Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi All,
My horse (a 23 yr old Arab mare) received a puncture wound to her hock. We were in the process of moving and she was being boarded so some of the details are a little fuzzy. It is unclear how soon the wound was noticed. The wound is slightly above the joint on the outside and it goes in about 1.5 inches, missing the joint. She received vet care and got 7 days (i think) of antibiotics plus wrapping. I never got the name of the antibiotic, but it was "sulfa" something, I think. The vet injected fluid and didn't see any seepage, so she didn't think the joint was compromised and she also did some cultures which came up negative. This was the first week of Sept. and now it is the last week of October. The wound has healed nicely, but she is still almost dead lame in that leg. She is on 2 grams of Bute a day plus Gastroguard. This amount keeps her looking alert and out of pain, much less and you can really tell she doesn't feel well. There is some swelling in the hock joint that at one point migrated down, probably due to stocking up from not walking. By X-ray there doesn't seem to be any pockets of infection. The vet tried to aspirate fluid for culture without much luck. She put her on Baytril for 8 days (horrid stuf!!!). Her suggestion now is to bring the horse in for an ultrasound checkup. The horse doesn't trailer well and we are afraid it will do more harm than good.

At any point, what do all of you think? Any helpful advice. What other things should we be doing? The vet brought up the subject of putting the horse down and it was quite upsetting although I'm a realistic person. We only intend the horse as a pet-not for showing or working- although light pleasure riding would be good. What do you think of the prognosis?

Thanks a lot!

First - I'm not the vet, just filling in for him until he can get a chance to turn on the computer.

Sounds to me that the vet suspects either another injury that may or may not have occured at the same time as the puncture, or a tendon/ligament injury that is related to either the puncture itself or perhaps from any infection they may have set in before the antibiotics came into play. The ultrasound will show a lot more soft tissue and any damage to the soft tissue than the x-ray can.

As to the prognosis...really depends on what she finds. An x-ray would have shown a bone chip (most likely) or damage to the joint, which are both a good bit more severe than most tendon injuries but its hard to say. I'd be inclined, if it were mine, to go with the ultrasound and then decide from there what the next course of action should be. I'd have a hard time making the decision to put a horse down when I didn't know what was wrong and if it was something that just needed treatment to be 100% sound again.

Good luck - let us know what happens!
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PH Cody
HorseHobbyist Site Coordinator