Dangers of Cattle Panels

[Ashley]

I know alot of you use cattle panels and I wanted to share this.

This is a pic of my 9 year old gelding. He was born and raised around cattle panels. He has never had a problem with them. At the time this happened he was housed in a dry lot(the horses are not to pasture yet). One side of that fence was cattle panels. The cattle panels make a run where one of the stallions is housed when not breeding. Since the stallions are not with the mares yet he was in that pen.

We are not sure how he did it as there are no sharp edges or points on the panels he can get to. He has been in this pen for months, as well as in past years. All we can figure is that him and the stallion were trying to fight and he must of got his leg up in the panel. We found no blood, or the chunk of skin anywhere.

Here is the pic. The yellow in the wound is not puss it is cut and heal save( just redid it all this morning). The swelling is going down some now as this happened a few days ago, but where it looks to be puffy is all detached from the muscel and meat as well so appears like it to may need to be cut off by the vet. That we wont know for sure until the swelling is completely down.

Edited to take off the other pic.....

Here is a pic of it when it is cleaned up and dry:

 

[lyn_j]

[SIZE=14pt]Ashley , I would get a vet out there now to debride that wound and close it with a couple of drains. I dont think that came from the cattle pannel.... I dont know where it came from but that is way to open to just put salve on and hope for the best![/SIZE]

Lyn

 

[Jill]

Oh, poor guy!!! I was scared to look at this thread because we have been switching our fence lines from heavy guage field fencing to cattle panels which I think (or thought?) are safer! We've got ours on oak posts not metal posts. I've never dealt with that kind of a wound on one of our horses but have seen horses with deep / wide wounds who have healed up well. I hope your guy makes a complete recovery and if you do find the area of fence this happened on, show us please! We've had a couple things over the years where horses have hurt themselves and we've poured through the stalls and paddocks but have not been able to figure out how on earth or where it happened.

 

[Minimor]

Ouch, that's a nasty wound. I hope your fellow will heal up well from this.

I've come to the conclusion that there is no fence that is 100% safe for horses--when they are determined to hurt themselves they manage it somehow, on any & every type of fencing.

If you think a horse couldn't get a wound like this on a cattle panel, well, I wouldn't suggest it couldn't happen. I know of a Morgan stallion that just about severed his foot on a corral panel (the 1" square steel tubing kind of panel) He was cantering around the round pen and somehow struck his foot on the steel panel. The bone held together but the pastern split wide open. To look at it you'd never have believed that could happen--it looked like it had been sliced by wire, or a knife! As I recall the horse did heal up; after hearing about him, though, I revised my view of corral panels being "safe"!

 

[minimule]

My donkey got his back foot caught in a cattle panel once and almost lost his foot. He had to have it wrapped and cleaned daily for over a month.

All he did was to stick his foot through a hole and when he tried to remove it, it ripped the skin open.

Just keep thinking about the mare that had the huge infection on her chest. She healed up nicely.

 

[HaazeMinis]

OMG ASHLEY!! :new_shocked: :no: . I hope your gelding heals up okay. Is this your show gelding?

I dont have Cattle Panels here either and have seen injuries resulting from them on a Minis leg year before last from just getting a rear foot caught in from a kick fight and that is what changed my mind about getting them and now just have No Climb Horse Fence and Electric fence for the day time grass turnouts. I dont think any type of fencing is 100% like many said and even with the No climb fencing the minis are really hard on it and I am constantly fixing it where they paw trying to get grass on the other side in the dry lots this time of year . They also rub the fence so hard that they bending it in spots already.

:

 

[Joyce]

I agree with Lyn, I think you should have a Vet look at him as you have it pictured, it does not look good to me.

Joyce

 

[Denise]

Wow that is a nasty cut. Of course most of my fencing is cattle panels

Hope your boy heals up just fine.

 

[bfogg]

I also agree with Lyn please think about getting the vet out now!

Good luck and I am sorry this happened to your little guy.

Good luck,

:

Bonnie

 

[Reble]

You have a P.M. very important.

 

[Miniv]

He must have really fought that metal in the panel, from the look of it.

I agree -- that needs a vet.

I also agree that there really isn't a fence made that is 100 percent safe.

MA

 

[mizbeth]

I agree with the others. You NEED YOUR VET out right away. This kind of wound needs much more treatment than he is getting now.

Good luck,

Beth

 

[ChrystalPaths]

I will join in, this is a serious wound and he is in big pain, he needs a vet and it's Saturday nite going on Sunday, tough to get a vet now. I will pray he will be ok, this is a big wound and needs a few stitiches and drains so it will not heal proud.

 

[Ashley]

First im appalled that you think the vet hasnt seen it. For now all he gets is salve and pen. shots and keep it wraped to keep dirt out. I just left the it off today during the day to get air to it. As I said its not yellow is the salve not puss or anything else, that is makeing it look worse. It actually when cleaned is pink, no blood, no puss on it.

