Question: how did you not freak out, seeing that it was cut to the bone? I’d be permanently traumatized!
That particular horse had a habit of injuring himself regularly. In a different way each time. I was accustomed to gory injuries and having to just suck it up and deal with the aftermath. It probably helped that another horse at the barn had previously almost shredded the skin on her forehead and healed up beautifully.
I was also astonished at how he’d managed to get through the skin to bone above his eye, and slice his lower eyelid at the same time and yet completely miss his eye!
This same horse managed to get his ear bitten, again in the coldest part of winter, and came in with a ball of frozen blood on the outside edge of his ear. I discovered the blood ball also held a curl of ear skin when I cut it off. I pretty much left that one alone too after the trim - our winter is a very clean time of year for horses living outside. He had a shallow scoop in the outline of that ear, but perfect healing.
Another time he scraped the top layers of skin off one stifle over an area a good bit larger than my spread hand. The skin was raw, but not broken so I cleaned it up and left it alone. The thing scabbed over and shrank in area to the point that he could barely lift his foot. He almost fell over when I asked for that foot to pick it out. I spent several days working the thick scab off and then had to coat it daily with zinc ointment to prevent it scabbing over again. Sometimes leaving it alone works and sometimes it doesn’t.
He was creative! :lol:
Dermagel is an antibiotic ointment. You can also get it in spray form. I haven’t found it keeps the wounds moist. I find whatever cuts or scrapes I put it on tend to dry out and scab over quickly. I’ve used it on horses, kittens, dogs and husbands.
