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Veteran
Posts: 296
 
| Anyone have any experience with this? Looking for some input...didn't find much in old discussions. | |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 678
Location: Canada | I had one that took a kick to his hock (This is what we assume as he was at the trainers and trainer didn't notice the basketball sized hock... just that he was "sore" so he didn't ride him.)
I picked him up after two weeks of him being "sore" and the trainer unable to ride him. My hubby went to pick him up and when he got home he said you better get down to the barn. His hock was the size of a basketball and I was fit to be tied I was so mad. Had the vet out next morning and it was cracked in six different places and sadly I was given less then 1% chance I'd get him pasture sound.
We decided to give him a try and see what we could do for him. I did 50/50 sweats every second day and on the off days I wrapped his hock with either magnetic boots, or BOT boots. We also gave him IM Adequan shots and kept him stalled for 6 months. After six months he was on limited turn out for an hour a day building up to 8 which took another three months. We then started him on a lunge line and light trotting a few minutes a day building his muscle back. When he was sound we tried him under saddle a few minutes a day building up to an hour long ride.
Well my horse that was given less then 1% chance I'd get him pasture sound is sound and we're riding him. He's been cleared by the vet who can't believe it but it was a LOT of hours of wrapping, unwrapping, hosing, rewrapping --- rinse and repeat --- for months but it was worth it as he's sound and happy.
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 Balance Beam and more...
Posts: 11493
 
Location: 31 lengths farms | My mare fractured the patty shaped bones in the hock, vertically pretty much right down the middle. Swelled up like a basketball, couldn't bear weight for about 2 days, of course on a weekend, by Monday she was running around like it never hurt. Passed the flexion test but was pinning her ears back, took the x-rays, fractured. Tens unit 3x a day for 30 days, cold hose every chance I got, tried the whole keep her in a stall thing, didnt' work out for her because it made her pivot on it which wasn't good so we turned her out into a 35x35 pen for 4 months, then kicked her out into the pasture for another 8 months or so, healed up nicely and ran for another 12 years, into her mid 20's. | |
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| Yes, I had a horse years ago that fractured his talus bone with Talmadge Green as a futurity horse. His hock was ugly when we got him- which was several years after his injury/surgeries. After a couple years he eventually came back to run 1-d again. This horse had a huge heart and lived to barrel race.
Edited by bscanchaser 2014-06-10 4:08 PM
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The Advice Guru
Posts: 6419
| If it is the lower joints, most of the time the joint will fuse in spots. I had one that fractured parts of the lower joint, don't know when or how, as he never had a swollen hock, I fused the lower joints via laser, never had another problem.
If it is the high joint, I would be looking for the best vet around to chemically reduce the inflammation in the joint, then it would inject stem cells into the joint and fracture to speed healing. | |
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 You get what you give
Posts: 13030
Location: Texas | I'm not sure if you would describe my mare's hock as fractured.. I call it gnarly, LOL.
She kicked through a fence as a filly and did some serious external damage. I don't know if radiographs where ever taken when it happened, but I do know she has a decent scar from it. Her left hock is visibly larger than her right hock.
My vet came out and looked at her, long story short she flexed grade 4/5 on that leg. She won a barrel race the week before- I had no clue there was an issue. When he radiographed her hock he found that her third tarsal bone was lytic looking. He said it looked lytic but not like from an infection but from trauma. So I worked backward and found out the kicking through fence story. That was years ago so she's lived with the hock the way it was… Now it is just arthritic. We injected it and she is doing really well. It's something I always baby- if she kicks at feeding time she can make it blow up, so she lives in the round pen. If the weather is bad, she gets in a stall and we keep the stall next to her empty.
When she is swollen, I put runners relief on it and then I alternate it with a clay poultice and cold hosing in-between. I also have PHT hock wraps I use on her. I am getting her checked in July which will be 4 months post her first hock injection ever to my knowledge. I am hoping she can go 6 months on them. My vet just says to not look a gift horse in the mouth and we will just manage it. | |
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Veteran
Posts: 296
| Thanks for all the input - my horse has been cruising along just fine all spring, good enough that I bought my permit. Took him to a jackpot last week, ground was deep but he handled it fine - next morning, he could hardly walk. We did a TON of x-rays, and my vet said he isn't sure it IS fractured, but he isn't sure it ISN'T fractured...whatever that means. I'm going back in today to discuss what our options are, and what to do moving forward. There wasn't any swelling, I only felt heat in it before taking him in. I just wasn't sure what kind of outcome others have had - I'm not surprised to hear about the stem cell, we've already done that for his navicular foot, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I'll know more today, but I wanted to reach out so that I knew what to expect going into this! He's only 8, so I'm hoping for a full recovery from whatever might be going on here. | |
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