22 Essentials For Your Equine First Aid Kit

Horses are like our children, right?

What do you do when your child gets sick or injured while traveling? You do what you can to make them feel better. Whether it be bandages or medicine. Horses need to be treated the same way when they get sick or hurt.

These simple items will be a perfect addition to keep in your Horse Trailer first aid kit while traveling.

Accidents can happen anytime whether riding out in your pasture or at the Equine show 150 miles away. Some people don’t think about a first aid kit because of everything else they have to remember when getting prepared to travel. Having these first aid essentials on hand will keep you better prepared for anything that could go wrong.

First, you need to get a container to keep your first aid kit organized. The simplest container you could buy is a plastic container with a lid. You could also opt for the plastic stacking containers with drawers if you want to keep items separated and even more organized. A plastic tote will do just fine and it makes for easy travel, so you can easily move it around and everything is all in one place. 

Horse First Aid Kit Essentials

1. Several Adhesive Wraps – These easy sticky wraps are good for protecting wounds and are strong enough to hold ice packs in place.

2. Wound Cleaner – Good for cleaning out cuts and skin infections.

3. Wound Ointment – Antiseptic ointment is a good product to put on a wound before bandaging up to prevent infections.

4. Gauze Pads – Gauze pads can be used as a non-stick bandage under an adhesive wrap or to clean the area around a wound.

5. Latex Gloves – Latex gloves will keep your hands clean, and help prevent spreading bacteria from an open wound.

6. Rubber Gloves – Rubber gloves will keep your hands clean when dealing with larger wounds and helps prevent the spread of bacteria.

7. Thermometer – Checking your horse’s temperature allows you to see if it is elevated which is a possible sign of infection or sickness.

8. Petroleum Jelly – Petroleum jelly is good for lubricating the thermometer before use, and to help prevent chafing.

9. Wire Cutters – Wire cutters will be great to have on hand if your horse is caught up in wire fencing.

10.   Tweezers – Used to remove splinters and other small foreign objects.

11.   Epsom Salt – Epsom Salt is good for cleaning out hooves that have an abscess. Just mix with water and soak

12.   Scissors – Scissors will make it easy to remove bandages to change out for new ones.

13.   Hoof pick – This is essential to cleaning out objects lodged around shoes and in hooves.

14.   Hydrogen Peroxide – Hydrogen is another product that is useful for cleaning out cuts to prevent infection.

15.   Equine First Aid Book – This book is essential because of its important information on how to properly care for your horse’s injury or illness. 

16.   Knife – A knife is good for cutting away debris the horse may be caught up in, or to cut out any debris that may be trapped in the wound.

17.   Absorbent Pads – Absorbent pads will work for large wounds to help stop bleeding and as a wound dressing.

18.   Towel – This is used for clean up.

19.   Flashlight – Provides the ability to see wounds at night or poor lighting.

20.   Stethoscope – The stethoscope is important to keep track of your horse’s vitals, and allows you to listen to other sounds.

21.   Fly Repellant – Fly Repellent is essential for keeping those flies off of healing wounds.

22.   Eye Cleaner – Allows you to flush out dirt and debris from the eyes.

One item that I feel is the most important is the Equine First Aid Book.  There are several different books out there, but this book can be a huge help. You may think you know what to do, but something will come up where you have no idea how to handle the situation. This book can help walk you through many different injuries and illnesses that could happen to your horse.

There may be items that you do not see on this list and you feel that you should have in your first aid kit. The more you add to this list the better because you can never be too prepared when something happens to your horse. 

Stay Safe and Happy Travels!!!