06/06/2024
PSA- check your RIVETS on the inside of your trailer!
We have horses shipping in and out of this barn very regularly and I've seen a lot of strange and scary stuff happen involving trailers, but this was a first for everyone involved, so I thought I'd share.
This young horse shipped in recently and walked off the trailer 3 legged, hobbling lame.
Picked up his hoof and found that one of the rivets that holds the wall mats on had come loose, ended up on the trailer floor and was impaled in his front foot during transport.
This was a very new trailer, it's been safetied regularly and maintained very well. It's clean, it's not worn out or old or rusty, it gets used frequently, it's owned and operated by a really knowledgeable, organized, responsible and experienced horse person.
Thank goodness we recognized what it was very quickly and we were confident that it wasn't very long (so hadn't gone very deep into the sole) hadn't even been in the hoof for 30 minutes, and we had a pair of pull-offs handy to very carefully remove it before he stepped on it too many times and drove it deeper.
The horse is fine, we disinfected the hole and the owner cared for the foot further following the incident to ensure it wouldn't turn into a more complicated issue later. There were no more rivets missing from the mats, but one or two more were found to be loose so those were removed before they could fall out and do this again.
All's well that ends well, but this could have ended very poorly, so check the hardware holding your trailer together. You never know- something might be waiting to come loose and injure your horse in transport!
P.S. DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME.
We took a very calculated risk removing this on our own, because we had enough information and collective knowledge to decide that this was an "okay-ish" plan in this case- and it was still risky AF.
If you find something stuck in your horse's foot, PLEASE DO NOT JUST BLINDLY YANK IT OUT!!! Call your vet to come take rads immediately. Anything impaled in a hoof can cause serious damage to the inner structures of the hoof including the coffin bone. Bad, very bad, scary stuff. No good.
