With the weather taking a turn for the better at last I thought Jack might enjoy a few hours with his rug off to have a good scratch and a roll. He does seem to be rather itchy at the moment and often rubs along the wall when I tie him up outside his stable to muck out etc, so with the sun out yesterday I popped up at lunch time and took his fleece off.
As it turns out this was a mistake - he enjoyed his scratch a little too much and managed to open up the wound on his elbow which up until this point had been no trouble at all and not needed any treatment!! Obviously having his rug in the way has been preventing him scratching too vigorously at it up until this point. It looked really well knitted together so he must have been really going for it to have ripped it open. The little monkey just loves to keep giving me more jobs to do! So now the legs are nearly healed but I will be having to clean the wound behind his elbow until that catches up.
Also with the nicer weather of course comes the flies and being stuck in his stable seems to make him an easy target although the flies are not as bad in the barn as in the fields. This is a bit of a worry for me with him having open wounds still. I'm reluctant to use a fly spray as I don't want anything getting in the wounds so I have brought a gel fly repellent instead but I don't think it is as effective.
Jack has also decided to keep eating his straw bed despite having plenty of hay/treats/swedes to eat and keep him busy. The most annoying part of this is that he doesn't just eat any of the bed, oh no, he wants to eat the bottom of the banks and in the process churns up the whole bed burying the poo and mixing it all together to make it harder for me to muck out quickly!
I am convinced however that he is feeling better and he is now letting me touch and clean his back without moving away, twitching or putting his ears back and swishing his tail so that's good progress!
I have been very lucky that Jack has coped so well with the box rest and mostly just eats. On the occasions he has got himself in a state, usually when the others are being turned out, I have been using some Freestep Supafix instamag spray on magnesium calmer to calm him down. I was very lucky to win a bottle of it in a competition run on equine blogging site hay-net.co.uk at just the right time! It has meant I have not had to feed a calmer, I simply leave the bottle outside Jacks stable and anytime he gets a bit stressed out whoever is there can just spray some on his neck and it has a pretty much instant effect. Jack is not bothered about being sprayed so you can get it right up near his ears which is the most effect places as it is then absorbed straight into the blood and delivered to the brain in the quickest way possible. Much better than a traditional calmer that has to be absorbed through the gut taking a lot longer to have an effect. A few sprays as and when required has been enough to calm him down, keep him sane and prevent him causing himself or others injury. It is a great product, good value and so easy to use and I have recommended it to others with horses on box rest and would definitely suggest anyone with a stressy horse give it a try. They also do a version for humans who have rider/competition nerves.
We are now only a few days away from the trip back to Oakham vet hospital where we will find out how he his really recovering and I will get to see the after xrays which I am intrigued to see.
I really am hoping for good news and that Jack will be able to go out in a small paddock to stretch his legs at long last!
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