Darby gets his smile back

In December last year, Equine Dental Technician Kelsey Ham referred Darby to Veterinary Surgeon Alice Hodgson to extract one of his lower cheek teeth.

The tooth had been displaced, and as a result was causing food to pack around it, which if left untreated could cause gum disease.

Darby made the short trip to our specialist donkey hospital at Brookfield where x-rays were taken so vets could plan his surgical procedure. The brown gelding wasn’t closely bonded to any particular companion at Paccombe, but was accompanied by a donkey called Gabrial.

On the day of his procedure, Alice and fellow surgeon Curtis Goding worked together to extract the tooth, which all seemed to go as it should. In the following weeks, Alice checked the socket regularly and she was pleased with the healing process, so Darby went back home to Paccombe Farm. 

Back to Brookfield hospital

After a few weeks, Darby’s diligent grooms noticed some discharge coming from the left side of his lower jawbone. Initially this was thought to be unrelated to the extraction as the socket was healing perfectly, and Darby was treated for the infected wound.

But over time it became clear that the wound still wasn’t healing as expected. Subsequently the fifteen-year-old donkey was admitted back to hospital for radiographs and close monitoring.

He went on to spend several months in the hospital with Gabrial, where nurses and interns worked closely with him to provide his daily medication. During Darby’s prolonged stay, multiple diagnostics were carried out to establish the cause of the non-healing wound.

Our experts carried out blood work, multiple radiographs and contrast radiographs, along with ultrasound scans, wound flushes, surgical wound debridement (removing dead, damaged or infected tissue from a wound to promote healing) and regular flushes of the socket and diastema (the gaps between his teeth). 

The road to recovery

Eventually, one of the scans located a sequestrum – a tiny fragment of dead bone that had become separated from the healthy bone during the tooth removal – next to where the tooth was extracted, which was the reason the wound was unable to heal.

Alice explained: “After removing Darby’s tooth we were struggling to identify the reason for his non-healing wound, as scans were not initially picking up the secondary bone formation.

“We know that a sequestrum (bony fragment) is a possible complication of an extraction – however they are notoriously difficult to spot. Thanks to the expert attentiveness of the team caring for him, we were able to spot the issue and begin treatment.”

Now the cause of the infection was known, our vets had to perform just one more short procedure to remove the fragment before Darby could finally leave Brookfield and head back to Paccombe Farm.

Alice added: “I was so relieved when I was able to remove the fragment and know that we’d found the solution that would allow him to heal.”

After being away from the herd for several months, his grooms were unsure how Darby, and the other donkeys, would react to his arrival. But any concerns soon disappeared as he was greeted by brays as he trotted out into the field to meet them.

His external wound has now healed perfectly, and he is back enjoying his life with the herd.