Living out with an abcess

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flirtygerty

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Farrier found an abcess on my lad and after digging a little hole, suggested a poultice, this was done, but horse lives out 24/7 and I have nowhere to bring him in to, it's been impossible to tell if anything has come out because of the mud, he keeps losing the poultice in the mud as well, I've kept it as clean as possible, but the edges of the hole have gone soft.
Farrier is coming back out to check, but just wondered how others manage, thank god the fields are drying up
 
My horse had an abcess a couple of weeks ago, farrier dug a small exit hole in her sole and after the initial poulticing, I chucked her back out in the field. I do wash out the hole with salt water and seal it with sudocreme, but so far, she's been fine. She does road work to stimulate the foot but I think the mud has not been a problem as the hole is very small. Keeping her on box rest drives her mad, so its a compromise.
I have ordered this;http://www.viovet.co.uk/Net-Tex_Hoof_Puncture_Plus_for_Horses/c7492/ but its taking ages to arrive.
 
Same as the others, poultice, cotton wool, nappy, vetrap and duct tape. A plastic bag (feed bag type or heavy duty bag) helps as well when wet. I find that my horse wears the whole thing at the toe though so I use a hoof boot too (equiboot is ok as long as my horse doesn't get crazy in the field). Once the abscess has drained and it is clean you can put some Keratex hoof putty to plug the hole. You then just need to check everyday it is still there and add more if needed. Good luck, abscesses are a pain!
 
He's in a nappy with gaffer tape inside his cavello simple boot, he squelched back to the house today, the boot was full of mud and the nappy had loosened, now his heels are white and soggy, which is why I didn't put his foot in a plastic bag, I will tomorrow, at the very least it will stop the boot getting full of mud.
Thanks for your replies
 
If you make the poultice as small/neat as possible it is less likely to get full of mud. My farrier showed me a brill way. Cut piece of poultice to hoof size, put a breast pad (for those who don't know, you'll find them in the mother/baby section in shops) on top, bit of vet wrap then silage tape on top. Quick easy and effective. Hope he makes full recoevry soon.
 
Thanks Falconer, I don't explain myself properly, I use an unfolded nappie which fits his hoof perfectly, then an open nappy as a boot, gaffer tape the bottom and up the hoof wall, then his cavello simple goes on as tight as I can get it, but the boot gapes at the top, allowing mud in, I will look into the breast pads, they sound like likely liners for his boots
 
I think it is quite possible for a horse to live out with an abcess and actually can be better as the movement will get the circulation going.
But its keeoing the area clean and dry and keeping the poultice on thats the problem!

Could you fence of the mud?
Or wrap so amny layer bandage, it just cany come off?!
 
MerrySherryRider said:
My horse had an abcess a couple of weeks ago, farrier dug a small exit hole in her sole and after the initial poulticing, I chucked her back out in the field. I do wash out the hole with salt water and seal it with sudocreme, but so far, she's been fine. She does road work to stimulate the foot but I think the mud has not been a problem as the hole is very small. Keeping her on box rest drives her mad, so its a compromise.
I have ordered this;http://www.viovet.co.uk/Net-Tex_Hoof_Puncture_Plus_for_Horses/c7492/ but its taking ages to arrive.
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salt water is very good but I would be wary of sudocreme. It will trap any remaining infection and stop the abcess draining.
 
Try this - makes a really great poultice boot and keeps everything out. Stays on well and takes a good few days to knock through the inner tube


Poulticeboot.jpg
 
I am having to cover my horses foot while out at the moment, I use a nappy cover with duct tape, then wrap a whole hi fi feed bag over the bottom of the hoof as much as possible the duct tape the whole hoof, she is out for about 3 to 4 hours like this and it stays clean and she has a shoe on.
 
Mine lives out and I have always just left them to it wash with salt water and return never had an issue yet. Movement keeps things coming out.
 
maccachic said:
Mine lives out and I have always just left them to it wash with salt water and return never had an issue yet. Movement keeps things coming out.
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Sometimes this can really prolong the abscess especially if the source is quite deep.

They are really best poulticed and kept covered until completely healed or farrier can fit a leather sole and seal with Stockholm Tar
 
Tnavas said:
Sometimes this can really prolong the abscess especially if the source is quite deep.

They are really best poulticed and kept covered until completely healed or farrier can fit a leather sole and seal with Stockholm Tar
Click to expand...

