Puncture wound on horse's neck

[Cara]

My mare has a puncture wound on her neck. She's been turned out for the past couple of weeks, and it was only noticed yesterday morning. It was swollen and full of pus so my FIL cut it open a little to let it drain. We've been giving her penicillin daily, cleaning the wound out and packing it with NFZ and SWAT around the outside to keep the flies off. She seems to feel fine, she's eating and drinking like normal and picking on the others. We have the Chris Cox clinic in three weeks and i'm worried she won't be able to go

The actual wound isn't all that big, it's about the size of a nickel, but it's an inch or two deep. It isn't as swollen as it was yesterday and is continually draining. It was bleeding after I hosed it and looked quite healthy. She's probably going to need to see the vet on Monday to make sure there's nothing left in her neck, but is there anything else I can do for her in the meantime? I've been wondering about putting an Animalintex poultice on it.

 

[patandchickens]

Sounds like you're doing all what should be done. It being draining is good (for a reasonable time period I mean); she's up to date on tetanus, yes? (tho the chances of a probelm are remote even if she's not)

A poultice is not a bad idea per se but most locations on the neck are hard to keep a poultice ON

I don't think it's likely to be worth going to difficult measures to try to poultice it as long as it seems to be doing ok.

Unless something goes wrong with the healing, or it is located where it's making her neck very sore, i would not expect it to interfere with your going to the clinic

Good luck,

Pat

 

[Cara]

Thanks for the voice of reason again

It looks a lot better today, it isn't half as swollen and there's no pus. Just hosing it for a while seems to help. It looks like she might have to try harder to evade the clinic.

I don't know that she is up to date on tetanus, she'd probably have it by now if it was an issue wouldn't she?

 

[bwebb7]

Tetanus is a cheap vaccine -you should update.
Get it from your vet or feed store.
If she got sick from it, it would be a travesty!

 

[BlackBart]

I posted a long explanation but it vanished so here is the article, it works incredibly well.

http://www.lesspub.com/s3/site/pdf/afj/_Sugar_dine.pdf

 

[Cara]

Now i'm confused whether she's utd on tetanus vaccine or not

We gave her a 4-way vaccine about six weeks ago, but i'm not sure which product. Do all 4-ways include tetanus?

 

[verthandi]

Quote:
I can't say for sure that your 4 way had tetanus in it, but last month I had to re vaccinate for EEE as we had an outbreak here. I could not find any of the 3 or 4 way shots that did not have tetanus in them. I discussed it with my vet and was told that they have to custom order it, to get it without tetanus.

If you ordered your vaccine on-line, maybe take a look what they offer and compare what is in each 4 way?

 

[Cara]

We got our vaccine through our vet as we had an influenza outbreak. We had to vaccinate over 80 horses so it was quite the undertaking! Luckily everyone is fine. He usually provides Fort Dodge vaccines and I can't find a 4-way that they make without tetanus. I'll give him a call just to be sure though, I think we used it all up.

 

[Cara]

Panis is over.. for now

She is utd on tetanus, but not for the reason I thought. She had Fluvac Innovator EHV-4/1 which is just for Rhino + Flu, but we also gave them a West Nile vaccine that covers tetanus also.

 

[bwebb7]

Good!
and good luck at the upcoming clinic too