There is a Finnish saying that "hevoseton mies on huoleton mies" (= a man without a horse is a man without worries) Today, this applied to me very much indeed. When we went out at 8.30am to turn the horses to the paddocks and start mucking out, we saw that Basse had somehow managed to rip a part of his right nostril. My poor boy! Luckily, the vet came out asap, and by midday Basse's nose was fixed with stitches. He is now having a day off and a couple of easy days, and is having some antibiotics and painkillers so that it won't hurt or get infected at all. The vet did a good job in stitching it up and now his nose looks like a normal nose again!
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| Basse today... :( |
But of course Basse was not the only with who need the vet. Nelli has got another swollen leg, again from the same reason. Because we need studs in the shoes during winter (so that the horses stay upright and don't slip in the snow and ice) it is easy for the horses to get a "hokinpainama", when the horse catches itself on the stud and gets a superficial wound on their legs. This isn't too bad as long as you clean it quickly. When the wound is a little bit deeper, a scab forms (naturally) However, the problem with Nelli is that she the scab doesn't cover the wound properly or it falls off before the skin underneath it is healed properly, resulting in bacteria getting into the wound and therefore into the horse's blood, and thus giving Nelli a swollen leg. This is not too bad either, normally the horse gets a sulfa drug course (antibiotics) But because this is Nelli's third case in such a short period of time, we are getting a bit worried whether the antibiotics will help this time - because the body's resistance to the antibiotics could have risen. But now Nelli is resting, having antibiotics and painkillers and having her leg iced, and hopefully she will recover soon!
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| FinnTack ice-packs that we use |
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