Monday, October 18, 2010

BIG Owie.

Squeamish people, you should consider yourself warned.... DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINKS if you'd rather not see a lot of blood. There is a little blood in the post photos too, but I linked to the worst of it.

Just after the morning feeder grained all the horses he heard a loud bang and came to find my poor pony with a bloody face. Junior managed to wound himself pretty severely this time. I believe this is face injury number 3 or even 4 within 4 months. This is the worst by far. I got a text just before 10:00 from the BO that he cut his face and that photos had been sent to the vet and the vet was coming out. I called her and asked how bad it was and she informed me she wasn't there but the feeder had sent photos to the vet and the vet's opinion was that faces heal well but a stitch would make it heal prettier. "A stitch" huh? I left work and headed to the barn. I go there to find my poor pony like this:


It may be hard to tell what's really there, but it's a big inverted triangle flap of skin. And blood. And it had already been hosed off. Yack. Dr. Johnson came out about 30 minutes after I got there. He seemed surprised at the severity and said he wasn't able to see that much from the photo. He thought for a bit and then we brought him out to the sunlight for the work. Junior was sedated and the whole area was washed with betadine and saline. THAT part was gross. I had to look away right after I took a picture. There was some splatter on my shoes. Hurl. Then Dr. J injected a bunch of blocker and stitched him up with 14 stitches. He looked just awful when we were done. His whole face was covered with betadine, saline, blood, and this silver spray that looked like RustOLeum.


The BO had arrived right before we were finished and she immediately went to work removing the board/bolt that we determined to be the culprit. It's left over from a long gone corner feeder. It's just 2" boards attached to the stall walls and there is a small bolt and washer on the top of one of the boards. Totally unassuming looking and though I knew it was there I was not concerned about it. She felt absolutely awful, but it wasn't her fault. The stall is safe, my pony is just accident prone. He has a scar on his face from long ago, which you may have noticed in some pictures so this habit did not start with US and I can't be entirely to blame. She removed the board with the bolts and installed a mat over the wall so he can't scratch on the metal corner plate either. I think he needs a padded stall.

I left him calm but alert in another stall while she was working so I could get back to work for a meeting and to apologize to my class for abandoning them to watch a movie without me this morning.

I ran to Target and picked up some peroxide and laundry detergent (to get the blood off my jacket sleeve...) and headed back to the barn. The BO had already gone out for peroxide and had cleaned most of his face so the face that met me was much nicer to look at than the face I left.

He's to stay in the stall or be hand-walked for 3-4 days to give the healing a good start. Then he can go back to normal turnout routine. If it starts to swell or starts draining puss I am supposed to call Dr. Johnson back. If not, then the stitches come out in 2 weeks. I'm hoping free-choice hay and a few walks a day will help him stay sane in the stall.

PLEASE say a prayer or cross your fingers, squeeze your rabbits's foot, wish upon a star or whatever you do to hope that he lets this heal without pulling stitches out or rubbing it. I'll keep you posted.

Here is a link to the more icky pictures. If it asks for a password, the password is "Junebug".

11 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. It should heal up fine - getting the vet out there right away is the trick. Perhaps Photobucket thought the pictures were too gory

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  3. They weren't THAT bad!!! I turned the album to PRIVATE. There's a new link at the end of the post and you might need the password... Junebug.

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  4. Thoughts headed your way from our corner! Sure hope that handsome horse heals up quick for you.

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  5. ouch! My pony is accident prone as well, unfortunately with her legs instead of her face.
    After dealing with an injury that I should have stitched, which then took four weeks to heal instead of the ten it probably would have with a couple stitches, I am all for stitches! Good luck with the healing process, do they make giant horse E Collars?

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  6. Oh my gosh!! That's so icky, I hope he gets better soon. Poor Junior. =[

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  7. Oh - poor guy! Glad the BO quickly removed the bolt from his stall...

    I had a horse that reared in the barn and ended up with a big head injury like that. His had a lot of swelling and it was in the summer, so it was hard to keep it clean and fly-free, but it healed up fine. I could notice a teeny scar, but no one else could.

    Hope the big lug heals up quickly!

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  8. My Hank did almost that very same thing on the hay feeder at a place I boarded at. Healed up just fine, and I can't even see a scar. Hank got 12 stitches that day. My vet likes to stitch - she's a quilter in her spare time.

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  9. Thanks for the well wishes everyone!

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  10. Poor Junior!! My goodness!!

    You warned me but I went and looked at the pictures anyway. BARF! That one where the skin is lifted up was a bit too much for me to handle.

    As much as I love my pony, looking away wouldn't even have helped if I was in your shoes. I've been known to pass out from time to time, so KUDOS to you!!

    At this point, I'm not even sure padded stalls could save our horses!

    I'll be thinking about Junior and hoping he heals up without issue.

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  11. Poor baby! And poor you too! It's so hard when our horses are hurt or sick. But he'll heal fast. Sounds like the staff is great at your facility.

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