Paint Colt

I'll be introducing our new colt over the next few posts. Those of you who do not like to look at surgery posts should skip the pictures. Some of the injury and surgical views are rather graphic.

This little two year old Paint gelding has had a rough year with multiple injuries. His previous owner asked us to take him due to personal hardships and he was constantly getting hurt out in her pasture with her other horses. He was also very green and not handled much.

I like a challenge and heck a free horse! I am well aware of the old sayings, 'Nothing is ever really free'...OR 'Never look a gift horse in the mouth'.

His registered name is the worst name ever thought up, so the previous owner had been calling him 'Rebel'. After a few days with him, we knew he wasn't a 'Rebel' and needed a new name, we all brain-stormed for a bit. I wanted something western. We already have 'Remington' and 'Cheyenne' and 'Rock'. I liked Tristan's suggestion of 'Hector', Jerry didn't, said it was a mule name. I loved Amy's suggestion of 'Johnny GASH'! We decided to skip it though because we don't want him to continue to live up to that name. Jerry wanted either 'Colt' or 'Paint Horse', ugh, give me a break Jerry! I started calling him 'Wrangler' and that seems to fit and it has stuck. So Wrangler he will be known as.

We have had him here a month now. He is as sweet as can be. He has spent most of his time confined in his spacious stall/corral while he heals. We have devoted much time on his injuries and I'll be sharing that here.

Dad, let me know how I measure up to Animal Planet. Kelly Jean, you may want to leave this post at this time, Di you too!

This was Wrangler's first day at his new home, one month ago. Here he is cleaned up, his injured leg unbandaged, the next step was sedation for deep cleaning, exploration and surgical repairs.
Now for some close-ups.

1) Right shoulder before cleaning. This was the oldest injury and was in the process of closing with granulation tissue. This is called healing by second intention. The skin edges are not brought together with sutures. The tissue defect fills in and then the skin edges grow until they cover the wound. It takes the longest to heal and must be kept clean and free of flies.

2)This is the right knee, his front leg. This joint is the carpus, same as our wrist. This injury was the most recent, only two days old. Surprisingly he wasn't lame, the wound was deep but did not enter any joint or tendon sheath. His owner had bandaged it right away so it was relatively clean and free of debris.

3) The wound on the left shoulder had happened a week prior. It was very ugly and deep. It was sore but he was good about being handled and wasn't lame on this side either.

After cleaning him up, I wondered what I had gotten myself into with this guy.

Next step, surgical exploration and repair, which took almost three hours.

to be continued............