Horses ear cut nearly off !

[Stepper]

Just about when i think i have seen all the different ways that a horse can hurt its self. I come up on a new one. Today while i was at the vets office. There is a guy brings a bay quarter horse mare with a 25 day old foal in and the mare has her ear nearly cut off.

The man who brought her in was just boarding her until she got bred back by his stud horse. And some how she got her ear in he thought a barbed wire fence and nearly cut it off. But he was not for sure what she got it into.

It looked like someone had taken a sharp knife and cut all the way arround the base of the ear all the way through the mussels to the cartlige. A terrible looking sight. I held its ear in place while the vet sewed it back on. He done a pretty good stiching job on it. But she started coming arround about the time he got the last stich in.

The little horse colt did not know quite what to make of his moma laying so still while all of this was going on. It would paw at her tring to make her get up and was kind of in the way the hole time we were sewing her ear back on.

But i think the vet done a pretty good job because there was a young stud horse in the pen right next to her that he had just cut a few hours earlier that was tring to smell of her through the pen and she backed up and penned her ears back. So it was working ok then. :lol:

 

[Stepper]

You know i just thought of something. That mare might have been fighting with another horse that was there and got its ear bit. The man said he had 50 horses there. That could have very well been what happened. Horses bit one another pretty hard when they are fighting.

 

[msscamp]

Unlikely. A bite generally produces a ragged tear, not a wound that looks like someone took a knife and cut around the base of the ear.

 

[Stepper]

The knife discription that i gave might not have been a good way to of described it. It was cut all the way arround the base of the ear. But it was pretty swollen and it was a deep cut about a 1/2 inch deep all the way arround the base of the ear. And about 1/2 wide all the way arround the base of the ear. The skin and flesh was cut loose all the way arround the base of the ear.

 

[msscamp]

Wow, I'll bet that was a nasty looking wound! It sures sounds like a barbed-wire cut, but I can't quite figure out how she managed to get all the way around her ear. :?: Leave it to a horse, I guess. :roll: :lol: The few horses of ours that got wire cut were usually content to run into the fence and gash their shoulder. Nasty looking, but healed fairly quickly with a little care. I sure hope the vet was able to save the ear.

 

[Stepper]

msscamp,

That is the same thing i told the guy who had brought the horse in. If there is a way a horse can get hurt, it will find it. I saw one last year that had some how tore a hole in its chest that was big enough you could have put both fist in. I mean it looked awful. The hunk of meat that was hanging out of that wound looked like a big roast.

I would have never thought that horse would have lived. The owner was using a water hose to wash the wound out, which i thought would have for sure caused futher infection. Because you could smell the stinch from 10-15 feet away before you ever walked up to the animal.

I offered to shoot the horse for him because he was attached to the horse. But he said he wanted to try and save it but assured me that before he let it suffer he would put it down his self.

But you know that horse survived that and now you can hardly see a scar. He had taken it to a vet and the vet said there was no-way to stich or staple it back together and gave him some type of medicene for it. And the vet told him he thought it would heal up. And it did.

But i think that mares ear will heal up. Because she was using the ear still yet even before the vet sewed it back up.

 

[msscamp]

msscamp,

I saw one last year that had some how tore a hole in its chest that was big enough you could have put both fist in. I mean it looked awful. The hunk of meat that was hanging out of that wound looked like a big roast.

I can only imagine what that must have looked like.

I would have never thought that horse would have lived. The owner was using a water hose to wash the wound out, which i thought would have for sure caused futher infection. Because you could smell the stinch from 10-15 feet away before you ever walked up to the animal.

Assuming he let the water run for a little while to flush out any possible debris, a water hose is actually a pretty good irrigator. Plus the cold water helps to offset inflammation, if allowed to run long enough.

But you know that horse survived that and now you can hardly see a scar. He had taken it to a vet and the vet said there was no-way to stich or staple it back together and gave him some type of medicene for it. And the vet told him he thought it would heal up. And it did.

For being such delicate creatures, horses can be pretty tough! It never ceases to amaze me that they can, and do, heal up very nicely after these types of injuries - but can colic and die at the drop of a hat. What is up with that?

But i think that mares ear will heal up. Because she was using the ear still yet even before the vet sewed it back up.

I suspect the reason she was able to use the ear is only because it was a tissue wound, and the deeper muscles weren't cut.

 

[Cindy]

I have seen some strange things too. A stallion tried a bite a smooth hot wire and cut clean through his mouth all the way up to his cheek. It healed beautifully. another time a friend I sold a colt to put her out in an apple orchard and she jumped a 6 foot fence and ran a 2" wood pole into her gaskin out the butt. she healed up and looked good with only a quarter size scar.You could have run your arms through the hole she made. I think it was worse than it would have been as she panicked and ran with the pole in her, the pole was 6 foot long. T posts make the worst cuts you have ever seen..Cindy

 

[ArrowHBrand]

Actually our yearling stallion just this week cut his lead side ear. We don't know what he got into but went out to do chores and just the skin was pulled away no damage to any other tissue. Several years ago we had a mare that cut her ear too and have to have ten stitches. Our yearling gelding pulled the skin up on his nose last winter, treated it, pulled it down, and you can't even tell, there just is a slight difference in his hair pattern. My three year old mare last winter got angry for being put in a pen by herself and she reared and got her front leg caught between a gate and a latch post. My quick thinking wife ran into the barn and got the bolt cutters and gut the gate latch. Horses are accident prone.

 

[Stepper]

AB

That stallion did not happen to be with other horses where it might have been fighting did it ?

 

[ArrowHBrand]

No we just bought our stallion so he is quarantined by himself, but when our mare had to have stitches for her ear, she was with other horses. From your description I doubt that it was from fighting because horses will pin their ears back when they fight and I would think that an ear pinned would be hard to get a hold off by another horse. However, stranger things have happened.

 

[Moocow11]

i was putting a headstall on a ol dgelding and the things tongue was almost bite completly off

 

[Stepper]

Man alive ! :shock: I wonder how it done that ?

 

[Moocow11]

i have no idea but he did it again yesterday i went out to feed them and it was hangin out so i sewed it on again

 

[sjr725]

We have a gelding here "tippy" that got his ear bit off when he was just a baby - he musta tried to mooch lunch from the wrong mare! By the time we noticed it, it has stopped bleeding and was pretty crusty - so we just cleaned it up and put some antibiotic salve on it - it healed fine. It was a pretty clean cut - now he's about 5 and he's kinda funny looking but he gets along. His left ear is only about 2 inches long and really rounded looking Kinda like a bears ear? I don't imagine that would have done much for his carreer had he been intended for a show horse.

 

[CowpokeJ]

Hydrotherapy is one of the best things you can do...