Barbed wire injury - will it scar?

chickflick1066

chickflick1066

Active Member
May 7, 2004
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West Yorkshire
Stumpy came into today with two very sore looking, and bloody, barbed wire injuries.

One is 1cm below her right eye and is a clear slice, open and red with blood. The other was hidden by the hair on her shoulder - but I soon discovered it when I touched the area and she winced (so to speak).

I'm more concerned about the one on her face...it's such a delicate area that will it scar?

I was just advised to wash the area with cold water and leave to close naturally. I've no idea how to treat minor injuries myself because Stumpy never usually hurts herself :(

I'd appreciate replys :)
 
Well, not having had to administer a lot of first aid to my ponies myself, (watch me eat my words now :rolleyes: ) - I would thoroughly recommend lots of soothing "there, there" type noises, lots of wuffly kisses-better and a diet high in medicinal carrots.... :p

Get well soon Stumpy!!!
 
A clean straight cut that is nice and clean now, and watched over is less likely to scar then one that gets washed all the time.. the more it gets opened the more likely it is to produce proud flesh.

For a facial one, I would probably put some Vit E oil on it one it's mostly healed. If you soften the scab to early it's likely to reopen on you.

I live with Barbed wire - loads of it ;) It can be challenging at times - so far have only had one horse really do a number on it.. knock on wood..
 
Oh poor dear.

The cut on her face: no flaps, just a nice cut? Yes cleaning it right away with clean water or maybe add just a little bit of mild soap or antiseptic so that it just has enough to kill the germs would be a good idea.

Some people put cream on to heal heal & minimize scaring. I can't for the life of me remember what it's called but it comes in a gel form, you can apply it with your fingers even. And of course I'm at the office & my tube is at home!

I do have a pamphlet here on "Vulketan gel" by Merial. The ingredient is ketanserin (as ketanserin tartrate).

Your horse may be left with a thin scar if left alone. I'd dab on some topical ointment if it were my horse, and just see how it goes.
 
Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments.

She's my world, so kinda panicked at her first ever injury (well, the first I've spotted at least under all that hair).

Don't worry Jane, the medicinal carrots have helped - lots :D
 
Kia lost half his eyelid to barb wire and has scars all along his body from being stuck in it :mad: don't like the stuff my self but we have to make do as I have him on a farm and it's all cattle wire :o the accident happened before I got him and with some clever makeup you don't really notice it ;)

He has scars on his face too and you don't notice them until you clip his face but they mostly look like roaning on his face so I can get away with it.

I would suggest washing the cut once, spraying with iodine or cutheal and leaving till the scab is ready to come off and if your horse is dark then put cornucrescine hoof salve on it as it promotes hair regrowth and the hair shouldn't go white. If it is a grey then leave to fall off and heal naturally.

Just know this from experience and the ruining of a good show horse due to white hair growing in on a wonld on a black leg :mad:

Nikki xxxx
 
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Dermogel is good stuff, Silver has it on all his cuts and they heal fine with no scars.

His eye cut was a lot close to the eye, not a clean cut and deep. Vet put one stitch in. Unfortunately it was too close to the eye to risk putting too many lotions on it but it healed nicely. There is a scar but it isn't overly noticable.
 
There is actually a study released not to long ago about barbed wire it was done on cattle not horses.. I really can't remember all the details but the info from it was in one of the big time horse mags.

People on a budget are going back to it, instead of smooth wire. The findings were that there were a lot less full amputations or cut tendons major veins when animals had encounters with barbed wire vs. smooth wire. The reason is the barbs would actually "drag" in the injury causing a stronger pain response in the animal - making them more likely to stop struggling. I know the one horse we had get into a tangle with it, was lying still and her injuries were actually fairly minor given that a post was broken and she was on the wrong side of the fence.

Neither is great of course! but I did find that tidbit interesting.
 
