Wounds on Horses: Assessment and Treatment

Sooner or later, almost all horses will get some sort of injury that penetrates the skin. These wounds may look scary to owners, but don’t seem to bother the horse very much. Other seemingly minor scratches can cause an entire leg to swell up like a balloon. How can you, as the horse’s owner, assess discomfort, bleeding, chance of infection, and the overall severity of the wound?

If you give your horse a light grooming every day, you are more likely to find injuries within a few hours of their occurrence when they can be treated most effectively.You can probably tell right away that some injuries need veterinary attention. Very large wounds with lots of raw tissue, cuts with spurting or pulsing blood, deeply penetrating wounds, any injury involving an eye or a limb joint, and major leg wounds fall into this category. For other wounds, you can look at several factors to make a judgement on whether professional treatment is called for.

The first step for most flesh wounds is to rinse the injury with clean, cool water or saline solution. This removes dirt, grass, and blood so that you can see the injury more clearly. Try to judge the extent of the wound; generally, the larger and deeper it is, the more likely it is to need suturing. Any cut more than about half an inch long will probably benefit from this step, which will minimize infection and scarring. Puncture wounds may have a small surface opening but be quite deep; these will also need veterinary treatment to remove bacteria and foreign objects that may have been driven into the injury.

Location of the wound will have a bearing on how serious it is. Injuries to the lower legs are harder to suture and are more likely to develop proud flesh as they heal. Cuts or wounds on the fleshier areas of the horse will generally heal well because they are easier to stitch, are less likely to be pulled open with movement, and have a better blood supply than the lower legs.

If you give your horse a light grooming every day, you are more likely to find injuries within a few hours of their occurrence when they can be treated most effectively. If a wound is several days old before it is found, it may already be infected and is more difficult (though not impossible) to suture. Any injury that is swollen, hot, painful, or discharging pus could be infected and will need veterinary attention.

Even after an injury has been cleaned and sutured, you will need to check it regularly to watch for infection and proper healing. Call a veterinarian if the wound doesn’t seem to be healing cleanly or if proud flesh begins to develop.