Central Sulcus infection? Help!

[BaaSheep44]

Hi All,

I’m hoping for some advice / reassurance. My horse came in three weeks ago and was lame on the lunge - not hopping but more than just unlevel. The yard owner looked at her and we thought it was just a knock, although a few days later she was still lame when trotted up.

We discovered heat in the hoof so started poulticing but nothing came out. Farrier had a look and said there was heat and a digital pulse but she wouldn’t react to hoof testers anywhere. Had the vet the next day and she trotted up sound!! She was slightly unlevel on a turn so vet said turn her back out for another few days which I duly did. She came back in and was lame on the lunge and heat again in the hoof so we poulticed again for c. 3 days. Farrier came back and we took the latest poultice off and he said he thought there was an infection in the central sulcus as it had opened right up and you could see it was all sore and bled a bit.

Since then (5 days ago) I have kept her in on a very deep bed of straw and have been spraying with Terramycin. She trotted up sound on thurs and fri so took her in the school tonight on a lunge line and she was sound one way and not the other.

I am planning to get the vet on Monday, but wondered whether it is normal for an infection like this to take this long to clear up, or whether I’m being impatient (highly possible!!) I wonder whether school sand may have got in it and irritated when lunging. Is there anything else I can be doing?

There is absolutely no heat, lumps, bumps anywhere else, and vet couldn’t find anything either. I’ve known / owned her for 6 years ish and she’s had no time off apart from a month where she threw a splint. We compete affiliated nov / ele dressage so it is sudden onset!

Sorry for the length - just trying to cover all possible Qs!!

 

[be positive]

It is only 5 days since the farrier cut away the infected tissue and it is likely to still be sore even if the infection itself has gone so be patient, the frog needs to toughen up to become less sensitive so I would turn out by day and clean well every night when she comes in so it drys out and hardens up, there are other products that may be more helpful, Red horse ones are very popular, keep an eye on her feet all winter to try and avoid it happening again as the frogs can be very soft and it can reoccur if you are not careful.

 

[Leo Walker]

I would cleantrax the feet to get rid of any lingering infection, then pack with whichever Red Horse product is most suitable. I always have a couple of pots in the tack room in case any thrush starts. I only have a problem with thrush when the diet isnt right though. I'd be feeding a good quality no iron mineral balancer and making sure the rest of the diet was low sugar.

 

[BBP]

Sorry to jump in on this one but it seemed silly to start a new one. In spring the BBP has a nasty thrush infection that got away from me and ate away a lot of his frogs, putting him into a toe first landing. I got to grips with this, treated with red horse and the frogs seemed to fill in nicely and he went back to heel first. Then over the last few weeks since clocks changing I was less rigorous in my routine of applying red horse and only picked them out once a day. The sulcus of the fronts has in a very short space of time gone very very deep again. So I’m back to packing with hoof stuff/artimud, and will start using boots with pads again to stimulate the frogs more.

What I wondered was, can this be a sign of a depressed immune system in that it has affected him very fast whilst all the other horses have fab feet and frogs in the same conditions and on the same feed (thunderbrooks chaff and spillers lite balancer). He also reacts really badly to any bite or scratch and swells to big oozing lumps where the others don’t react at all. He is already on echinacea, and I’m looking to switch to forage plus balancer but he’s an incredibly fussy eater and last time I tried it he gave up eating. I’ve heard that equimins isn’t great for fussy eaters either, which is why I ended up going back to spillers. His bloods last year showed he was vitamin e deficient and didn’t respond to supplementation, but the thrush has been an issue since I stopped supplementing it, do you think that it could be a factor or am I grasping at straws?