Whats your experience? Drain or leave?

If you drain what does the recovery time look like? Follwup care?

Where is it located?  How large?

Hematomas are typically sterile.  Once you stick a knife or needle into them, all bets are off.  All that blood becomes a rich medium for bacteria.  Same thing with a drain.  Generally, you are better off letting them re-absorb.  I realize it’s tempting to drain them.  The minute you stick a needle in them you run the real risk of creating a sterile hematoma into an abscess.  

I wondered the same thing. We have one that has gotten kicked on the top of her front leg and feels like a hematoma. I wasn’t sure if it should be drained or left alone. Thanks for the information.

I never drain a hematoma. I'll drain an abscess but never a hematoma. 

Its in a high movement area, stifle. Went from baseball to small football size and the horse was uncomfortable. Drained it and doing antibiotics. There continues to be a slow leak a few weeks in.

I had a yearling that we had to have the vet drain the haematoma. It was right on his chest muscle and didn't go down in size with cold hosing and hand walking like my vet told me to do. She came and looked and decided to drain it. Had to keep it very clean and she gave us a saline rinse to wash it with. Biggest thing was we had to make sure it kept draining and the hole stayed open until the inside healed. I think this is definitely a vet decision. 

How long did the total draining process take??

It was a little over 2 weeks if i remember right. it was 4 years ago. 

Maybe a dumb question, but how do you know the difference between a hematoma and an abscess? 

We had what seemed to be one on one of our mares that we tried to just let it reabsorb. It was super sloshy. It was on her right front gaskin muscle. Never did go down and we gave it about 6 weeks. Vet came out, looked at and said it wasn't ever going to go down because of some reason I can't remember. So she lanced it top and bottom and then tied this rubber piece around it to keep it open for a couple weeks to completely drain. We had to treat it twice a day to prevent flies and infection plus we had to flush it and she was on oral antibiotics too. It did resolve nicely and you would never know she had it. We were pretty vigilant about keeping it clean though.

The other risk of draining a hematoma is, if there is still active hemorrhage to the area, when you open the hematoma you release the pressure thats on that vessel and you can make the bleeding worse.  I like to leave hematomas alone for as long as possible.  Some owners just can't stand it. 

They usualy feel a bit diffrent to me, If I suspect abcess I will shave and clean the area and poke a needle in, if blood comes out I leave it alone, if its puss I open with a scalpel drain and flush it. With cattle I just do it by myself, with my horses It depends where it is, like on s neck or hip I'll just do it, if it's somewhere stressful say stifle, near a joint ,tendon EXT I get my vet to check to make sure there's no underline causes or something left behind to damage things.