I said “don’t do that”. This is why.
Venus and Peggy are out on pasture.
The property is divided into 4 pastures. They are side by side with gates between them. Let’s call them A, B, C, and D. A is on the north end of the property, D is on the south end. There are hills along these pastures. Horses in Pasture A can see and hear horses in Pasture B, but not horses in C or D. (This is important.) The fencing between these pastures is not very good – 3 strand high tensile wire. Horses can pretty much walk thru this fencing if they have enough motivation. In order to keep horses in a particular pasture one has to be aware of their motivation for going thru the fence and avoid triggering that motivation.
At the time there were 18 horses on this property. Some of the horses were as thin as a 2 or 3 on the condition scale. Others were fat, bordering on obese (up to 8 on the condition scale). I wanted to put the fat horses in field D, the thin ones in field A. Field D had sparse grass, field A had a lush valley and the new grass was coming in nicely after a few winter rains.
One owner claimed we couldn’t split up her horses because one in particular (let’s call him R) would freak out if he was separated from “his herd”. In fact, she didn’t even want him separated from 2 mares belonging to someone else. Those were the mares he liked best. Well, they were thin, they needed to be on the lush pasture so I led them over. R fussed for a few minutes but then settled down. The mares fussed for a few minutes in pasture A but then also settled down.
Things were fine… until pasture D was overgrazed. This was because that one owner had 6 horses in that field and 3 of them shouldn’t have been there. So with the thin horses in with the fat horses, the field was overgrazed too quickly. Some of the horses started going thru the fence into pasture C. This wouldn’t be a problem except that the bottom of pasture C is a marsh. Lots of lush grass is coming in, exactly the wrong grass for these fat horses. (Several are prone to founder.) However, it would be unsafe to put these horses in pasture B because they would be across the unsafe fence from the horses in pasture A. I said it was a VERY BAD IDEA to put these horses in pasture B unless they opened the gate to A. However, a few weeks later, instead of heeding my advice, the fat horses were moved into pasture B and the gate between B and A was left closed and locked. For a few days things were OK. Then the owner of a new horse (L) in Pasture A decided she wanted to put him in pasture B instead. No one asked me if this was a good idea. Well, it wasn’t.
L had bonded to 3 of the mares in pasture A – when they moved him L called to the mares and they back to L. All this calling alerted R – suddenly he knew where the missing mares were. If the fat horses had been in pasture C or D this wouldn’t have been a problem – they can’t hear the horses in pasture A from there. But in pasture B they could hear the horses in pasture A. And so all hell broke loose.
L and R started tearing up along the fenceline between B and A. Their pacing dug a trench at the gate, a double trench, one for front hoofs and one for hind hoofs.
Eventually the mares came over and they ran up and down the fenceline on their side. The ground was all torn up on both sides of the fence.
Finally they came over/thru the fence.
Two of them were relatively unscathed – missing a few patches of hair but not seriously hurt. However Venus cut her right hock on the wire.
Other horse owners noticed these 3 horses in Pasture B on Sunday. But they failed to notify anyone (the owners of these horses or the people responsible for the pasture) that they were not where they had been and confirm that they had been moved. And they failed to notice Venus’s injured hock.
Yesterday morning I got a phone call. Venus has a cut on her leg, swollen leg, and isn’t putting weight on it. I “better get down there right away”. SHIT. I had a job interview at 1 pm – I canceled it. I started trying to reach a vet. My first choice vet was out of town, I called her backup. Backup vet is backed-up – 3 other emergencies are in line ahead of me. The earliest she might get out there is 7 pm.
Did I mention that this property has no facilities? There are 2 catch pens – one is very dangerous (torn up field fencing between the catch pen and the pasture), the other is a round pipe corral. There is no electricity. No running water except the water troughs. No barn or run-in shelter. Having the vet out at 7 pm (after dark) is not optimal.
I keep calling around. I discover that 4 of the 5 1-vet practices have gone to a convention, leaving the 5th vet to cover for the other 4. That’s the vet who can’t get to me until 7, at the earliest. I call the big practices. They also have vets out of town and the remaining vets are over-booked and can’t come out today.
