French Sterile Maggot Debridement Study Finds 93% Efficacy for Equine Wounds

The French study is illustrated with this photo of maggots at work on a wound.

A press release from the Equine Veterinary Journal arrived at The Hoof Blog this week. It heralds a French study that documented the successful use of sterile maggot debridement therapy in treating wounds in horses. 

Hallmarq Standing Equine MRI for Hoof Puncture Wounds: Is MR Scanning Necessary? Will It Help?

Mystery lameness? Puncture wounds take some detective work sometimes. This lame draft horse was referred to Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine Equine Hospital. It was a long drive for his owners, only to find out that a nail was embedded in the foot, invisible to everyone who had looked at the horse. When the nail came loose in the winter shoe and finally dropped out (note empty nail hole), the horse probably stepped on it. (© Michael Wildenstein photo collection)

A puncture wound in the foot can be a life-threatening and career-ending injury for a horse. Once again, the seemingly rock-hard protection of the hoof capsule proves to be not as tough as it looks. Horses step on nails, cactus thorns, shards of wood and metal, fence stakes, shavings bag staples and any and every other thing in their paths.

War Horse Hoofcare: Puncture Wounds Then and Now

While collecting photos of farriers during World War I, I passed over this photo several times without realizing how interesting it was. It took a magnifying glass to appreciate this one.

The sign reads, "'Kindness to animals, 500 horses lamed weekly by nails dropped on roads and horse lines by cookers carrying firewood with nails left in. Please remove nails."

As if the war horses didn't have enough to worry about with staying alive in combat and battling environmental conditions like mud and heat and lice and mange, and diseases like glanders, they had to walk across scorched earth littered with shrapnel, and sometimes even the "friendly fire" of nails dropped from wagons hauling salvaged timber to burn in the cookers.

What's a cooker, you might ask? A cooker was a horse-drawn kitchen--a sort of wood-fired stove on wheels. Here you see some Canadian troops from Newfoundland who were happy to belly up to a cooker as if it was a modern-day urban food truck.

Both these photos were provided by the Royal Library of Scotland.

Puncture wounds from shrapnel and nails are still a problem for horses and donkeys in war zones. They are also a problem for horses after natural disasters like tornadoes, earthquakes, tidal waves and hurricanes.

What's a simple way to protect hooves from puncture wounds when disaster--or war--strikes today?

Click the graphic to order your poster!

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing; Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.  

Follow Hoofcare + Lameness on Twitter: @HoofcareJournal

Read this blog's headlines in your Facebook news feed when you "like" the Hoofcare + Lameness Facebook Page

 

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any direct compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned, other than Hoofcare Publishing. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.