Oh no, I've harbored a secret crush on the beautiful Stumpy for quite a while and am so sad to hear Stumpy got hurt. I have no idea if it will scar or not. Bixby has some scarring from barbwire fencing on her legs but she already had it when we got her.
I honestly can not believe that horsepeople would keep barbwire around their horses. It took me two weeks to get rid of all the barbwire we had on our place (before the horses moved in). If you are boarding and have no other options then I guess nothing much you can do but on my own place? NEVER. Might as well just sit on my back porch and shoot my rifle into the pasture hoping we get/stay lucky and nobody gets hurt...

I hope Stumpy makes a full recovery.
 
Shadowlark said:
There is actually a study released not to long ago about barbed wire it was done on cattle not horses.
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Ahem, yes, but that's a major difference. Cow. Horse. There's good reason why they use it on cows and not on horses.

Injuries caused by barbed wire are typically seen in horses, bats or birds. Horses panic easily, and once they get caught in barbed wire, large patches of skin may be torn off, sometimes exposing the underlying bone. At best, such injuries may heal, but they may cause disability or death (particularly due to secondary infection). Birds or bats may not be able to perceive thin strands of barbed wire and suffer impalement or lacerating injuries.

Grazing animals with slow movements which will back off at the first notion of pain — sheep, cows — will not generally suffer the severe injuries often seen in other animals.
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If they want to save money why not go for the 1 1/2 inch electric tape. Very visible. Easy to avoid.
Cheaper than wood, pipe or horsefence.
 
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I personally can't - We rent our property and may not change the fencing (otherwise it would all be gone)

I am certainly not in support of the stuff, I have just learned to live with it for now and found the study relevant. Interestingly not ONE of my boarders batted an eye at it - but then in my area pretty much everyone has it and that's just all there is to it :T
 
Yes, I understand. When we still boarded our horses they had one side fenced with barbwire and I really didn't find a better place to board even though it worried me quite a bit. When it's not your own place then sometimes you just don't have a choice. It was the first thing though I took care of once I had a choice.
Lots of people don't seem to know better around here either and keeping cows in with horses is pretty common.
I have always heard of how dangerous it was and of course I saw Bixby's scars on her legs but shortly before I quit my job last year a co-worker had to have his horse shot and burried because it got injured too badly in a barwire accident.
 
Yeah any fence can be treacherous of course.. One of my neighbours horses managed to impale himself on the stake for his electric fence.. had to be shot.

Horses..

But by keeping it taut and in good repair, and keeping the flags on it, we have done just fine other then the one incident. But it always worries me.
 
They think he was monkeying around in the field and went over back wards although he ended up kinda sideways.. it went most of the way thru..and worse yet the tape was not broken and was still active.. thankfully they were home.

Yes the post was caped.. it snapped on contact with the horses weight coming down
 
Look away now if you don't like the gory stuff.....you've been warned.











ok.
When I had Pepper she had managed to slice herself on barbed wire after escaping. This photo is about a day or two old I think as she did it just before I got her. Amazingly it hasn't scarred at all so I wouldn't be too worried about the lovely Stumps :)
P1010100.jpg
 
Shadowlark said:
A clean straight cut that is nice and clean now, and watched over is less likely to scar then one that gets washed all the time.. the more it gets opened the more likely it is to produce proud flesh.

For a facial one, I would probably put some Vit E oil on it one it's mostly healed. If you soften the scab to early it's likely to reopen on you.

I live with Barbed wire - loads of it ;) It can be challenging at times - so far have only had one horse really do a number on it.. knock on wood..
Click to expand...

I agree...the vitamin e oil works wonders!!!!!
 
When Mocha cut her legs open on the gate she had small 'flaps' of skin hanging off her cuts, I stuck 'em down with vaseline and plastered them over with the stuff and they healed perfect in a few days.

Thats nasty looking Sparklie, its amazing the way they heal sometimes!

I hope Stumpys little cuts heal ok. :)
Another vote for electric tape here, even if you can't change your fencing, put up an inner fence of tape and they'll stay away. Its definitely worth it, you see too many horses with barb-wire scars around.
 
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