I have a [probably stupid] question about poultice.
How does it
work? <sheepish>
I mean, I know the idea is, slap it on, wrap it
in paper (I'm assuming to stop it glopping everywhere?), then wrap the
whole caboodle with quilts and polo wraps.
The pressure from the polo
wraps stops any filling, right? The quilts stop you bowing the tendon
from wrapping too tight... and the poultice, er, draws
out heat?
How?
It seems to me, that if you wrap the legs up
tight in all those layers, you're keeping all that heat in, no? But the
poultice draws it out... by osmosis? sucky mud? What?
And I'm also
hazy on when/why one might use it (of course I understand the basics,
but...thinking aloud here...)
I've heard two schools of
thought:
"I always poultice and wrap after a hard ride to prevent
any filling"
and
"I never wrap after a hard ride, as I want to
know if there is any filling"
At what stage do you accept that if
you do a hard ride, some horse's legs will fill and you should probably
poultice/wrap regardless?
Is it personal preference? Or does it depend
on the horse? How does one judge if any filling is significant - or just
what that particular horse does - or just what most horses do...? Will
horses with old injuries always fill?
If you do wrap, how long for?
Does it depend on the distance you rode? the conditioning of the horse? the
way a particular horse's legs react to stress?
