Abscess after care & boot advice etc greatly appreciated....

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PennywithHenry

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Hi everyone, more (probably stupid) questions from me, I'm afraid.

Henry's doing really well foot wise. Recovering well. My questions are more to do with once the padding/poultices come off full time....

He had a hole parred into his sole, down the side of his frog extending lmost to his heel, it's quite big. This might sound really stupid, but what do I do when he doesn't need it strapping up? My mare I had years ago was shod, once it was better she was re-shod with a pad, but I was planning on leaving Henry barefoot until I bring him back into work.

Woud the boa-boot type things be any good for this? Or is there some obvious, bog standard thing that's done?

I'm really sorry that this may seem a stupid question, but I've been out of the loop a while, and haven't been in this situation before. I have the farrier on monday, I could ask him I suppose, however I'm sure he and my vet are going to be getting fed up of my bothering them every 5 minutes soon!

I'm just worried as hole in the sole=dirt no matter how well I try and clean it which=new infection to me.....
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Aw, I was wondering how you were getting on with your boy!

When the hoof was pared down, did the vet draw blood? If that's the case, I would dry poultice (use nappies, much cheaper) for a week after the abscess stops draining. If there was no blood, I'd dry poultice for 3-4 days then just turn out barefoot. He should be fine without boots, in fact in my experience the boots tend to trap dirt much more than barefoot. The important thing is to try and keep the hoof relatively dry.

If the ground gets wet and you're worried, I'd put neat thick bleach on his soles to toughen them up and kill any bacteria. I do this for my horses all throughout winter and they rarely get abscesses. Be careful putting bleach on the abscess hole, if he's uncomfortable give him a week to grow a bit of hoof and then start bleaching.
 
Glad that the abscess is draining. My big gelding is very prone to absceses. Once the abscess has drained, I usually plug the hole with cotton wool soaked in iodine and then make a boot out of duck tape and tape up the whole foot (Mishky's feet are far too big for off the shelf boots). I take the duck tape off when he comes in at night, remove the cotton wool and soak the whole foot in warm salty water. My chap is just recovering from another abscess and has just had his shoe put back on - the hole is now filled with stockholm tar and plugged with cotton wool. This seems to be working fine, I scrape all the cotton wool out when he comes in each night and replug the hole. Do make sure Henry's abscess is completely drained before you plug the hole up.
 
Ohhhhhhhh...thankyou, maybe not such a stupid question then?

I've actually been losing sleep over this, seriously, just lying there thinking 'but there's a hole there....surely you can't just leave it?'

He's doing better in himself thanks lol, now he's not afraid of his own oddly coloure hoof, he's out and grazing....

BIG NEWS!!!!

Henry is actually EATING a small net of haylage overnight and another during the day!!! I'm hoping now he's starting forage, and not just living on Truggs of beet pulp and his hardfeed the weight gain process should start speeding up!

I think they were wondering just what exactly I'd bought the amount of pulp I was buying per week! He still has his trugg every morning, with soaked high fibre cubes, and another each evening, but he has his door open and wanders in and out as he pleases.....I was worrying about beetpulp for him over the summer, as he eats here and there as he pleases, but I think he'll be onto full time haylage by the time it starts getting really warm (fingers crossed all!)

I feel after the setbacks we've had over the 7 weeks or so I've had him (the yard, the not eating forage, the bitchy woman and the abscess) are all finally coming together and things are finally turning around for us.
 
My mare had an abcess on her hind hoof and after a few days of poulticing etc I was able to dry dress it and surround with plastic and duct tape. I also bought one of those Davis poultice boots and she was able to go out. She kept it on too.
 
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