When to Call the Vet-Wounds

Horses can get wounds, lacerations and scrapes while exploring the pastures, but calling the vet is advisable when there is spurting blood, if the scrape is very dirty, if there's a lot of swelling or if a bone or tendon is exposed. Keep the wound clean on a horse with helpful advice from a veterinarian in this video on caring for horses.

Hi! I'm Dr. Joanna Robson. I'm a doctor of veterinary medicine and I'm here to talk to you today about when to call the veterinarian regarding wounds on your horse. Now, we all know that horses like to get into trouble. Wherever they can find it, they'll get into it. And usually that means some kind of cut, scrape, abrasion or deep wound, typically around the legs of the horse. This is quite common if they're turned out with a buddy or if they're out in the pasture and they find things like wood or sharp objects, or wire. And some of the most common criteria about when to actually call a vet are, if you see spurting blood, which would be an indication of an arterial tear or laceration. If the wound is very dirty, if it's packed with dirt, where you think infection might be a problem, if there's a lot of swelling around the wound or if there's what we call degloving and there's actual bone or tendon exposed, and the skin has actually been peeled away from the area of the wound. Now, when you initially find a wound on your horse, cold water hosing, dilution is the solution to pollution, we say. You want to get as much dirt out of the wound as possible. Avoid things such as hydrogen peroxide which can actually kill healing cells, just use a hose, try to scrub it up as best as you can while the veterinarian is on his or her way. If you see spurting blood and you're worried about the amount of blood the horse is loosing, you can use a tourniquet such as a piece of bailing twine or a piece of rubber that you can tie up above where the horse is loosing blood from the wound. Most important thing regarding wounds and calling the vet, sometimes very, very small wounds on the outside can lead to a big problem, these are puncture wounds. If you have any concern at all that the wound on the outside penetrates in the deeper tissues, don't hesitate to call your veterinarian. So, bright red spurting blood, any kind of loss of skin, exposure of bone or tendon, a wound that you think penetrates particularly into a joint. These are all the types of wounds that you should definitely call out your veterinarian.