talking tactics
Caroline’s first aid kit at home is especially well stocked
Talking Tactics
So you’ve just come home from work to experience that moment of dread, which hits you when you look over in the field and see your four legged friend chucking himself on the floor. Clearly he is colicing and you have no idea how long it’s been going on for. Caroline Mosley offers some practical advice…
First things first in any emergency – make sure you have the number for your vet easily to hand. Some practices use an answering service for out of hours calls, so make sure you store that on your phone too. If in doubt about any scenario, call your vet. A simple wound over a joint can potentially be career (or life) ending for a horse, so getting your vet is never going to be a wrong option.
Wounds
Whether its colic or a wound, I can totally sympathise with the panic that you have in those moments while you run to get a halter in order to fully assess your horse. When I kept my horse on livery and had to drive over, I had a rope headcollar and lead in my car at all times. I’ve actually used it to catch loose horses on the road and to grab quickly to run to my own horse’s aid. An old horse of mine regularly got his hoof caught in the fence, so the kit extended to wire cutters too!
Anyway since having my own Equine Page 48
stables, I keep a headcollar just inside my front door for emergencies. My grey horse Jack has jumped out of his field in the past and put his head through the bedroom window (obviously we live in a bungalow!), snorted, which made us c**p ourselves and then proceeded to wander off into the neighbour’s garden. Thankfully due to the emergency halter we were able to quickly retrieve the little *** (add in whatever word you feel is appropriate) and pop him back in his field. I tend to keep him in at night now….
Simple advice I can give you when it comes to wounds is to lavage gently with water. It is much better to pop a light hose on a wound and lavage gently for several minutes than it is to dilute an antiseptic in a small bowl and scrub it with swabs. ‘The solution to pollution is dilution’ and hence the more water you can run over a wound the better.
If
the wound is in a place where it’s impossible to lavage, get a syringe and flush it. I have, as a first aider, lavaged a person’s eye (they got a drug in their eye from injection) and rather than use a small pod in a first aid kit, I lavaged it with a litre of saline from an intravenous bag. If I hadn’t had this, tap water would have been better than 20mls of sterile saline! Cover any wounds with non stick dressings and wait for assistance from your vet. Keeping the wound covered will
reduce further contamination, as will clipping the hair off around the wound (remember to lavage afterwards to wash the hair away). DO NOT give ‘bute. Wait for your vet and let him (or her) assess your horse before you fill them with pain relief. As ‘bute is a prescription only medication it should only be prescribed by a vet. We all know owners keep a sachet or two for emergencies, but they should only be given if your vet gives you the go ahead.
If your horse’s wound is just a graze and doesn’t need a vet (any wound that goes through the skin entirely should be seen by a vet) then clipping off the hair and lavage should be sufficient. If you feel that flies will get to it and aggravate it, you can apply fly repellent to the area around the wound using a swab. Try not to over use wound creams, some really do delay healing; advice on creams is better requested during discussion with your vet.
Colic
It is good practice as a horse owner to be familiar with taking your horse’s heart rate (using a stethoscope) and being able to hear gut sounds. You can hear the inner workings of your horse and regular assessment can help you decide very quickly if
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