“she has hurt her leg and suffered two small puncture wounds on the inside and out.”…
Hello, I have a 6 month old Paint filly that has been weaned about a month ago. Recently she hurt her leg and suffered two small puncture wounds on the inside and out. We are now treating it and the swelling has gone down and all around it looks much much better. She is being kept with another colt. He’s a 7 month old Paint colt. They can’t have much turn out time because we only have one pasture and we still have the mares and since we are trying to wean we keep them apart. Right now the mares and gelding go out on pasture during the day and if the weather is all right, we let the foals out during the night. But now it is getting much colder at night so they aren’t out very much. I also noticed the filly has a lot less muscle mass then the colt. If I would rate her on a scale from 1 to 10 I’d probably have to rate her a 4. They are both getting 5 flakes of hay a day and about a pound of 12% sweet horse feed. We can’t get any special kind of foal feed because my grandfather insists that he has raised many foals on just regular 12% horse feed. (but as you can tell he was the old type of horse raiser) Today when I went down to the barn to bring in the foals I realized it was snowing. We don’t have any shelter for them when they are out in the pasture so they couldn’t get under anything except for some trees. When I opened up the barn door they both came running right into their pen. But when I saw the little filly it seemed she dropped 20 pounds overnight! Normally after coming in from a night out there little bellies are big and plump from eating all that grass. Anyways after throwing them in some hay I noticed she would just keep pawing at the hay. Then she would grind her teeth and almost like a foam surrounded her mouth. She wouldn’t even open her mouth to eat it. But I could tell she was desperately trying. After I watched for a while I brought her out and cleaned out her wound on her leg which now was a lot bigger. It seemed on both sides that it almost ripped. I could probably fit a half dollar in it. I also realized she was quite wobbly and almost acted as if it was hard to stand. After cleaning her leg and bandaging it up she began shivering so I made a makeshift blanket to keep her warm. I’m not sure what’s wrong with her, but she looks so depressed and sickly, that she looks terrible. Her condition looks bad.. her hips stick out quite far and her back bone does as well. Her neck is very small as well. Compared to her 1 month older half brother she looks terrible. Do you have any idea what could be wrong with her?? I’m very worried because a very good friend of mine has bought her as her first horse. She is very excited and has some payments on her already. Very soon she would like us to take her over to her house but with the little filly being like this I’m not so sure. I’m sorry about the long letter but I really need help. If you know anything please let me know. Thank you very much, Payge.
Dr. Jack Sales’ Answer:
Hi Payge,
The description of the filly is possibly a tetanus infection, and if she has not been vaccinated or given a tetanus antitoxin at the time of the wound, it is a good possibility that this is what is happening. It will only get worse, and you could lose her unless you have a Veterinarian check her out right away. Even if it is not early symptoms of tetanus, it sounds as if she does need Veterinary attention. Good luck.
