Abscess woes, part 1 million.

Meowy Catkin

Meowy Catkin

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So it goes on. :(

My lovely chestnut mare is on her third abscess, she's had most of the year off because of them. The current one started off bursting out of the coronet band. She was lame, sound, lame, sound. Brought back into work, we did six weeks of walking and I'd just introduced off road hacks and trotting when the bloody thing came back again! :mad:

She's been fab (as always) and stands beautifully to be poulticed but the hole in her hoof is mahoosive (caused by the opening at the coronet growing out).

I just wanted to share as I'm so upset on her behalf.

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With her mates, wearing her lovely, blue gaffer taped poultice.

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A bit random but could she just possibly have Cushings? My horses had very mininal signs, he did keep getting lami and abcesses and had fat pads below his eyes and on his forehead, but none of the more traditional coat/depression signs. Having been diagnosed with Cushings he is now on a tablet a day and hasn't had any more problems, in fact he is better than he has been in years and his management is so much easier

If you look around there is currently a 15% vouchers off testing for cushings, so if you have any doubts at all then it might be worth a test - as polticing abcesses is a real pain in the ****!.
 
Unfortunately, it's all down to a bad farrier. When I first moved here, I used a farrier that was recommended and he totally ruined the angle of her hooves and therefore opened up the white line, so grot gets in and sets of the abscesses.

I asked him many times about sorting her hooves out and he just came up with excuses that seemed logical. I feel bleddy awful over it, because I wasn't happy and I should have sacked him far, far earlier than I did.

My new farrier and my vet are wroking together to sort her out, but essentially we need to wait for a whole new hoof capsule to grow. Incidently the new farrier was horrified at how my other two horses had been trimmed too. All of there hooves looked vastly improved after the first session with the new farrier.

I have now learnt so much more about trimming and shoeing, but I really should have learnt this when I started owning horses years ago. For some reason, possibly because everything changed so slowly, I didn't realise how bad it was. Now when I look back at the photos, I can hardly look at them - they are that awful.

The worst bit is, the shallow angle of her NF hoof was causing heat in the tendon. Luckily the vet says that we caught it in time.
 
Poor ginger pony and poor you. That is indeed a big hole :( You sound like you know the cause though and if it's been most of this year you won't be too far off having a whole new hoof now. Soon be there :)
 
Have a look at Crossgates website. Myristica-sillica(sp) is fab for speedy expulsion/healing absesses. Sadly the website is a bit hit and miss so I can't post a link,but it sounds like this remedy ought to be in your cabinet.
 
I would be packing that hole as the slightest contamination of it may just continue the problems. Consider Keratex antibacterial putty or cotton wool soaked in iodine.
 
Are you doing anything to keep the feet as clean as you can?

I would use Hoof Heal as it has antibiotic (wrong word but the other word escapes me) properties in it. use three times a week.

Something like that

My arab mare had problems caused by her previous farrier which lead to a tendon injury... and many many abcesses. 8 in total. :( We are passed all that.
 
Blimey... 8 abscesses!

She is being tubbed and poulticed at the moment because it is active and producing lots of black gunk. I had been washing it out everyday (diluted hydrogen peroxide) before but I hadn't filled in the hole. I know that I just have to keep going. I will talk to the farrier about filling the hole with the putty, he's coming on the 22nd.
 
Hi Faracat
The same thing happened with my tb. I used a farrier who was highly recommended, & he ended up making a right pigs ear of my boys feet. Tb had to have a hoof wall resection, we also had to wait for him to grow a new hoof wall& he abscessed badly for several months.
I agree with what you say about having to learn as much as possible about shoeing & how feet should look.
So, I just wanted to say to hang in there, it will be worth it in the end.
Kx
 
Thank you. :)

I find it terrible that others have had this happen too.

What I found hard (re how hooves should be trimmed/shod) was seeing it in real life. I understood the diagrams and photos, but on a real life horse I found it harder to 'see' what was right and wrong, to begin with.
 
So...

the farrier came and we had a chat about her progress. It was decided that the best thing to do, was to open up the abscesses or in the farrier's words, 'cut away the crap'.

I was astonished by how much hoof was cut off, but poulticing wasn't touching the problem. She's now on field rest and TBH there's no rush, she can have all the time that she needs to grow her hoof, I'll wait for her to be ready.



