Home made poultice for foot abscesses?

I have made a paste of epsom salts and a little water painted over the hoof area affected and then wrapped it all up in a nappy and duct tape.It worked really well!
 
A quick easy way to apply the duck tape is to cut a strip of duck tape a couple of inches or so bigger than the hoof diameter, stick it on a wooden surface or your jodhs (somewhere that it can be peeled off from easily), and keep adding overlapping strips, probably four or five or so, until there is enough to cover the sole.

Then apply that on top of whatever you choose as a poultice (some people just use a nappy with hot water applied to it), and you only have to tape around the strips and up the sides of the hoof.

If you carry on using animalintex, I find it a little cheaper to use the rectangles of it rather than the hoof shaped ones.

Sarah
 
Very Heath Robinson Here!

If not using Animalintex then I use either very hot bran with Epsom salts or Kaolin.
The bran one is inside a carrier bag with a small bandage to keep in place, then the whole thing is put inside a corner of a sack with a stable bandage on top.
The kaolin one is smeared all over a piece of paper (preferably strong wrapping paper although greaseproof will do the job too) then the same bandages as before.
If the horse needs to go out, I will use an old plastic feed bag doubled over and bandaged in place or duct tape if I have any. Very rare to lose one in the field yet and once you get into the hang of doing them they don't take as long as I did to write this!
 
One of the top two vet hospitals here recommends Epsom salts and glycerene (spelling?). You make a paste of it and hold it in place with gamgee or nappies and grey tape, very cost effective compared with ready made ones and really 'draws' an abscess.
 
Pearl barley and vinegar, is what my French blacksmith advised.
Me using a New born size baby nappy was a new on on him though!!
Ditto grey tape and a plastic bag on top, which is what I will be using tomorrow.
 
Have used brown bread before too, it is very effective and less hassle than bran, plus you can toast what you don't use and you can get it in hoof sized portions! Bit of cheap cotton wool from boots and some silage tape or even parcel tape and off you go!
 
I've used epsom salts (magnesium sulphate) both as a poultice and also for hot tubbing before applying the poultice. You can get it from old fashioned gardening stores in a 5kg box for less than a little pot costs from the chemist.
 
Very Heath Robinson Here!

If not using Animalintex then I use either very hot bran with Epsom salts or Kaolin.
The bran one is inside a carrier bag with a small bandage to keep in place, then the whole thing is put inside a corner of a sack with a stable bandage on top.
The kaolin one is smeared all over a piece of paper (preferably strong wrapping paper although greaseproof will do the job too) then the same bandages as before.
If the horse needs to go out, I will use an old plastic feed bag doubled over and bandaged in place or duct tape if I have any. Very rare to lose one in the field yet and once you get into the hang of doing them they don't take as long as I did to write this!

I was going to say this as well.
 
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