So what you have here are the contents
of the bandage kits that we send home in our equine bandage kit. So the first
thing you'll have is your non-stick dressing. You also will get a pack of
gauze sponges, a small roll of gauze, a sheet cotton, a brown gauze, a Vet Wrap,
and an elasticon. So when you go to apply your bandage you want to try to
avoid touching the bandage material as much as you can, so opening it cleanly.
The first layers of the bandage that you'll need will be your
nonstick bandage that will go directly against the wound or the sutures, the 4x4s to go behind that, and the rolled gauze. So using just a corner, you can
lift the sterile gauze and place it on your gauze pad, but again try not to
touch the middle where it's going to be against the horse's skin. This can then
be taken gently out of the tray by the corner, again to avoid touching the
center. So when you're doing a hock bandage, you want to tie up the tail to
keep it out of the surgical site or the wound site. You can just accomplish this
with a quick-release knot put in their tail and usually that'll stay in place.
So for example if there was a wound or a suture line here, you'd want to gently
place your gauze up over the area of the sutures and then using this rolled gauze,
wrap relatively loosely just tightly enough to hold the gauze in place
underneath. And with hocks, or anything with a bony protuberance like this, you
want to use a figure of eight pattern to secure up over that and then come back
down around it, ideally not wrapping directly over the point of the hock. And
so again, you can come up over and go back down as you go to secure your gauze
in place, but without putting pressure on the point of the horse's hock.
When you reach the end of your gauze roll, you can just tuck the end in to
hold it in place while you get ready to put on the next layer of your bandage. So
once your roll gauze is on, the next step will be the sheet cotton. This will
come in this blue outer casing to keep the sheet cotton sterile. As you open it,
again, you want to not touch it excessively, although it's okay to touch
it to some extent as you're going. So the sheet cotton will be held in place with
the brown gauze, that comes in this paper tube. You can pull that out and then
you'll take your sheet cotton to apply to the limb. When you apply your sheet
cotton, you want to center it right over the hock and try to apply it with a nice,
snug pressure like you would with a standing wrap or a quilt, it doesn't need
to be very tight but you want to try to apply it evenly, if possible. This can be
difficult over areas such as the hock, where you're going to have a little bit
of an uneven surface to wrap. Once your sheet cotton is in place you secure it
with your brown gauze. Your brown gauze you want to apply with firm, even
pressure, overlapping about 50% of the previous round with each pull. With this,
you want to leave a small portion of the cotton poking out at the both
bottom and the top to ensure that you do not put excessive pressure directly on
their skin. So again, about 50% overlap as you go, pulling across the front of the
limb to tighten it. And as always, make sure you're wrapping in the same
direction with each layer of your wrap. And again, with the bottom, we're going to
ensure there's a little bit of cotton sticking out, and then work your way back
up the limb. And while we do directly go over the
point of the hock with this, you try not to put much pressure on that area with
your brown gauze as well. When you reach the end of your brown gauze, just like with
the white gauze, you can just tuck the end in to keep it in place while you get
ready for the next layer. The next layer of your bandage will be the power flex, or
Vet Wrap layer, that's a stretchy, colorful bandage. That's going to be
placed directly on top of your brown gauze in a firm fashion. You don't want
to pull as tight as you can but you want to pull enough that the wrinkle that is
inherently in the bandage stretches out a little bit as you go. Again, you want to
overlap by about 50% with each layer as you go down the limb. And as we go right
over that point of the hock, we try to release that pressure a little bit so as
not to put too much pressure there. When you get to the bottom of the bandage
just slowly work your way back up, just like with any other wrap that you would
place. When you get to the end, as the Vet Wrap secures to itself, it'll stay in
place for you. The last layer of the bandage that we like to apply is the
elasticon. This is an adhesive bandage that will help prevent dirt or shavings
from getting into the bandage, as well as help keep it from sliding down the leg.
When we place this, we place about half of the elasticon directly onto the
bandage and half of it on the skin. And with this, because it is so elastic, you
want to apply it loosely to the horse's leg and use about one or two go rounds
you do not need to cover the entire bandage with this layer. Once you've
secured it, you can then cut it and use the remainder of your roll for the
bottom. Sometimes it helps to pre-stretch the
elasticon to make sure you don't put it on excessively tightly. You'll repeat the
same thing at the bottom with half the elasticon on the bandage and half on
the skin. The last step with the bandages over the
hock is to make a cut in the back of the bandage directly over the hock, and what
this does is release any pressure you've placed over the point of the hock and
help prevent bandage sores. Here, we oftentimes will use a scalpel, you can
use a sharp scissor or anything that can cut through the bandage material. And
just make a small incision that goes down through both the Vet Wrap and the
brown gauze so you can see the white sheet cotton underneath. Once you've
created that small cut, you then want to overlay it with a little piece of
elasticon just to keep any debris from working its way into the bandage. You can
put this on just like that, longitudinally over the bandage, again
just to cover up that little area and prevent any debris from working its way
in. And, once you've applied that you are done with the hock bandage.