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Bad hoof injury

22K views 89 replies 21 participants last post by  Appyt 
#1 ·
I've been meaning to post this for a while. Almost 2 weeks ago my roan mare, Heidi cut her pastern/hoof very badly on a nasty piece of jagged metal. Thankfully the injury was discovered nearly immediately and she is doing well.

Heidi has been at a friends house for a few months and had developed an ugly crack that went into her sole. My trimmer discovered this when she trimmed her in September. We moved her to my trimmers house so she could take care of this as we were worried about the dept of it. Then this injury happened. Amber is certain this piece of metal was not in the pasture previously as she had checked it thoroughly before putting her horses there, and she has been riding in it herself. It was near a fenceline where there is jagged metal in sight next door.

As I said, luckily it was discovered directly after she was injured. Amber cleaned and wrapped it as it was bleeding and quite ugly. The vet arrived in a couple of hours and spend the next 3 hours working on Heidi's leg. The main damage was from the front of her hoof(just below the c band) across the inside of her pastern and down between the heel bulbs. She nearly cut 1/3 of her hoof off barely missing injuring her tendon. The vet could see the coffin bone and was worried it or the navicular bone may have been injured as well. Time will tell if she will be sound or have a permanent limp. It's looking good, well it looks quite nasty, but it is healing. She has to keep it pressure wrapped and Heidi has to be in a stall "most" of the time.. Amber and I both agree that a little time out for mental health is a must as long as she isn't overdoing it. She gets stir crazy in the stall if she isn't out at all and that's not good either so a bit of hand grazing or loafing time is essential, in our opinion. Here are a few pics and there are more on my photobucket.

A sister piece of the metal Amber snagged from the neighbors place.


The injury directly after being stitched up.


Day 8


Day 11 you can see the toe crack as well. Vet had worked on it, removing some dead tissue etc.


A side view day 11


She is in the best hands I could wish for as Amber is an excellent nurse. ;)

*Amber is barefoothooves from this forum*
 
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#2 ·
Well good grief! Poor baby. I hope she gets better soon. I don't understand how she got hurt like that - most horses will avoid metal and garbage. Those injuries look more like she was standing still and the metal was moving - if you get my drift...
 
#3 ·
I suspect she was taking a lil runaround play maybe and hit it or caught a leg in it. The piece Amber found was in 2 parts but total size was similar to this one. Heidi isn't one to stick her foot in that kind of stuff on purpose. She didn't get a pic of the pieces in her pasture as hubby had hauled them off with the trash not realizing she wanted to hang onto it for a bit.
 
#8 ·
Thank you all for the good wishes. I am confident she will heal as well as is possible as I have absolute faith in the care she is receiving at Ambers. I only wish she lived a little bit closer to me. I can't get over there often enough to suit me..
 
#9 ·
Just an update on Heidi-She's doing pretty well. It's turned off cold, here and she's a bit bonkers cooped up in the stall, but I've been taking her out to hand graze, which is more like sniffing the ground as she sneaks in a walk. She has a bit of a limp, as is expected, but the wound is closing nicely. AppyT has the most recent pictures when/if she wants to post them is up to her.

I have to say, the best thing has been using a Boa or Cavallo boot that I can put over the bandage. The boot is stiff enough to keep her foot from flexing as much laterally and she limps less with it. With all the wrapping and padding this kind of boot is working better than a regular easyboot, since there is a deep cut in the heel bulbs that would be squeezed by the easyboot heel strap and with her being pigeon toed, the boot would rotate without that strap and proper tension. The cavallos can be a little loose and don't add pressure to the wound. The boots are only on when she comes out of the stall. The rest of the time it is just the bandage so the hoof can air out.
 
#10 ·
I think I said OMG! About 6 times when I was the pics. I've never seen an injury qite like that, And I work with racehorses! Wow!
It looks like it's healing well though, and she swelling is minimal considering the extent of the injury.
Good luck with it and keep us posted!
 
#11 · (Edited)
Ah finally my photobucket is working. What's up with that? Day 16 pics after cleaning. That's betadine, not blood.

whole leg before cleaning


After cleansing w/betadine


toe view after cleaning w/betadine *also the nasty toe crack should be gaining ground with all this medicating for the leg. XX it finally grows out.


