Who needs sleep?!

If there is ever a coffee/tea shortage it might be our fault. We have been running on fumes as the daunting task of caring for The Squirt's wounds continues. We are leaving the wound open, as the vet advised, so that it can drain. Hopefully the air will help speed the healing... and now discharge, blood and moisture aren't being held against the tissues. The Squirt figured out that we were giving him meds and started to refuse to eat them, so now we have to crush/dissolve his antibiotic pills and mix them with yummies. Thankfully he is fine with the bute (it does smell awfully good!).

I will feel better once some flesh develops to fully cover the bone. It is scary when your horse has a wound that deep... especially when you worry about how many internal structures are affected, whether they will heal well, and what the long term impact will be. Infection risks also terrify me. As a biologist, I am usually fascinated by anatomical/medical issues... but I have learned that I have a weak stomach when I have a personal connection to the patient. I have gotten quite queasy and almost passed out a few times when looking at The Squirt's wounds. Grrr, darn my silly brain.

I am desperately hoping that The Squirt will start to feel a little better soon, as it is hard to see him holding his leg up because it hurts to put weight on it. Poor little guy. :( The leg can bear weight and he can walk (albeit with a limp), but he is not resting his good leg very much at all and he holds up the bad leg for long stretches. He can (and does) lie down though, so at least his good hind leg is getting some rest.

The latest development in The Squirt's saga is that he has started to lick his wounds! We first saw him do it while lying down, but he can reach around and lick the wounds while standing too. His paddock buddy has also been seen following The Squirt and licking his wounds... apparently Canadian Horses will eat anything! ;) The vet didn't believe us when we told him about it, and we have yet to find anyone else who has seen a horse lick its wounds (even The Squirt's breeder has never seen such a thing before). Our horse is like a dog! Hopefully he won't do any damage with the licking. When we tell him to stop he'll look at us with that "What?! I wasn't doing anything!" look. *sigh* Horses, aaarghh! It's a good thing that he's so cute and loveable!

So... has anyone else ever seen a horse lick wounds (its own or those of another horse)?

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Comment by Mary Ginn on June 21, 2010 at 7:15pm: I had a horse with an awful foreleg wound. Stitches wouldn't hold it together so we let it drain and allowed it to heal from the inside out. Ironically, although it's more work to keep the bio. load down, I was told the scarring would be less this way. Anyway, she licked it and rubbed her face on it so much that the drainage reacted with her head until her eye was swollen shut, so not only did we need to wash the wound regularly, we had to treat her eye and the side of her head as well. She also temporarily lost quite a bit of hair where the drainage touched her leg. Fortunately, the reaction to her head part of the whole wound issue only lasted for a couple of days. And in the end, the scar's not all that bad. Hope The Squirt responds as well to your TLC.

Comment by Jackie Cochran on June 21, 2010 at 10:19am: I haven't seen horses lick wounds, but the way that the Canadians were treated the first 100 years or so, I am sure that they developed their own methods of survival. Consider the possibility that the enzymes in the horse's saliva or the surficants in the horse's saliva may help deal with the bacteria that float onto the wound from the air and the dust.
Come to think of it, some horses must do something like this otherwise why else were the neck cradles invented?