Not in my experience have you factual evidence that a poultice actually works at drawing out an abscess from what I have read if water cannot pass thru a hoof how is a poultice going to work.? I find they pop at the top and the horse is walking normally after that happens. Normally a day or two after the pull up uneven. Mine are BF shoes may make a difference but I don't recall any problems back when I used to shoe apart from when a farrier went digging and horse was always lame for a lot longer.
 
maccachic said:
Not in my experience have you factual evidence that a poultice actually works at drawing out an abscess from what I have read if water cannot pass thru a hoof how is a poultice going to work.? I find they pop at the top and the horse is walking normally after that happens. Normally a day or two after the pull up uneven. Mine are BF shoes may make a difference but I don't recall any problems back when I used to shoe apart from when a farrier went digging and horse was always lame for a lot longer.
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I had a brilliant article on my ipad and inadvertently deleted the link! The gist of the article, written by a vet was that - It is dangerous to let an abscess run its course and especially to allow it to pop out of the top. The reason being that it can meander wherever it likes and possibly end up along the bone. Here it can eat into the bone causing bone necrosis, more lameness with the possible end result - the horse has to be destroyed. I have seen a couple go this way. I lost my first bred foal from septic arthritis - she was kicked in the hock, got a puncture wound that infected and got into the bone despite massive doses of antibiotics - eventually after five months of battling she had to be destroyed.

Of course hooves absorb water - otherwise how would you explain that in dry weather they become rock hard and soft in wet weather! Wet weather is the worst time for hooves as the walls become soft and grit and other foreign objects can easily penetrate.

Poulticing softens the hoof and pus will usually travel through the line of least resistance and if the farrier has got the right spot will ultimately drain from the hole.

I had one mare that developed an abscess while turned out in the winter - never even noticed that she was lame. She came in for her trim and the whole sole came away - the abscess had under run the whole sole.
 
If you use vet wrap under the gafer tape you can tape all the way to the pastern and it's more likely to stay on. Of course you don't want to gafer tape directly onto the horse's leg as it will hurt to take off but use the vet wrap first to cover the hoof, coronary band and keep going until the narrow bit of the pastern that will naturally keep it in place. Then cover the whole thing in gaffer tape.
 
Tnavas said:
I

Of course hooves absorb water - otherwise how would you explain that in dry weather they become rock hard and soft in wet weather! Wet weather is the worst time for hooves as the walls become soft and grit and other foreign objects can easily penetrate.
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Hoof Dressings: What Studies Show
By: Marcia King
Originally Printed in: The Horse (Article #3840)

Just as there is a permeability barrier controlling passage of water and water-soluble materials into and out of the skin, so there is one in the hoof horn. To study this aspect of the hoof wall, Kempson used water-soluble tracers visible with both light microscopes and electron microscopes. "The tracers are small molecules that travel with the water into the horn," she explains. "If the water can get into the horn, then it could also get out! The water could either travel between the cells or through the horn cells, or a combination of both."

She took full-thickness blocks of horn from dorsal walls, soles, and frogs of feet obtained post-mortem. She compared good-quality horn with poor-quality horn (i.e., horn with cracks).

"In feet with good-quality horn, there was virtually no penetration of the tracers and water through the outer pigmented layer of the dorsal wall," Kempson found. "There was some penetration through the inner non-pigmented layer of the wall both through the intercellular spaces (between cells) and through the cells. This indicated differences in the permeability barrier between the inner and outer layers of the wall. In a normal hoof, the inner layer is not exposed to the environment and is therefore unlikely to lose or absorb water through this horn. There was more penetration of the tracer through the sole horn and even more through the frog horn, but this was still only limited to a few cell layers--five to eight cell layers in the sole, and 12-18 cell layers in the frog, which is less than one millimeter."

Her findings regarding poor-quality horn were quite different. In these walls, the water and tracer penetrated deep into the pigmented layer and spread through the intercellular spaces and into the non-pigmented horn.

As part of the study, Kempson also examined how environmental conditions could affect hoof wall integrity. "Having spent several years studying the effects of nutrition on the hoof capsule, it became clear that the environment was also having an influence on the integrity of the horn," she explains. Therefore, Kempson looked at the effects of feces, urine, hoof dressings, heat, cold, and water--the various elements to which horses' hooves could be exposed.

For two weeks, blocks of wall, sole, and frog were either left in the test solutions, heated to 98.6°F (37°C), chilled to 39.2°F (4°C), or left in water. Afterward, they were exposed to the water-soluble tracers.

