So my neighbors dog chased my four horses through barb wire the other day. Two of them jumped the fence and the other two ran through the wire and broke it. The two horses that ran thorugh it had cuts on their legs, I cleaned them and my mare seemed to be okay, non of the cute are deep and already are healing well. On the other horse, however, has a deeper cut. On his front leg up by his chest there is a deeper cut. It is not big enough that I feel like I should call a vet for stitches but now with the infection I am considering it, but I’m still not sure. The cut is roughly a circle less than half an inch in diameter, though it is a bit larger in one side, the day it happened I cleaned it out. The next day I noticed lots of puss and heat around the cut. I haven’t taken his temperature yet. What steps should I take
uhhhhh CALL THE VET
Call your vet. Today. Now. You don’t know how deep it really went, unless you went poking around in there, in which case you might have dragged all sorts of infective stuff in with your finger. At this point, it may be simply be a bit of an infected fairly superficial cut that will resolve on its own.
OR, it may be a lot deeper and more invasive than you realize, and will require the vet to pull out part of the metal wire, debride all that infected tissue, put in a drainage tube, and give you antibiotics.
Call your vet.
The first thing I would do is replace your barbed wire fence with something safe for horses. Preferably no-climb wire mesh that roaming dogs can’t get through.
I would have called my vet, may or may not come out, but get her advice, and probably started on antibiotics right away (probably SMZs). You don’t say when this accident happened, but keep in mind most wounds, if they need stitches, should be sutured within 12 hours of injury. A vet is unlikely to stitch a wound that is several days old, it will heal better by second intention by that point. Deep wounds (punctures) should not be stitched, but left open to drain. Some thin, yellowish serum discharge is normal in wound healing, but any thick pus and fever is probably a sign of infection and you’ll need antibiotics.
Clean the wound thoroughly with betadine or chlorhexidine scrub. I would hose and flush it daily with dilute betadine or chlorhex solution. In my area (hot swampy FL) the flies are terrible and I would cover the wound any way I can (wrap, elastikon band-aid, maxi-pad taped to a shoulder guard or fly sheet, etc). Small, relatively dry wounds can be sprayed with Aluspray. Otherwise I use triple antibiotic, and SWAT if needed. If there is a lot of drainage, apply vaseline to the skin below the wound, to prevent the drainage fluids from burning the skin and losing hair.
A vet should be involved to prescribe the proper antibiotics for you. I have several on hand, but I always confirm with my vet which ones to use.
After all that, I’d have a serious talk with the neighbor about their dogs, and make a plan to protect my animals.
