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Chablis

Anyone have experience with severed tendons in horses?

As you may know, my little filly, Magic has severed a tendon in her hindleg.

Magic has been walking okay on it until yesterday (until yesterday, she only had a slight wobble at the hock when she put the hoof on the ground) where I could see that she was dragging the leg and subsequently slightly catching the front of her hoof on the ground.

While I will discuss with my vet tonight, I would appreciate any advice on strapping the leg to provide more support that it currently does.  Or anything else that might help.

Magic currently only has the thick wool padding thickly wrapped around - for support which has been working (until now) but I think a more rigid material incorpoated into the padding might be be needed, but I am not sure what to use?

Piccie below to show the leg in question.

Thanks folks.  

Clarissa

Chablis exactly which tendon is it? Can you point to it? Do you have a diagram off the net that you can highlight to affected tendon on?

In my late teens I owned a horse that was by a brumby stallion out of a black Welsh section B (the tall ones) mare the owner used to let loose every second year into the range area behind Bowen to get a new foal.

Beau Beau was an excellent buckskin horse. I got him for $1 for each year of age which cost me the grand total of $3!!. He had sustained a really bad tendon & flesh peel back injury to the hind leg when it went through the timber floor of the truck he was being carted in right after being broken in. The young guy who was helping move the horses wanted him real bad so Beau was given to him rather than the driver have to shoot the horse.

The young bloke used to walk Bea on the beach & in the waves every day for a few months to kill off the proud flesh that formed & to help the flesh heal back around the bones. Then the guy was transferred away for work & Beau was left behind & his leg went bad again. Another guy helped by giving him some sulphur drugs a few times but on the whole the horse was left to his own devices in a 1000ac paddock for 6mths.

That’s when I got him because the paddock had been sold & Beau was out of a home. I took him to the vet & he was soon on the road to recovery. He was always a little gammy on that leg, couldn’t roll back over it to chase cattle & couldn’t do a tight turn that side doing barrel racing. But he did pretty well in anycase.

I used to take him with me to each property I worked on & on one big cattle station there were stables that I could use. I had a pony stallion & Beau stabled. I planned to take them to town for an upcoming rodeo & gymkhana. I was late letting them out this day & they took off like crazy down their night paddock, slipped in fresh mud at the corner & both went sailing through the barbed wire fence in the corner. The pony was fine but Beau’s front leg was hanging loose from the knee!

The wire had picked up the tendon that runs over the knee & scrapped it right back in a long V right up the upper part of his leg. I was beside myself. The station owner wanted to shoot him (probably would’ve been the right thing to do in the end). But I phoned the vet in the main town 250miles away & hired a light plane to fly him up to the station. It was next day before he arrived. He stitched it all back together & wrapped it all up tight but didn’t offer any firm hope for a good outcome.

Well 5 days later this yellow ooze started draining out the bottom & again I flew the vet up to the station. He said it was Staph & he had to unwrap the wound & he cut a lot of dead & dying flesh away & from then on until it healed I had to hose it several times a day. He then got secondary infections & seemed to get tetanus. He went stiff & had rigors. A farmer from the other side of our area heard about him & came over & administered more tetanus toxoid via a long needle right into the pole behind the brain. I stomach tubed him a few times each day to give him fluids & oaten gruel.

I walked him for 3 days & nights straight before another person came to help. The flesh on his leg went bad & frothy yellow stuff poured out of it all the time. I hosed it every hour, gave him up to 20 injections daily, kept him moving until I couldn’t walk another step. During that week he lost a whole heap of weight, all his fur from having such a high temp, got the shakes more times than I remembered, fell over almost every time he had a rigor meaning I had to heave him back to his feet even though his legs were stiffened. The staph ate all the flesh away from the bones of the knee & up the leg more than halfway. It ate the muscles, tendons & most of the joint capsule too.

Eventually his leg closed over & healed up after about 9mths. But his leg flapped as he moved it forward so he was only ever good for kids riding at the walk only. He was always an excellent kids horse anyway. He could pick it up like when I cleaned his hoof but he had no forward control of it other than that provided by his shoulder muscles.

OK so his back pastern healed up obviously because the tendons weren’t cut right through so over time they regenerated somewhat. However his front leg tendons were cut right through so no repair possible. The staph infection was added problems he didn’t need but it didn’t change the fact that the tendons were totally severed. When the vet came to stitch it the first time he told me it wouldn’t join back together anyway but it wasn’t so bad at that stage.

I know Magic hasn’t had the infection to worry about which did at least half the damage to Beau Beau’s knee, but Chablis from my personal experience of this sort of thing I can’t see you ever being able to ride your mare with any degree of finesse. When you ask her to collect up she has to use those back legs a lot more than normal movement uses them. That puts a lot more strain on those hocks, cannon bones, fetlock joints, tendons & associated tissues. You certainly wouldn’t want to be doing work that involved hind end strength or sideways movement.

I think as the pain subsides & she starts working that joint, she will show that she can’t place the hoof properly & the faster she goes the less she will be able to control it. Also various footings will have an effect too. You wouldn’t want her knuckling over on the foot all the time.
Chablis

Clarissa wrote:
Chablis exactly which tendon is it? Can you point to it? Do you have a diagram off the net that you can highlight to affected tendon on?

I know Magic hasn’t had the infection to worry about which did at least half the damage to Beau Beau’s knee, but Chablis from my personal experience of this sort of thing I can’t see you ever being able to ride your mare with any degree of finesse. When you ask her to collect up she has to use those back legs a lot more than normal movement uses them. That puts a lot more strain on those hocks, cannon bones, fetlock joints, tendons & associated tissues. You certainly wouldn’t want to be doing work that involved hind end strength or sideways movement.

