Candy the amazing 24 year old mare

Another week and another amazing mare to share with you!

This is Candy, a 24 year old pony, who gave everyone on her yard a fright back in January when she was found one night in the field very distressed and bleeding from her jaw.

Richard attended to stabilise her before Lara x-rayed her the next morning. She had obviously taken a kick to the face resulting in a shattered mandible (the lower part of the jaw) which looked very impressive on the x-rays!

Lara opened up the wound to remove all the fragments of bone and packed the wound with antibiotic infused beads of bone cement before stapling the wound back together.

The beads were left in for a week before being removed, and the wound re-stapled. 2 weeks later the staples were removed.

$X-ray horse jaw showing multiple fracture lines and fragments of bone$

Candy’s first x-ray, showing multiple fracture lines and fragments of bone

$X-ray horse jaw showing multiple fracture lines and fragments of bone$

Starting surgery – working out how to access the fragments through the wound with a pair of sterile forceps

6 fragments of bone were removed from her jaw

x-ray showing horses jaw with hole packed with antibiotic beads

The hole in the bone has been packed with antibiotic beads to prevent infection in the bone.

Candy was also given oral antibiotics and painkillers.

$x-ray showing horses fractured jaw having healed$

It is now 3 months since the injury happened and we have just re-xrayed to find the bone healing beautifully, and the big defect left from removing the bone fragment filling in. The bone looks almost ‘fluffy’ – this is how bone appears when it is healing.

There are still some fracture lines visible but as she is now completely pain free she is able to go back to being ridden!