Heelbulb-sole view.


The right pastern injury.
 
#13 ·
I can't believe I overlooked this thread! Wow, what a scare that must have been. It looks like she is well on the mend now though, thank goodness.
I checked your photos on photobucket, very impressive stitch work and after-care. Has anything been determined about her long term rideability?
 
#14 ·
It appears she missed damaging her tendon(deep flexor I think)by a hair and any inner hoof bone damage is not evident at this time. Prognosis is guarded but optimistic. She is a bit gimpy but much of that may be due to walkin circles in a stall. Thus she gets supervised time out to keep her sanity. Amber says about 15 mins out with some walking around daily and she's not too grumpy to go back in. We will know more in a month or so on that score I hope.
 
#17 ·
Amber is in charge of treatment, I just pay the bill. lol Lessee.. She is on antibiotics and bute, on stall rest with short timeout daily so she doesn't trash her foot. She gets personal scrub baths(ankle only) every couple of days now that it has stopped oozing gunk and a pressure bandage. And she is getting pedicures way more often than normal to help get that dang crack resolved and to help get her heels back as they tend to want to run under.

It's a lot of work and Amber is doing a great job.
 
#19 ·
Cauterize? Not sure how that would help.. The newest growth is not splitting. Keeping the walls beveled especially at the toe to keep the pressure off the wall will do the most good to keep it from continuing to split. Pretty sure there were greebles involved to make it split so badly as she is trimmed regularly. We battle flaring and underrun heels with her.
 
#22 ·
WOW. I think have a very luck horse here. From what I've read, it seems that despite the terrible cut, she managed to keep her artery in tact. That's the biggy here I think. A friend of mine had something similar happen years ago, but she nicked the artery and it was not a great scene. Eventually, her hoof started to regrow kind of up and over the original hoof and my friend just didn't have the thousands of dollars needed for her care. Where we are, it would have meant shipping her off to a clinic about 4 hours away and paying for care there for quite a while. It didn't end happily.

However, I don't see your girl's cut being as damaging inside as my friend's was. Have you had xrays done? or ultrasound? The healing process seems to be going great. I hope you can keep her as active as she wants to be with the bandages and boots for protection. Good job you two! With you in charge, your horse is in good hands.
 
#23 ·
Actually she did nick an artery(the one that pulses). I must have forgotten to put that in the first post. The luckiest part of her hurting herself was that Amber discovered it directly afterwards. It was feeding time. She pressure wrapped the hoof and pastern and waited for the vet. Heidi did not lose a lot of blood due to Amber's knowledge of emergency care. No xrays or ultrasounds were taken as the vet could see inside the hoof capsule from the top. He examined to see what damage he could ascertain. He may want to do xrays if she has lameness issues at some point. For now she is quite a little miracle, imo. Did I say little? She isn't real tall but she isn't little either. ;)
 
#24 ·
Oh, that's not great with damage to the artery. :( Was the vet able to stitch the artery? In my friend's case, they couldn't and they were very concerned about the blood circulation to the hoof.

What a perfect bay -- no white at all? Pretty girl. I hope all goes well for her.
 
#25 ·
yes, the vet stitched up the arteries and veins first, after probing the area (blech) and discovering she had cut completely through the lateral cartilage (lc) and to the coffin bone and flexor tendon. He could literally pull the lc away from the foot to peer inside and see bone. Luckily, she cut TO the important structures, but apparently not actually into them. I knew she cut an artery when I tried to clean the wound and it was spurting while she stood there, so I just wrapped it tight and while hubby called the vet and AppyT for me.

Heidi layed down and dozed while waiting for the vet and hopped up and stood like a good girl for the exam and stitiching. Of course, she was sedated and had a nerve block, but she was standing up for the whole thing, and the vet has since bragged that she is truely the best patient he's ever had. Go Heidi! She's a very patient soul.
 
#27 ·
I am glad Amber popped in and explained better than I could. I do not have a good rememerer. I just knew it was not good but the outcome is looking positive.

Heidi is a Bay Roan and she does have a star.. Here she is as a 3 yr old. That is Amber's Toby with the White legs in the background with Abe.
 
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