VIEW CART
Trouble Brewing
|
The offending nail with a tape measure to demonstrate the exact distance it had penetrated. Nails like this one are frighteningly common around most barns. |
Four days later, when I called and asked about the horse, the owner said he seemed fine. I was nearby and decided to stop in. The horse only had a slight limp, but the medial bulb had exploded.
The circular wound, which was at least 2 inches across, was caked with dried blood and pus and had several maggots on it.
Supposedly, the owner had treated the horse only a few hours earlier, but he obviously had not. He did come out then, dressed up to go to town. Since he apparently needed practice treating the horse, I had him remove the nasty hospital plate. The smell was terrible and the foot was full of maggots that had crawled through from the bulb to the sole. I made the owner clean it all out and treat the foot with sugardine, nice clothes or not.
|
Only a couple more nails before this shoe is ready for a hospital plate to be bolted on. The horse showed very little of the tenderness to nailing often found in abscessed feet. |
At my insistence, the next morning the horse was taken to Brock Veterinary Clinic, where contrast radiographs showed a punctured flexor tendon. The infection could be seen clearly in the solar corium, and the size of it explained how enough pressure had built up to explode the bulb.
Brock and Michelle Dockter, another veterinarian, flushed the wound from the bulb through to the puncture in the foot.
Quite a few maggots were flushed out, which Brock was mostly unconcerned with, regardless of how they looked. Proud flesh was trimmed from the bulb wound. No additional drainage was needed, since most of the fluid was already gone and there was a large track running through the foot.
The leg was wrapped and the horse started on systemic antibiotics. The veterinarians gave him about a 50% chance of a full recovery.
Back To The Intricacies And Dangers Of Puncture Wounds
