Giving your horse basic first aid

Being able to give your horse basic first aid yourself is something every rider genuinely wants to be able to do. Here is how you can carry out certain first aid procedures on your horse.

Prolonged cold hosing of the legs

Prolonged cold hosing of the legs can be useful for certain conditions of the hoof capsule, particularly laminitis. It is demanding, since the legs need to be under the hose for several hours, but it can be made easier with a simple set-up made from garden watering equipment that allows several legs to be hosed at once.

The set-up uses four coiled plastic garden hoses about 2 metres long, in which holes 2.5 mm in diameter have been drilled beforehand every 5 cm or so along one side of the hose only. The hoses are wound around the legs and come together at the horse's withers, where they are attached to the top of a roller and joined by a multiple connector linked to a garden hose.

Making a hoof dressing that lasts

To treat problems of the hoof capsule (abscesses, corns, seedy toe, etc.), you need protective dressings that stay in place despite the horse's movement. Two widely used hoof dressings work well: the "Spahi" dressing and the purse dressing.

The "Spahi" dressing

This dressing is based on successive turns of bandage woven together, crossing at each turn at the hollow of the pastern and sitting opposite the bulbs of the heel. Five to seven turns of bandage are enough to wrap and protect the hoof capsule. Woven correctly, it sits naturally between the bulbs and gives a strong, effective dressing.

The purse dressing

This type of dressing is mainly used to bring an abscess to a head. It involves cutting a piece of tarpaulin or tough plastic into a square roughly 50 cm along each side and making 3 to 4 evenly spaced holes along each edge. A piece of string threaded through the holes allows the whole thing to be drawn tight around the pastern, wrapping the foot much like a purse.

A wooden sole can be placed under the foot to reinforce the underside, held in place with adhesive bandage securing the dressing. In the specific case of a hoof abscess, it is essential to bring the abscess to a head before opening and draining it.

A mixture known as "bread poultice", rich in starch and salt, which gives it hyperosmotic and hypertonic properties, draws fluid naturally out of the affected foot when wrapped around it with a dressing. Owners can easily make this mixture up themselves: 200 grams of bran, two handfuls of linseed and four tablespoons of salt, held around the foot using one of the bandages described above.

A clever hoof dressing

Many conditions of the hoof capsule (such as abscesses, corns, bruised soles, etc.) require the horn to be pared back to healthy tissue in order to clear the infection. Besides the usual farriery tools (searcher, toeing knife and more, available from La Sellerie Française), owners can use a small hand-held rotary tool such as a Dremel to grind away the affected part of the hoof carefully and precisely.

The cavity created can then be filled with a piece of sponge cut to size and soaked in iodine tincture to prevent any infection. Finally, a hard-wearing dressing should be applied to hold the sponge in place. In some cases medication is needed, so it is important to know how to administer it correctly.