Your Turn: Muddy pasture + puncture wound = FAIL

Why is Bernadette Kilcer’s vet driving a new sportscar? We kid, but she did write to us to share a lesson she recently learned the hard (read: expensive) way.

From Bernadette:

Mud packs: great for humans, not so much for equines.

Who knew that one TINY little puncture wound would bring on 14 days in the local equine hospital?! Two weeks and one VERY large bill later the vet provided me the following advice:

1. Don’t turn out in mud.

2. That said, if you have no other option or dry paddock, always scrub the legs with soap and thoroughly dry them (the most important part) every time they come in. Mud is a wonderful carrier of all sorts of nasty stuff. Letting the legs dry and then brushing off the dirt gives the bacteria time to crawl into whatever holes, cracks or crevices that may exist on the skin or hooves.

3. Call the vet early. In my case, I actually watched my mare’s leg inflate like a balloon. If you see an extremity that is swollen, especially if they are running a fever, call the vet immediately if not sooner. The worse the swelling gets the more the bacteria are throwing a party. This equates to bigger vet bills (or worse death).

While this advice may seem a bit extreme to some, I assure you that this is not the first case that my vet has seen. Let my (expensive) lesson be words to the wise for you.

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