Foot Abscess Problems

MrsElle

MrsElle

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I took on a 7 year old TB a few weeks ago as she had nowhere to go and no one to love her

Found her on three legs last week, vet came and found an abscess in nearside fore, dug it out and poulticed. She had to be sedated for this.

OH and I struggled to re-poultice. She is obviously in pain, and found that going up on two legs and spinning, would mean we were sent flying and couldn't touch her sore foot. We did manage to re-poultice on day two, and remove the poultice on day three, but couldn't get another one on her.

She is now walking better, but still lame. She will not let me near her, ears back, and up on two legs when I get near, so I can't investigate further by myself. Farrier is due next week, so his expertise in hanging on to horses who don't want their feet looked at will be handy, but should I wait that long? Now the abscess has burst will it drain and get better, or will having an open abscess wound mean more problems with infection? I have never had a horse with hoof problems before, but the vet said it was quite common with horses who have had their shoes removed, as mare did when I got her.

She is usually the sweetest and gentlest girl, but is obviously still in pain, or having remembered pain, and is not a happy girly.

So, call vet out now, or wait until farrier visit next week?

Also, are there any supplements I can give her to promote healthy feet? She does have pretty good feet really (better than my IDx's!), but I would hate for her to get another abscess. She is currently not on any supplementary feed as she looking well on just grass, and isn't rugged.

We have limited facilities here, just grazing, and an open fronted barn, which in theory I could possibly contain her in, but in practice she would stress, not being with the others.
 
Call out vet in case the hole he dug has got infected and also get some sedalin so you can get near it without causing her too much distress.

Abscesses are a pita and make you feel very helpless as an owner because the horse is in pain but you can't do a huge amount about it. Movement seems to help as it flushes the toxins out and encourages the hoof to grow so don't leave stood in as this is a brill way to encourage heat and swelling.
 
I would get vet to come and sedate, then look at foot, clean and poultice it, and put a hoof boot on for extra protection, sedalin works well for horses who need calming down, but do give it before you even think of touching the foot.. One whiff of what you plan to do will make horse on edge and it won't work so well then.
 
Interesting that you advise leaving her out Tiger Tail. Vet was of the same opinion, as am I. The only advantage to getting her in the barn is that I am more likely to be able to treat her in a confined space, although that could also bring it's own dangers.

Victoria, I will look at that link, I think she has always been shod previously and I would really like to get her shoe-less if possible.
 
I think a call to the vet will be on the cards this afternoon Romany. He may have to give me some sedalin.

It's a good job this horse is so nice (usually!), she was given to me just 4 or 5 weeks ago, and is costing me a small fortune in vet and farrier bills already! OH says she is costing an awful lot for a free horse :D
 
TBs have really thin soles, ours you could actually flex it. I would bute her up so she looks sound and make her a outdoor are the size of a stable bedded down with straw and try and go in and do things with out doing anything to her so she does not associate you with pain.
When you poultice you need about four layers, Nappy, vetwrap bandage, gaffa tape, extra strong outer layer, more gaffer tape. That should last 3 days if they are not turned out. Its needs two people and do all your prep work before you start. I would get some oral sedation for her. Good luck.
 
I also agree re leaving out if you can when mine had abscesses I turned out during the day using a blue davis poultice boot. I would put this on over a nappy and with a bit of duct tape it stayed on through the mud I had him in at night though.

Best advice is to keep it clean and protected for at least ten days after it's stopped draining. I had 2 abscesses get reinfected as I didn't give it enough time to seal before I turned out without the boot.

I always recommend the forage plus as my horses hooves were terrible, if yours isn't as bad you may get away with using pro earths pro hoof or pro balance which are also good but slightly lower in some of the minerals.

Hope you update to let us know how your mare gets on, sounds like she was lucky to find you. Abscesses are vile and was part of the reason I went shoeless with my horse, farrier was like a yo yo!
 
Second vote for the Forageplus balancers - after a whole series of horrible abscesses, changed to this last February, and today the horse looks like he has a different (and much better) set of feet!

WRT the dressings, can you have one person up front with a bucket of pony nuts, and one person doing the dressing. Person in front feeds small handfuls of nuts while the horse is cooperating, and person by the hoof does the cleaning and dressing? My horse was getting seriously pissed off with hoof faffing when we got to about the 4th abscess, and we successfully employed this method to dress hoof - and found it also worked really well when vet needed to work on hoof. Vet actually opened the final abscess with horse standing loose in the field, with me at his head with a bowl of fibre nuts. As soon as the hooves stopped being sore, he went straight back to offering feet when asked without need of extra inducements...

