It’s not uncommon to discover a laceration here and a scrape there on your horse. These small wounds typically heal quickly and easily without major veterinary intervention. Large insults that can’t heal on their own, however, might require some help in the form of a skin graft.

Because not all grafts are created equal, and some are better-suited for certain areas of the body than others, Jim Schumacher, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVS, described the different techniques at the 2015 American Association of Equine Practitioners Convention, held Dec. 5-9 in Las Vegas .

Shumacher, a professor in the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences at the University of Tennessee, in Knoxville, said that while any healthy wound can be grafted, the most common reasons veterinarians opt for this procedure are to treat wounds so large they can’t heal by other means, to speed healing, and to avoid the time and expense associated with lengthy periods of bandaging.

A skin graft involves the removal and transfer of a healthy piece of skin from a donor site on the horse’s body to the wound. The graft attaches to the wound bed naturally with the help of fibrin—a protein involved in blood clotting. In successful procedures, within 48 hours capillaries connect the pieces of skin, by Day 4 or 5 the graft has a blood supply, and by Day 10 it’s attached firmly to the wound. Not all grafts are accepted this effortlessly; fluid accumulation, movement, and infection can lead to failure, Schumacher said