Well, That's Something Different...

[WARNING!!! BELOW CONTAINS GRAPHIC PHOTOS OF MY JOB. YES, SERIOUSLY, I HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS! And honestly, this isn't even the grossest thing I typically see...]

So today, I didn't have any farm calls. I was just hanging out, contemplating if I should look at the two boarding dogs that need to be looked at each time they board (which is often), when we got a phone call for a horse with a laceration. It was like 10:15.
The owner was hesitant to tell the receptionist where this horse had lacerated itself and for good reason. This horse had managed to lacerate its vulva. Well, near its vulva was what I was told. I wasn't doing anything so I packed it up and headed out. Luckily, it was close by.

When I got there the woman assured me that this horse was a recent rescue and that her horses typically didn't look like this. This horse was found tangled in some fencing this morning and was happily eating in a stall since then.
The mare was thin with a rough hair coat. She seemed calm enough as we lifted her tail up so I could get a look and cover the top of the tail with some vetwrap.
Behold what I saw beneath the tail:

On the mare's best day, she had poor vulvar conformation. She probably was a windsucker by way of her age, body condition or just bad luck. Today though, her luck ran out. This mare had literally, tore her entire vulva off! It started about two inches below her rectum. There was just a thin strip hanging on on one side and the other had about half an inch. The clitoris at the bottom was ripped clean off. Surprisingly, she wasn't bleeding much and didn't mind us looking and touching.

After some consultation (always calling CB!), it was decided that this wasn't going to be reattached. The inch long strip holding the vulva on would likely die and take the whole big wad with it. My worry was that she would scar too much and end up having trouble urinating. 

I gave her a mild sedative-it was really not enough to do anything. I should have went way higher! I sprayed some lidocaine onto the area-which she hated! And then in a very quick fashion, cut the sucker off! It bled only a small amount. I tried to clean it the best I could afterwards but the mare was having none of it. She tried to double barrel kick me!

I left the owner with some antibiotics, banamine (an NSAID) and the instructions to keep the tail wrapped, keep it free from flies, and hose the area off a couple of times a day. I'm going to recheck it in a week. If by chance she's having difficulty urinating, I suppose we'll have to catheterize her and hope that we can get it to heal and that we don't give her the worst ascending infection ever.

Short of referral for cosmetic surgery, I'm not sure what I could have done differently. Fingers crossed!