How to Treat a Leg Wound on Your Horse When No Vet Is Available

 Wound on a Horse

Some wounds will bleed badly, and if you slow it down, you can save the horse's life.

Stop the Bleeding

• If the blood is seeping out, pour some raw honey on top of a bandage and compress it against the wound. The honey will help with clotting and also has some antibiotic effects.
• If you see blood pumping out of a wound, this is more serious. A horse that is bleeding out in this way will eventually die of shock. Use hemostats to reach in and grab the bleeder. Even if you do not have a suture to tie it off, you can crush the tip and leave the hemostats on there as long as possible.

If you do not have hemostats, which you should in your first aid kit, use needle-nose pliers. Do not let the horse continue to bleed out from a severed vein. If he does not die, he might get too weak to get better. If he is too weak to move back to your home for daily treatment, he may end up dying from a preventable secondary infection.

Clean the Wound

• Clean the wound after you have stopped the bleeding. If the wound is on one of his legs, the best thing to clean it with is lots of water. If you are in an area with a pump, you can use a hose to wash the wound out before disinfecting it. (Do not spray it hard. If there is a sprayer on the end of the hose, take it off and just let the water wash out the wound.)