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I'm no farrier or vet but it looks like white line disease as well. That can be helped hugely by addressing diet. It might be worth investigating diets for IR horses... that might mean grass restriction etc.
The ripples on her hooves usually indicate dietry problems.

This article might be useful. http://www.hoofrehab.com/end_of_white_line_disease.htm#Whiteline
Also have a look at the other articles, there's one on feeding the hoof as well.
 
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Poor ginger mare and poor you, still looks like the new hoof isn't far off being completed, so hopefully she'll be nice and sound again soon. :)

Keep posting pics, be lovely to see one of her with nice abcess free hooves enjoying a nice hack or something :D
 
Here's some photos of the same hoof.

Before I moved.
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After being shod for a while by the now sacked farrier.
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The hoof now (repeat of above photo, but I thought that I would put it on again for easy comparisons).
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Have to say the cut away hoof pics arnt that bad! my friend had a tb that had several abscesses and was shod at 2 by her farrier to try to hold his feet together. she finally put him on a high dose of blue chip and he never had any more problems ,the hoof grew much harder and no more abscesses!
 
TBH I'm not surprised that she has event lines on her hooves. She's had a really rough time (I still blame myself for not sacking the farrier earlier) and when ever she's in pain, she stops eating. I really struggled to keep weight on her during episodes where the various abscesses that she's had, have been painful. I am working with my new farrier (who deals with cases like this alot, infact she's going to be in his lecture that he's giving soon) and my vet to solve her problems.
 
Faracat said:
Unfortunately, it's all down to a bad farrier. When I first moved here, I used a farrier that was recommended and he totally ruined the angle of her hooves and therefore opened up the white line, so grot gets in and sets of the abscesses.

I asked him many times about sorting her hooves out and he just came up with excuses that seemed logical. I feel bleddy awful over it, because I wasn't happy and I should have sacked him far, far earlier than I did.

My new farrier and my vet are wroking together to sort her out, but essentially we need to wait for a whole new hoof capsule to grow. Incidently the new farrier was horrified at how my other two horses had been trimmed too. All of there hooves looked vastly improved after the first session with the new farrier.

I have now learnt so much more about trimming and shoeing, but I really should have learnt this when I started owning horses years ago. For some reason, possibly because everything changed so slowly, I didn't realise how bad it was. Now when I look back at the photos, I can hardly look at them - they are that awful.

The worst bit is, the shallow angle of her NF hoof was causing heat in the tendon. Luckily the vet says that we caught it in time.
Click to expand...

I've recently changed farriers. I too am feeling very guilty for not doing so ages ago..... But like your farrier my previous farrier always provided logical excuses as to why her feet were like that and why he was shoeing her like she was, sadly I'm now feeling the guilt like you. I always knew her heels were low but I always presumed the logical excuses made sense....Wishing it hadn't got to this stage with my ponys feet for me to swap farriers.
 
SarahandDee said:
I've recently changed farriers. I too am feeling very guilty for not doing so ages ago..... But like your farrier my previous farrier always provided logical excuses as to why her feet were like that and why he was shoeing her like she was, sadly I'm now feeling the guilt like you. I always knew her heels were low but I always presumed the logical excuses made sense....Wishing it hadn't got to this stage with my ponys feet for me to swap farriers.
Click to expand...

It's awful (the guilt).

The thing that made me think 'no, you're talking carp' was when I asked the sacked farrier (again), 'what can we do about her hooves?' and he replied 'knowing her - nothing'.

It somehow woke me up to the fact that he wasn't up to the job. I've owned this mare for years and she's never had hooves (with long toes and under-run heels and the twisted off-hind) like that before. What was the change? It certainly wasn't the mare's fault... it was his!
 
Do you poultice with sugar and Iodine? I had a grade a jumper that had so many abscess' between April and July we lost count, multiple ones in every foot. Sugar and Iodine is the only way to go. My farrier used the foot putty to build enough foot to nail into. And said horse was Immediately put back onto his old foot supplement!! He jumped at county shows with S&I poultices on too.
 
I think now that 'all the crap' is cut away she will be fine. Just keep it clean and keep on top of very regular trimming whilst she is on field rest. To be quite honest, you are lucky you still have a horse looking at the state of that foot!
 
Crikey, that second picture is quite scary! You poor thing! When its a slow progression, its not as easy to notice how the hoof the changes.

The most recent picture looks so much better already, and it sounds like you're doing a very good job! Best of luck, and I hope its all good news from here :)
 
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