had injections for pain relief and antibiotics. But then we needed to move to powders in her feed and at that point she was determined I was trying to poison her and feeling pretty sorry for herself. At one point I was mixing the pain relief powder with Apple Jelly and using a cleaned wormer syringe to get it into her ! But as we lowered the dose and she also started to feel a bit better, we managed to get her to take things in her food again - phew !

On day 5 I got a chance to see what was under the bandages......the arrows show where there are stitches, The bottom arrow is the "big" wound.

And at this point it was all looking good. However by the end of week one, the main wound was starting to break down. I don't have photos for this stage as my sister was covering some of the vet visits for me, plus it really wasn't a pleasant sight ! We moved to a "granuflex" dressing which stays on and keeps the wound from drying out, encouraging granulation.

We were using a cream with silver nitrate in it for the upper area but it seemed to result in a lot of crustiness. So then we tried medical grade manuka honey, which was slightly better. But to be honest that area is healing well now and adding cream or honey seems to make it worse so I am just keeping an eye on it and putting a small amount of honey on if it looks a bit dry.

The next photo is from Day 15 (29th Feb)

You can see there is still quite a deep cavity in the wound :(

5 days after that, you can see the wound is granulating and filling in:

The slightly gunky region above the main wound is where the edge of the dressing seems to be irritating the fragile skin.

She's still on box rest, with the other two out on the yard during the day to keep her company. Her leg is kept wrapped up (dressing held on with vet wrap, then gamgee, then more vet wrap, then a bandage !).

There was a risk with the depth of the wound (down to tendon) that she might have ended up dragging that toe slightly as it was a flexor tendon she hit. But so far she seems to be picking it up ok walking around the box. We also (touch wood) seem to have avoided a joint infection which was the other concern.

But we have a way to go yet. Next review and vet visit is a week after last picture.

And in the meantime, some amendments to do to the field stables to try and prevent this happening again. I know *what* she did (got her leg over the partition) but why or how - only Fi knows !