Editor’s Note: This excerpt is from Understanding Equine First Aid by Michael Ball, DVM. 

The preparation of a horse first aid kit for your stable is easy to make and–in an emergency–can be of great importance. Once you have assembled such a kit, make sure everyone knows this golden rule: its contents are for emergency use only. When things are used, they must be restocked immediately. When you have to apply a pressure bandage to a profusely bleeding wound, it is not a good time to discover that someone took the last elastic bandage out of the kit and used it for a non-emergency: to protect the horse’s neatly braided tail!

The most basic of first aid kits should include material for bandaging, splinting, and general wound cleansing. A variety of bandaging material should be in the kit, including some sterile pads to place over wounds after they have been cleansed (large non-stick Telfa pads work well, as do the kind of disposable diapers that come in plastic packages).

For most of the bandages applied to lacerations or under splints, you will need an ample supply of wrapping material. It is a good idea to put an entire “bundle” of clean sheet cotton and at least five packages of rolled cotton in the kit. There are a variety of commercially available elastic support bandages that can be used to apply pressure