I think as the pain subsides & she starts working that joint, she will show that she can’t place the hoof properly & the faster she goes the less she will be able to control it. Also various footings will have an effect too. You wouldn’t want her knuckling over on the foot all the time.


It's the front one (not the main one that controls the forward and back movement). Was that the one that Beau Beau damaged or was it the main tendon?

The vets are pleasantly surprised at how well Magic is doing - she is healing really well; and the swelling has gone down.  She has continued walking on that leg - with rest breaks - from day one and doesn't actually appear to be in too much pain.  

We are now working on keeping the scar tissue that develops as flexible as possible by using a wet healing environment (honey, bandages etc).  This will, from what the vets have told me, determine how sound she will end up being.  

Apparently if the scarring is allowed to become rigid, it will restrict the tendon's reach and that will cause problems. We are doing our best to prevent this.  Yes, the leg will have to be strenghtened again but I've got at least a couple of years up my sleeve to reassess.

As she is injured, I am not doing any HQ disengagements, circling, or sideways etc.  I am only doing enough in the short training sessions that she is safe to handle and happy in herself.  

On a good note, it appears she over did it the other night as she has not been as sore since or knuckling over at the hoof.

Thank you.
Chablis

Clarissa wrote:


In my late teens I owned a horse that was by a brumby stallion out of a black Welsh section B (the tall ones) mare the owner used to let loose every second year into the range area behind Bowen to get a new foal.

Beau Beau was an excellent buckskin horse. I got him for $1 for each year of age which cost me the grand total of $3!!. He had sustained a really bad tendon & flesh peel back injury to the hind leg when it went through the timber floor of the truck he was being carted in right after being broken in. The young guy who was helping move the horses wanted him real bad so Beau was given to him rather than the driver have to shoot the horse.

The young bloke used to walk Bea on the beach & in the waves every day for a few months to kill off the proud flesh that formed & to help the flesh heal back around the bones. Then the guy was transferred away for work & Beau was left behind & his leg went bad again. Another guy helped by giving him some sulphur drugs a few times but on the whole the horse was left to his own devices in a 1000ac paddock for 6mths.

That’s when I got him because the paddock had been sold & Beau was out of a home. I took him to the vet & he was soon on the road to recovery. He was always a little gammy on that leg, couldn’t roll back over it to chase cattle & couldn’t do a tight turn that side doing barrel racing. But he did pretty well in anycase.

I used to take him with me to each property I worked on & on one big cattle station there were stables that I could use. I had a pony stallion & Beau stabled. I planned to take them to town for an upcoming rodeo & gymkhana. I was late letting them out this day & they took off like crazy down their night paddock, slipped in fresh mud at the corner & both went sailing through the barbed wire fence in the corner. The pony was fine but Beau’s front leg was hanging loose from the knee!

The wire had picked up the tendon that runs over the knee & scrapped it right back in a long V right up the upper part of his leg. I was beside myself. The station owner wanted to shoot him (probably would’ve been the right thing to do in the end). But I phoned the vet in the main town 250miles away & hired a light plane to fly him up to the station. It was next day before he arrived. He stitched it all back together & wrapped it all up tight but didn’t offer any firm hope for a good outcome.

Well 5 days later this yellow ooze started draining out the bottom & again I flew the vet up to the station. He said it was Staph & he had to unwrap the wound & he cut a lot of dead & dying flesh away & from then on until it healed I had to hose it several times a day. He then got secondary infections & seemed to get tetanus. He went stiff & had rigors. A farmer from the other side of our area heard about him & came over & administered more tetanus toxoid via a long needle right into the pole behind the brain. I stomach tubed him a few times each day to give him fluids & oaten gruel.

I walked him for 3 days & nights straight before another person came to help. The flesh on his leg went bad & frothy yellow stuff poured out of it all the time. I hosed it every hour, gave him up to 20 injections daily, kept him moving until I couldn’t walk another step. During that week he lost a whole heap of weight, all his fur from having such a high temp, got the shakes more times than I remembered, fell over almost every time he had a rigor meaning I had to heave him back to his feet even though his legs were stiffened. The staph ate all the flesh away from the bones of the knee & up the leg more than halfway. It ate the muscles, tendons & most of the joint capsule too.

Eventually his leg closed over & healed up after about 9mths. But his leg flapped as he moved it forward so he was only ever good for kids riding at the walk only. He was always an excellent kids horse anyway. He could pick it up like when I cleaned his hoof but he had no forward control of it other than that provided by his shoulder muscles.

OK so his back pastern healed up obviously because the tendons weren’t cut right through so over time they regenerated somewhat. However his front leg tendons were cut right through so no repair possible. The staph infection was added problems he didn’t need but it didn’t change the fact that the tendons were totally severed. When the vet came to stitch it the first time he told me it wouldn’t join back together anyway but it wasn’t so bad at that stage.



Wow, Beau Beau's injuries sounds much worse than Magic's! I bet that was incredibly stressful for you at the time it happened!  

The vets think Magic has quite a few pointers in her favour:

1) she was given the best of care from the day she injured the leg and will continue to do so (ie she will not be turfed into a paddock unsupervised/untreated for 6 months)

2) she never stopped using the leg - and the bone wasn't exposed

3) no infection/swelling has gone down

4) she's young

6) the tendon was severed mid way down her cannon bone (on her near hind) - hock wasn't affected nor the capsule around the joint

7) except for the other day (we now think she overdid it - she likes to chase the local cat), she has not knuckled over (even slightly)

the wet healing environment to limit rigid scarring.

It doesn't appear to be common to stitch the tendon these days as it rarely holds (from the research I have done). From what I have also read, it appears that limiting the development of rigid scarring is the key.

So, I guess it's a guess of fingers crossed, continued good vet care, and time will tell.
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