SORE SHOULDERS AND SADDLE-GALIS

Otago Witness, Issue 3017, 10 January 1912, Page 16

SORE SHOULDERS AND SADDLE-GALIS

CAUSED BY RUBBING AND NOT BY PRESSURE. “ Making the galled jade wince ” lias passed into common currency, and also a politician may say “ his withers are unwnmg ” when he is really galled by the exposure of some inconsistency or saddled as a. party hack. Already these once forcible similes are acquiring an old-world flavour to the motorist and the airman, but their significance to the devotees of the horse remains. The official report of the veterinary officers engaged in the Egyptian, campaign of 1882, pu/blisfhed this year as “ news, shows, like all previous war records, the immense importance of saddlery, and one needs make no excuse, then, for returning to the subject. Unless a cut collar is used in breaking ia oolt, one too big is almost sure to bo chosen, because it will go over_ his head more easily. The result is that it wobbles about and galle him, where a better-fitting one would not have done so. The rush caviar is opt to have a red lining, and from this the dye poisons the abrasion; otherwise a rush collar bends wel ltd one’s knee before putting it on, and takes the shape of the hames and adapts itself to the shoulder better than the smoothest of leather ones. It is not the pressure, but the movements, of saddlery that cause galls; hence we look for saddle-galls in the lady’s hack, and not on the weight-carrying hunter. Many collar-galls would be . prevented bv the simple use of straps or a leather bootlace extending from the haane ferrets to the pad, and in like manner a b't of fleece cr other soft padding under the harness pad. and between the thin skin of the belly and the band cf that name, may well be applied as a preventive rather than a cure. When applied after the abrasion there is dint and sweat upon it, and the area of inflammation is more often spread than controlled. That good old country word, “ foresight,” which one hardly ever sees now in print, is what makes an old breaker often more valuable than a more active young one, besides the probability of his having more pati-nco. Horses are not born with a double thickness of skin to enable them to wear col'ars and harness without galling, but have to acquire hardness. Many readers will call to mind animals that had no other objoobon but their thin skins, which were a constant s'urco of trouble, galling on the slightest occasion, especially on a wet day, when the rain trickled down between the collar and the skin of the shoulder.

The simple abrasion means only the removal of the surface lay©" of insensitive skin, but it loaves the sensitive exposed. If an abraded skin is given time a thicker layer of cuticle will come, and benefit rather than harm result from the first rub: but. viewing it as a trifle, the average oolt-breaker puts the animal in the shafts again, and hopes that his good temper tyill not result in jibbing, but in hardening with work. More j'bbers are made this way than any other. The least sign of crinkling at the shoulder should lie the sign ■for treatment and a. day or two’s holiday, having regard to the importance of the formation of character as well as sound skin. What to Us > for Simple Abrasions.— Alum —just alum and water, made by putting a pennyworth of powdered alum into a spirit bottle of water and shaking it up, and refilling with water from time to time, until no dissolved pprtion remains. A penny will provide a 1! the lotion required in a sea on. Fomentation softens and opens the skin. Alum has a coagulating tendency. a r, d hardens it. The chronics give much trouble. Th 1 sweat glands got irritated, and a degraded material, part pus •and part cheesy substance, gets set in the form of a hardened pimol" witlrn a sk'n of its own. and these remain. Ti c snl j ct of them learns to nut ' n —ft’* t 1 •• ami'”an co, although not a ways cheerful in a cold collar, an ! may at any time get *' nr k’ - in more senses than one. The heads cf these pimples break, and granulating sores are eon -+ antiy broken and partly healing. Besides thorn caused by repeated injury there are infectious sores, sometimes eal'ed German measles or ibe Canadian d'ses-', as on different occasions these have been traced to horses imported from tlio-e countries. A living oryni-m is the cause, and the most effectual nay of getting rid of them is t> prick with a red-hot skewer or inject a drop of neat carbolic acid into the centre of what looks like a small blind boil, such as human

beings get upon their faces in the period of youth. As these German measles often occur in great numbers under the collar, the pad, and the crupper, the treatment just mentioned is tco large an order, and some topical dressing must be used. Anything to be effcatual must b© rather severe, and this throws the horse out of work for a little while; but the lasting benefit is worth the loss of time. Whether blind boils are of the kind induced by friction of dirty saddlery or specific infection, the best results are obtained by a mild blister, such as may be made of one part by weight of mercuric iodide to 12 parts of lard. Thia heroic treatment has justified itself in other skin troubles, too. In those naturally thinskinned animals previously referred to, the use of a mild blister, repeated at intervals, wilil so thioken the skin as (permanently to ,cure the annoyance of galling on the slightest provocation. Only this week a correspondent wrote saying that he had completely succeeded with a hors© he wrote about some 12 months ago, and which was practically useless because ho galled every time ho was worked.—“ Yet.,” in Fanner and .Stockbreeder.