Horse question

[Zorak]

It appears that there are a number of you here that own or have owned horses. I have a question and I'm curious what your opinions are. I don't know if I posted how someone tried stealing my 4 year old thoroughbred gelding a couple weeks ago.

During the period he was gone he had injured his foot. He has an abscess and we have been aggressively treating it. The swelling has gone down a lot and he's now walking on it. However he has quite a bit of swelling in his sheath around the thingy and all along his belly up to his chest. The vet says she thinks it's from an allergic reaction to the antibiotics we were giving him. We stopped giving him the shots yesterday but the swelling has gotten much worse. Has anyone had something similar happen to them? And if so what was the cause?

Even though the vet has been here and we have called her I don't trust what she says. At first she told us the edema was from him favoring his leg and we just needed to walk him around. After 5 days of it getting worse we did some research and figured he was allergic to the antibiotics. Called the vet and she agreed. So now that he's been off the medicine he's still swelling more and more. It's not hot to the touch so we don't think it's infection. He looks like he's got a huge balloon where his thingy is.

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions please let me know. I have attached a couple pics. One of his swollen foot and one of his sheath.

[lucara]

I would advise getting a second vet out and have them look at it. I've never had anything like that happen. I know that their sheath can swell if its not cleaned. It gets so packed with goop that they cant drop to pee and it makes it very very painful for them. We had a horse at Dixie whose sheath would swell to an unhealthy size whenever it needed to be cleaned but honestly it would be any number of things. I would definitely have a completely different vet look at it and if you still have doubts, get another one out. As for the leg, I'm at a loss. =( I'm sorry.

[Zorak]

Well got the second opinion and it's the same as the first vet. The swelling is normal and it's just edema he says. Today the swelling is even worse. They are saying we need to keep making him walk and it will eventually go down. Amazingly he can still pee with that type of swelling. His foot is doing very well which is great. But the swelling on his sheath still scares me.

I really wish I wouldn't get arrested for going over and kicking the crap out of the guy that took my horse. With all the suffering my horse has been through the guy deserves a good beat down.

[reptileluvva]

my stallions leg got like that once when he had abcess that kept appearing behind his fetlock.it took ages but took him off work obviouslt whilst like this and just walked him for 5 mins each time about 3-4 times a day and then cold hosing it.after 2weeks swelling had dramaticly gone down.bandaged both front legs at night when in the stable to keep pressure even on both legs and improve the circulation whilst he was stabled.his sheath got like that once before we had him and it took about a weeks of washing it inside and out but it cleared up he had an infection there to and very mucky,but as i said it soon healed.the other thing that can cause it are bites so i dont know if you do already but well worth putting some equine fly repellent round his belly and quarters,down the backs of all his legs and ears and use sponge or hand to wipe round face.

[Zorak]

We have been using the hose on mist to clean off his sheath every day. There has been a lot of crud buildup with the swelling. We also have to keep his hoof bandaged until the abscess is gone. We change the bandage every day at 3pm and clean his hoof.

Also we have been using the fly repellent. That was one of the first things we had done when we got him.

[reptileluvva]

you say you have had the hose to clean his sheath.that wont get all the muck out which will mainly be inside and usually its the build up inside that causes swelling and infections.you can buy sheath cleaner or you can use an antibiotic scrub wash.like a very mild shampoo for equines and use small thin sponge or cloth(clean one)and also another good thing i find (not just when theres a problem with their sheaths)is if you catch them going for a pee squirt som baby oil on it and that stops build up as it falls off when they pee if they have any plus i find it stops further build up

[Zorak]

My wife puts gloves on and manually removes the crud while hosing it. We don't just spray it. I always tease my wife when she does it. I tell her I'm going to video tape it then sell the clips on the internet and become a millionaire haha. I am just kidding for those of you that have no sense of humor.

I'll let my wife know to buy some cleaner to use today. She's heading out to the local tack shop and they should have some. Thanks for the information.

[lucara]

I use Excaliber on Samson and it works great. Its going to take me a few times to actually get the whole thing clean since he will only stand me playing with his manly parts for so long. I'm going to have to pay the vet to get teh bean out though. I'm almost positive he'll kick me in the face if I try to get it out myself lol.

[Zorak]

My thoroughbred doesn't like to pop his out either. But our Halflinger likes to show his off all the time. Just look at him and he prances around showing it to everyone. I can't get him to put it away haha.

[reptileluvva]

hows your equine pal today

[Zorak]

I see photobucket banned my photo because it was of a horse sheath. Probably some idiot filed a complaint. Oh well. Today Winston seems to be doing better. We picked up some of that Excaliber sheath cleaner and the wife has been making sure she cleans it. The swelling has gone down a tiny bit. But you can tell he's feeling better because he's full of energy and being ornery as hell. That's a good thing.

Also we stopped wrapping his hoof. He's still having some drainage of puss from the abscess. The swelling in his leg is almost gone. It's just been a nightmare with all this. With the reaction he had to penicillin it just made things worse. At least it's looking like he's finally starting to heal up.

[reptileluvva]

photobuckets a pain in the ? sometimes.
anyway he sounds like he's on the mend

[ChamZilla]

Hey there, that is a great product and that is what I've seen others use. It is kinda gross to think about for people who don't own horses or know how to care for a male horse. Our male horses never had any problems and we never had to use anything like that on them. guess we were lucky that way. Living in southern ontario its not really that cold to keep them inside all the time in the winters and they hated being inside longer than 8 hours. So they had the option to come in or stay out. Mostly they prefered to stay out. That must have helped them keep there parts clean or something. My uncles male horse he needed to clean his. But he always had a problem with his parts.

How is the foot doing? Cool compress's after you walk him should help keep the swelling down. I hope that gets fixed soon. They didn't say it was related to the "parts" swelling either? The second vet said the same thing about the foot also?

[Zorak]

The foot and swelling in his sheath are related. Supposedly the swelling in his sheath is edema from inactivity since he hurt his hoof. So my wife and I have been taking him for 5 min walks three times a day. That along with cleaning his sheath every day is supposed to make the swelling eventually go down.

As far as the abscess goes. It's gotten a lot better. He walks much better but still has some swelling in his leg and a limp. But he does put most of his weight on it when walking now. It's going to be a couple months before we see huge improvement.

[reptileluvva]

atleast he's on the mend