I loaded up the truck with halters and meds and wraps and make the 1 hour drive to the pasture. Mike (my best friend’s husband) returns my call (they own the other 2 mares that went thru the fence) and goes up to the property to see what’s up. He finds Venus, not far from the round pipe corral. She’s not putting any weight on the leg. He has no halter or rope with him, but he can stay with the horses and help encourage them to move towards the corral (instead of away) so that she doesn’t get moving in the wrong direction.
My truck needs new brakes. My SO offers to let me use his truck. It’s on empty so I had to stop for gas on the way – the first gas station I tried was closed (their printer wasn’t working – WTF?) and I had problems using my debit card at the second station (I think the mag strip is failing) but finally it worked. Filled the truck, got on the road. Arrived around 1:30 pm.
Found Mike and Venus. Haltered Venus and slowly lead her down to the round pen. Her leg is very swollen from the hock to the fetlock. The wound oozes deep yellow puss with every step and Venus is very reluctant to step on the leg. Finally get her into the pen. Grab my camera and take photos.
Count horses. There are 19 horses total on the property now, but only 15 are here. Peggy is one of the missing. Peggy and Venus were together, and based on the wound I’m certain Venus came thru the fence and injured the leg on the wire. I’m worried about Peggy – Is she caught on the fence?! Venus’s leg is ugly but it can wait a few minutes longer – I can medicate it in the dark if necessary. First I need to make sure Peggy is OK.
Mike and I walk over to pasture A. The gate between B and A is closed. The ground is all torn up – we can see how the L and/or R were running the fence line all agitated and trying to get the 3 mares in A to join them.
We find Peggy and the other 3 missing horses in A, none of them seem to have been up by the fence and they are happy to stay in A. We return to the AB fence and lock open the gate so that we won’t have any more horses separated by the inadequate fence and hurt on the fencing.
We walk the A-B fenceline and find the damaged fence. The fence and the ground tell the story. I take photos.
As we walked back to Venus, we see a corner fence post with blood. The blood isn’t the type of fresh blood from a wound caused at that moment, it’s dirty and has clots and clumps – it’s the type of blood that comes from a congealing wound.
We returned to Venus. I decide that I’m going to cancel the vet call and treat her myself for now. The wound is too old, it can’t be stitched. The main thing she needs are antibiotics. While calling around to try to get a vet out before dark, the nearest large clinic said I could get penicillin at the nearby feed store rather than having to drive all the way down to the clinic. So I head off to get penicillin, carrots, feed for the next few days while she stays in the corral. Mike heads home to get a vet book (so I know how much penicillin to give) and feed bucket. I went to the feed store to buy medication and feed. Back to the horses. Mike brings carrots. I halter Venus and give her 20ccs of penicillin in the rump. She doesn’t even flinch – what a good girl!
I put on rubber gloves (mostly to keep my hands clean because I’m not going to significantly “contaminate” this wound) and get out some sterile gauze pads. I quickly wipe the wound. Venus stands pretty well but lifts her leg. She doesn’t try to kick me, but she really doesn’t want to leave the leg on the ground. I have Mike feed her a carrot bit each time I wipe her leg. I wiped about a dozen times, swooping my finger down into the pocket of the wound. I drew out a bunch of puss, and a lot of just “goop” from the wound. I couldn’t find any openings in towards the joint, or any foreign objects in the wound. Just a lot of puss and oozing and swelling and granulated tissue is already forming – it has been at least 3 days since the injury.
I put a large glob of furacin ointment on a gauze and worked it into the wound pocket, leaving the gauze on top. Bandaging was a bit tricky as Venus kept lifting the leg and I needed her to stand on it to properly wrap the leg. But finally she stood on it, and a roll of vet wrap later she’s bandaged.
The leg below the wound is covered with puss ooze. She’s probably going to lose a lot of hair – there’s really nothing we can do about that. I glob on a lot of petroleum jelly to help soften the dried puss ooze on the leg. I’ll see if I can hose the leg clean on the next day.
I made a mash with 2 tablets of bute and hay pellets. She had a few bites but prefers eating the grass in the round pen. She will have it all eaten down in a few hours and I’m sure she will start to eat the pellets.
jc