ETA - this horse lives out - we don't have a stable. So poultices had to be field proof - I find I get 24 hours out of : hot animalintex applied to hoof, wrapped in vetwrap, then a "raft" of duck tape, reinforced at toe with a few more layers. The "raft" we make up in advance by making a square of pieces of overlapped duck tape, and then a second layer at 90 degrees to the first layer. You take resulting square with you, and then just slap onto sole of vetwrapped hoof and wrap up the hoof, closing with another piece of duck tape to hold around the top, and then snipped with scissors to make sure not too tight around coronary band.
 
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ROMANY 1959 said:
I would get vet to come and sedate, then look at foot, clean and poultice it, and put a hoof boot on for extra protection, sedalin works well for horses who need calming down, but do give it before you even think of touching the foot.. One whiff of what you plan to do will make horse on edge and it won't work so well then.
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I agree with this - sedate, re - poultice foot, put on a decent hoof boot and turn out as movement will help the abcess drain much quicker and the boot will help with protection from infection. Failing not being able to turn out if too muddy/bad weather and worried about losing boot, is the open front barn big enough to keep her and a companion in and fence the front off with a bit of electric tape to keep her enclosed, is it big enough still have a mooch about so she's moving but out of mud so infection can stay at bay?
 
Brightbay said:
WRT the dressings, can you have one person up front with a bucket of pony nuts, and one person doing the dressing. Person in front feeds small handfuls of nuts while the horse is cooperating, and person by the hoof does the cleaning and dressing? My horse was getting seriously pissed off with hoof faffing when we got to about the 4th abscess, and we successfully employed this method to dress hoof - and found it also worked really well when vet needed to work on hoof. Vet actually opened the final abscess with horse standing loose in the field, with me at his head with a bowl of fibre nuts. As soon as the hooves stopped being sore, he went straight back to offering feet when asked without need of extra inducements...
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Second this approach, even hay or haylage can work if you have a nut free zone! Its very hard to train when they're in pain and struggling is horrid for every one involved.

Also there are these to put over the well taped poultice. They have a hoof pad as well if soles are thin for stony areas. I find they stay on really well but haven't deep mud tested them. http://www.equinepodiatrysupplies.co.uk/Boots/Hoof-Wraps-Hoof-Bandage
 
Thanks for all the advice, it is really appreciated.

She is walking a bit better today, and let me stroke her and run my hand down her leg, although she did put her ears back. I didn't go any further than that today.

I have decided to wait until the farrier comes next week, unless she gets worse of course, and see where we go from there. I suspect that while her feet are coming right we may end up with this problem again, so will get in the stuff needed to poultice, and get a sack of feed in to use as a bribe :D Will also look at the supplements that might help.

OH was moaning earlier, saying that for a free horse she is certainly costing a lot money, but that's horses eh! He would have been even more dis-chuffed if she had cost a fortune and was costing money in vets bills too!
 
My horse recently had one for the first time and he needed poulticing daily & injecting with antibiotics. He isn't the most amenable patient so couldn't have done it on my own. Is there someone who could help distract her, twitch ect so you can get it done?
I also kept mine in and bandaged legs but that leg did swell a little. He was fine after a week.
 
OH is very helpful, I hang on to her head while he holds her foot and dresses as he is a bit stronger and hold her foot when she snatches - or most of the time he can. We will try the food thing when I have a poke at it to see how it is going.
 
Well I needed a decent boot to go over the duct tape so my girl can go out with the others (going nuts in on her own). Took days to get hold of equinepodiatrysupplies, after their website malfunctioned when it wouldn't accept I wanted something other than second class postage, then on trying to re-input order refused both my cards for no reason. When they did eventually contact me after I emailed them as I wanted to be certain what was happening re charges to my cards & to place the order, they said they were in an area with poor signal (landlines?), even though they did manage to send an email reply. Explained to them I needed it next day (it was now monday, to arrive tuesday), happy to pay extra for a special guaranteed next day delivery. Fine, nothing today (postman been), after several attempts managed to get tracking number from them (they don't like answering their phone), says it's somewhere in the system but not for delivery today! Rang Royal Mail who confirmed it had only been sent recorded, not guaranteed next day! WTF?? Next time I'll be paying the extra fiver & ordering elsewhere. First impressions are very important, my impression of this one is they don't communicate well! Even if they hadn't got to the post office for hours (I spoke to them monday morning so did have plenty of time), at the very least they could have told me rather than leaving me waiting in all day for a delivery that was never going to come. Have tried to ring them 8 times since I talked to Royal Mail, yet again they are refusing to answer their phone, no reply to my text either.................very poor customer service! Avoid!
 
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