Not all Splint Bones are Equal

Not all splint bones heal in the normal way. These three images are all different splint bone injuries that have healed in different ways. A splint bone injury can either be due to work, or due to trauma. The king of trauma wounds we see vary from kicks from another horse, hitting a fence or even traumatising themselves with another leg. Each cause can be different.

The interesting thing is a splint bone fracture can occur and there is no obvious broken skin. The swelling can indeed take a few days to show up. I do recommend x-raying splint bone fractures both at the time of injury and also down the track before resuming work.

The images taken before resuming work are important to not only show that the fracture has healed but also that we know if there is any likelihood of issues with the suspensory ligament down the track.

The take home from here is that all splint bone swellings need investigating initially and again before resuming work.