Equine Wound Management: Prepare, Promote, Prioritize & Prevent

The horse has an unjustified reputation for non-healing wounds! Notwithstanding all the reports to the contrary, most wounds heal well and this might be entirely expected given that there is no evolutionary advantage in a species that does not heal well! However, there are significant differences in healing between ponies and larger breeds and indeed between different sites on the body; body trunk wounds heal well and limb wounds heal more slowly. The fastest healing sites are therefore the body trunk of ponies and the slowest are the legs of larger horses. This means that wounds that fail to heal invariably have some complicating or inhibiting factors that are responsible for delayed or suspended or altered healing. There are well defined circumstances that are responsible for the non-healing of wounds but there are those also that fail to heal for no apparent reason.

An understanding of the factors that inhibit an acute or chronic wound from healing will enable many wounds to heal rapidly and often with remarkable efficiency. If an owner can be told that the fresh wound on their horse is likely to be slow to heal because of a defined existing complication, the owner is not surprised when it does not heal or is pleasantly surprised when it does. Recognizable inhibiting factors present in the acute wound can be addressed individually and, if this is done, the large majority of wounds will in fact heal well. When faced with a chronic wound, the clinician may be able to establish retrospective factors that might have been responsible for the
failure of healing. […]