Managing Horse Wounds: To Bandage or Not to Bandage?

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Ah, the age-old question: When managing horse wounds, should you wrap them or let them “air out”? Researchers are working to determine whether bandaging or not bandaging is a better option and in what circumstances.

Posted by Christa Lesté-Lasserre, MA | Jun 10, 2019

Ah, the age-old question: When managing horse wounds, especially superficial ones, should you wrap them or let them “air out”?

While, in the past, the course of action you took might have come down to personal preference (maybe you’ve had good luck leaving it be or keeping it wrapped), wound location (not all are easy to bandage), or other extenuating circumstances (raise your hand if you’ve ever run out of Vetrap), researchers are working to determine whether one option is better for managing horse wounds.

“There’s still a long way to go before we can make recommendations about what’s better, but at this stage we’ve been able to complete a descriptive study, showing what’s going on in these wounds during healing,” said Marcio Costa, DVM, PhD, an assistant professor in the University of Montreal Department of Veterinary Biomedical Sciences, in Canada.

He and colleagues recently evaluated the wound-healing process in four study horses, with and without bandaging, as well as the types of bacteria colonizing those wounds...

Read more here:
https://thehorse.com/174101/managing-horse-wounds-to-bandage-or-not-to-bandage/