Maggots in Frog!!

Wooleysmum

Wooleysmum

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God, I nearly had a heart attack tonight! Wooley has maggots crawling about his frog, and deep into the clefts too. Called out the vet who cleaned it and applied some stuff. So so horrible. I check his feet daily. has anyone else had such a ghastly thing? I paniced. He had lami 2 years ago and you can never be too careful with feet.
 
Gosh i have never heard of maggots in horses feet,only in sheep,know how you feel with the being very warey of feet,mine is lammi prone too.
At least the vet has been out pronto and cleaned them up,hope they are ok,am sure they will be with you on top of the situation now
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Hi
I'm sure I have heard of really bad cases of foot rot in horses being treated with maggots years ago?
Off to search internet

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Read an article about this.

Sterile maggots being used to beat canker.

Was in a magazine called HorseHealth. Sadly your common n' garden variety maggots aren't sterile...
 
Shire X at yard gets maggots in his frog all the time in the summer. Owner used to flush them out with Hydrogen Peroxide, but now treats with Iodine & Eucalyptus Oil. Pretty gross though.
 
It sounds vile but they are eating the dead tissue so actually do a very good job in the same way that fly strike on a wound can be beneficial even if its not 'acceptable'.
 
Don't worry, someone I know had this happen to their horse who was at the time undergoing treatment for under-run sole, and when I mentioned it to my vet (it had seemed improbable to me she hadn't realised they were there) he said they can literally appear overnight.
In this weather flies are everywhere, and provided you get rid of them I expect they have actually done some good, as they eat the bad bits!
Don't beat yourself up, it happens and the person I'm talking about was scrupulous about checking her mare's feet every day without fail.
 
Don't panic! There is horse in our yard who has them every summer! The vets advice is ( Warmsleys from Liphook) Spray Frontline flea spray on them! This topic has been done before and it has nothing to do with dirty bedding or bad husbandry! Scrubbing feet with a weak peroxide soloution also works. As long as the maggots are coming out the foot it is ok!
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Don't unduly worry about maggots (as everyone else has said!), but ask your farrier to trim the dead tissue back on his next visit. You can then routinely disinfect the frog - I use a concentrated virkon paste once every couple of weeks or so. The maggots get there as bacteria and fungi (the same that cause white line disease) have thrived in the deep clefts (the central and lateral sulci) and killed off parts of the frog, providing a nice feast for fly larvae. Disinfecting will therefore also have the nice effect of producing a fat, healthy frog and you can come obsessed with feet, just like me!!
 
oh yeah..seen it loads of times. Get some 3% hydrogen peroxide from the chemist and a plastic syringe and squirt it down between the bulbs of his heels. Keeps the little wrigglers at bay!
 
I would wash his feet out with iodine from chemist for two weeks, and pick out his feet at least once a day for the next few weeks (why not ask your yard friends if they could help you and if they have 5 min to pick his feet for you while they are there)... With poo around or wet shavings and the heat we have had I think this is becoming more common,,, if you do as above I am sure there will be no problem, esp as weather is changing, if they are still there in a week (alive) I would call vet again as may need to shave the frog down....

dont worry these things happen...
 
Maggots are quite often used in medicine to heal what we call sloughy wounds, they will only eat bad stuff and leave behind good healthy tissue.

I had a tramp come into my A&E dept once, many years ago and he had a filthy bandage on his leg, I cut the bandage down and opened it up to be met by thousands of maggot's, not sure who was more shocked......the patient, me or the maggots... the wound that had once been covered had disappeared and the leg was incredibly healthy, the maggot's had done a super job on the leg ulcer
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had it lotts- my advice is wash daily in jays fluid as this kills maggots and works as fly repellent tooo!!!!!! Good luck, try not to panic- its not as bad as it seems!!
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