There is nothing else he could of got it on other then the cattle panels.

There is also nothing to stitch. The flesh is completely gone. The flesh that looks to be standing off, only the edge is there is alot of swelling in it still, but do plan to have the vet back out again to look at it.

Last year we had a mare tear open her shoulder. All they did was cut the flesh off and have us do the same we are doing for him.

Yes this is my show gelding and for those of you that know me in really life know that he means everything to me. I wouldnt take a chance of anything happening to him.

 

[Jill]

Ashley,

The horse I saw who had a deep / large wound that reminds me of this one did just like your guy and there was a big piece of flesh totally torn away and just like with your guy, it's not possible to stitch that up. That's what I thought must happened to your guy just from knowing how the other injury looked that I have seen. That horse did heal and I do not think you can even see now where it happened and he's a dark bay nearly black horse. Hopefully yours will heal just as well. I hate it when the hurt themselves in places and we can't find exactly where.

I have a question about your panels. Some of ours have smaller rectangles at the bottom, and it gets larger and larger as you go up, then others of ours are large squares top to bottom. I'm thinking these with the larger squares top to bottom would be harder for legs to get caught as the squares are BIG. What kind do you have?

 

[Ashley]

We have the larger at top then smaller at the bottom. However the smaller holes are mostly buried in the ground now.

I did edit my origanal post and put the other pic on there of when it was cleaned up and dry.

The wound is exactly like you say it Jill. THe whole peice of flesh is just gone, there is nothing that can be stitched together.

I have walked the fence for a hour tonight and couldnt find anything. Didnt find the flesh, blood nothing. Its not a very big pen either.

Oh and yes per the vet he is on bute for a few days. I am sure its sore, however last night (with no bute in him) i went out to get him and put him in for the night and he did trot to the barn after he got away from me.

DOnt doubt he is getting the best of care, like I said I wouldnt let anything happen to him.

 

[Jill]

I know that feeling of searching for where an injury happened and not being able to find it. None of our paddocks could be called big. DunIT punctured his neck over New Years weekend and we still haven't found where. I nearly fainted when H discovered it and said he thought someone had shot DunIT!!!! I mean, it was like all my joints turned to jello at once. I just to this day cannot imagine how he did it. He became lame from the neck puncture, too. We treated it per the vet's direction and he is totally fine now. I hope he remembers where it happened and steers clear because we just cannot find how or where.

 

[nootka]

I swear horses can find a way to get injured in a padded room!

WE have used cattle panels for years and only ever had one horse get "injured" on them and that was because he was round-penning and ran into an end of one of the panels that had popped "in" and I had not noticed. I felt terrible, and lucky it was only a few small abrasions/a gouge and one small puncture wound.

I hope he heals to the best possible outcome and quickly.

Liz M.

Just looked at the second pic, and wow, he looks SO much better. Must be doing something right because that just looks like it will heal up a lot less tragically than the original photo suggested.

That is an impressive wound indeed!

Kudos to his nurse.

And continued best wishes.

Liz

 

[Triggy&Blue&Daisy Too]

I'm sure you have done all you can for the poor boy Ashley and not to worry I've seen far worse than that heal up perfectly by doing just what you are doing. Dam those panels I hate them nothing but trouble.

 

[SandyWI]

Ashley, I just wonder if it really could have been a cattle panel he got hurt on. That wound looks too high up on the leg for a panel injury. If a horse is kicking at another horse, it's generally only the foot that goes through. I don't see how practically your horse's entire leg could have gone through. I guess anything can happen, though.

I think you're doing everything you can for your horse. I'm sure he got a tetanus shot as well. I've seen injuries SO much worse than that and the horse was just fine. I had a big horse a few years back. We were jumping a ravine and his foot came down on a busted off fence post in the ground. (Not my property... someone else's). It sliced the entire rear of his foot off. Blood was spurting everywhere. I had a flannel shirt over my tshirt and wrapped that around his foot and had to lead him across a ten acre pasture to where my trailer was. He eventually healed perfectly. Hoof grew back and everything.

A few months ago I was at the vet's and saw a QH in one of the stalls. His entire chest was nothing but meat. You could actually see severed veins hanging down from the meat. The horse had somehow or another gotten caught in a power take off on a tractor! Much of the meat was missing as well. Looked like a shark had taken a huge bite out of him, about 18" across and 20" from top to bottom. He recovered perfectly.

I'm sorry this happened to your horse, and especially your show gelding, but he will heal up very well! And I agree with you completely. There is no skin to stitch. His hide is completely missing in that area and will have to grow back. As long as he's got antibiotics, a tetanus shot, and it's kept relatively clean, he'll recover.

BTW... I'm in SW Wisconsin!

Sandy