Phoenix Equine

Do you know about our Horse Health Programme? 🐴🫏

It is a great way of spreading the cost of preventative care for your horse or donkey plus also save money on medications and any other veterinary care they may need!

So what is included?

😍 Annual Flu or Flu and Tetanus vaccine
😍 Routine dental with sedation if needed
😍 Health check
😍 4 x faecal egg counts
😍 Tapeworm saliva test
😍 Worm risk assessment and wormer if needed
😍 10% off veterinary treatment and medicines
😍 20% off selected lifetime care medications
😍 Multi-horse discount!

For more information head to our website or give the office a ring to sign up!

Vet wrap - dangerous but amazing stuff! 🧻🤕 🐴🩹

Vet wrap is generally the last layer to any bandage be it for a wound, to stabilise a fracture or doing a poultice. It is something almost all horse and donkey owners will have used at some point. But it can also be dangerous if not used correctly!

Vet wrap is self-adhesive, meaning it sticks to itself but nothing else. This is one of the qualities that makes it such a useful item for us vets but also owners to have in their first aid kit. It is also fairly tough so acts as a type of protective covering to bandages whilst also keeping everything in place. But as with Knit-firm in yesterdays post, Vet wrap has a degree of stretch to it and this stretch can cause damage if not used carefully!

Have a look at the photos below, you can see on our lovely models arm that doing the bandage really tight is starting to dig into the arm, if left like this it can have the potential to start affecting circulation of blood - you can actually see the blood vessels in the hand have got more obvious as blood is struggling to return back to the main body due to the bandage putting pressure on the blood vessels. Yes all bandages should have cotton wool or padding layers underneath but if you do the layers on top tight enough this will cause that pressure to be passed through the bandage body through those padding layers to the skin and underlying tissues.
This is also how bandage sores happen. By putting too much pressure or elastic stretch over bone structures such as the hock, the skin can become damaged and sores develop simply through too much pressure. Unfortunately sometimes despite best efforts bandage sores happen no matter what you do especially in older or young animals that may have to be repeatedly bandaged over a number of months. But by doing a bandage too tight just the once you can easily cause significant damage to the underlying tissue.

Elastic bandages should never put on with excessive stretch and if in any doubt please get someone who knows how to use them to show you how to bandage safely and correctly! We are always more than happy to demonstrate when at a visit

What about elastic bandages or knit-firm? 🐴🩹

This is something that most clients or horse owners won't need to use in their bandages but something you may have seen us using.

If we think of the melolin as your first layer on the wound, then cotton wool or soffban is the next layer. The following layer is where knit-firm can come in.
Knit-firm or also known as elastic knitted bandage is stretchy and a woven/knitted material. That added stretch, which the cotton wool layer doesn't have, can be both useful and dangerous.

This stretch can be useful in creating tension within the bandage which in turn causes greater support for the limb which helps with healing and immobilising the limb for example with tendon or bone damage. It can also help prevent the bandage from slipping down a leg! But too much stretch placed on a bandage before using it can cause the bandage to be too tight (something we will discuss more tomorrow with the final layer to our bandage - Vet Wrap!) and this can have devastating consequences.

Most owners would not need to use this knit-firm material in dressings or bandages but knowing the complications that can come from using it incorrectly is really important!

What is soffban? 🧻🐴🩹

If you've had a horse with a wound or a foot abscess you may have heard us use the term 'soffban' or we may have given you some to use.

Soffban is similar to cotton wool in a way that it can be used as a padding layer but it is incredible stuff with other slightly different properties. Often with bandaging we get worried about making the bandages too tight but with Soffban this can't happen as if too much tension is put on then it tears. It is good at absorbing fluid and great at padding out around structures to prevent bandage sores. Being slightly thinner than cotton wool also means it can be easier to bandage with and make a bandage more even without bulky bits of cotton wool causing tension. Often with smaller ponies or donkeys (or those of us with smaller hands!) it is a lot easier to bandage a foot for a poultice using Soffban rather than cotton wool.

Sounds great - whats the catch?

Soffban is made up of fibres in a similar way to cotton wool so cannot go directly on a wound therefore using melolin or allevyn is still needed.