A horse that frequently does intense exercise, or that has injured itself, will benefit greatly from poulticing. The combination of applying cooling clay and bandaging the leg(s), prevents or minimises inflammation that may be present in the leg(s).
What do you need?
- Body brush
- Medical gloves
- Aktiv Equine Cooling Clay
- Glad Wrap/Cling Wrap (“plastic”) – perforated is easier
- Scissors to cut plastic if not perforated
- Cotton bandage wraps or ‘gamgees’.
- Stable bandages – not elasticated.
How?
- Brush the horse’s legs with the body brush to remove excess dust.
- Using cooling clay can be a fairly messy affair. To keep clay off your hands, wear medical gloves. Grab a small handful of clay from the bucket and apply a generous layer of clay onto the horse’s leg. How high or how low you apply the clay to the leg is dependent on personal preference and also purpose (e.g. injury).
Generally clay is applied from the fetlock joint to just below or over the knee/hock joint. A horse prone to inflammation or that has an injury in a specific joint or area e.g. hock, would benefit from having cooling clay applied on these areas.
Repeat until the leg is evenly covered with a generous layer of cooling clay.
- Remove medical gloves and tear off a square of glad wrap. (Note: A horse with very large legs may require a square and a half of glad wrap, thus the plastic would need to be cut).
- Wrap the plastic around the entire circumference of the leg area between the fetlock joint and the knee, covering the cooling clay.
- Bandage as normal from the fetlock to just below the knee/hock, over the cooling clay and plastic with the cotton bandage wraps and stable bandages,
- Poulticing can be left over night (or for approximately 8-10 hours). Thereafter, bandages, cotton wraps and plastic should be removed. The cooling clay should be washed off with water.
NOTE: AKTIV EQUINE COOLING CLAY IS 100% SAFE TO USE UNDER BANDAGES. DO NOT USE AKTIV EQUINE ICE MINT COOLING GEL UNDER BANDAGES – IT WILL CAUSE BLISTERING.