"The results were surprising," Kempson says. "Heat, cold, and water had no effect on the permeability barrier. The sole and frog horn left in feces for two weeks disintegrated, and poor-quality wall horn was also badly affected. Good-quality wall horn was only marginally changed. Urine alone had little effect, but combining urine and feces had the same results as feces alone.

"My conclusion is that the horn has a built-in permeability barrier," she says. "As long as the horse has a well-balanced diet so that he can produce good-quality horn, leave the hoof horn to look after itself."
 
maccachic said:
Hoof Dressings: What Studies Show
By: Marcia King
Originally Printed in: The Horse (Article #3840)

Just as there is a permeability barrier controlling passage of water and water-soluble materials into and out of the skin, so there is one in the hoof horn. To study this aspect of the hoof wall, Kempson used water-soluble tracers visible with both light microscopes and electron microscopes. "The tracers are small molecules that travel with the water into the horn," she explains. "If the water can get into the horn, then it could also get out! The water could either travel between the cells or through the horn cells, or a combination of both."

She took full-thickness blocks of horn from dorsal walls, soles, and frogs of feet obtained post-mortem. She compared good-quality horn with poor-quality horn (i.e., horn with cracks).

"In feet with good-quality horn, there was virtually no penetration of the tracers and water through the outer pigmented layer of the dorsal wall," Kempson found. "There was some penetration through the inner non-pigmented layer of the wall both through the intercellular spaces (between cells) and through the cells. This indicated differences in the permeability barrier between the inner and outer layers of the wall. In a normal hoof, the inner layer is not exposed to the environment and is therefore unlikely to lose or absorb water through this horn. There was more penetration of the tracer through the sole horn and even more through the frog horn, but this was still only limited to a few cell layers--five to eight cell layers in the sole, and 12-18 cell layers in the frog, which is less than one millimeter."

Her findings regarding poor-quality horn were quite different. In these walls, the water and tracer penetrated deep into the pigmented layer and spread through the intercellular spaces and into the non-pigmented horn.

As part of the study, Kempson also examined how environmental conditions could affect hoof wall integrity. "Having spent several years studying the effects of nutrition on the hoof capsule, it became clear that the environment was also having an influence on the integrity of the horn," she explains. Therefore, Kempson looked at the effects of feces, urine, hoof dressings, heat, cold, and water--the various elements to which horses' hooves could be exposed.

For two weeks, blocks of wall, sole, and frog were either left in the test solutions, heated to 98.6°F (37°C), chilled to 39.2°F (4°C), or left in water. Afterward, they were exposed to the water-soluble tracers.

"The results were surprising," Kempson says. "Heat, cold, and water had no effect on the permeability barrier. The sole and frog horn left in feces for two weeks disintegrated, and poor-quality wall horn was also badly affected. Good-quality wall horn was only marginally changed. Urine alone had little effect, but combining urine and feces had the same results as feces alone.

"My conclusion is that the horn has a built-in permeability barrier," she says. "As long as the horse has a well-balanced diet so that he can produce good-quality horn, leave the hoof horn to look after itself."
Click to expand...

So how would she explain why in hot dry weather that we currently have hooves are absolutely rock hard. And after the storm we are expecting has hit feet will be incredibly soft and you'll be able to remove several layers of wet soft horn from the sole of the foot.

Are we saying that the majority of horses have crap feet?

Mine certainly doesn't yet hers are currently extrememly hard. I soak them before the farrier comes so that he is actually able to trim them to the right length.

Its far easier to trim wet feet than dry feet.
 
flertygerty, mine live out 24/7 and always have - stabling is just not common in NZ. Have healed several absceses without any issues at all. Mud is used as a poultice in many cultures !
 
Tnavas said:
So how would she explain why in hot dry weather that we currently have hooves are absolutely rock hard. And after the storm we are expecting has hit feet will be incredibly soft and you'll be able to remove several layers of wet soft horn from the sole of the foot.

Are we saying that the majority of horses have crap feet?

Mine certainly doesn't yet hers are currently extrememly hard. I soak them before the farrier comes so that he is actually able to trim them to the right length.

Its far easier to trim wet feet than dry feet.
Click to expand...

I didn't do the research, suggest questions are directed to Kempson.

Majority prob do have crap feet esp from what I have seen.
 
I would be directed by your farrier, I trust mine completely. Sometimes he tells me to leave well alone and turf them out, sometimes kepp poulticed. But yes n answer to your question, you can clear up an abscess if your horse lives out, though you may have to pack and spray once the infection has gone. Good luck, my farrier has said he has seen a lot more abscesses this year, not surprising really, including one of mine!
 
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