Farriers and feminine absorbent pads heal abscess.

All is well if you call a hole in the bottom of your foot and you are a horse.

We had our farrier (Lincoln Todd) out on Monday to trim both Fiona and Megan's hooves and find the problem with Megan.  Lincoln got Fiona all trimmed up and looking pretty good but only after a small fight with her feet.  I have not put as much work into Fiona as I wanted or should have and it has been about a month since I picked up her feet.

Megan on the other hand was a little more challenging at first.  I caught her and worked with her just a bit, although with her pain I was cautious about how much I worked with her.   Lincoln grabbed her front left hoof and started trimming away and did some pressure tests on the hoof where amazingly enough, he found a abscess in the hoof just like a local trainer told me it would be.

Once he found the abscess location he dug out some of the hoof and was able to get some drainage, then he dug out a tiny bit more and the abscess let go.  "Yaay, no more pressure" is what Megan was saying at that point.  It was time to trim up the rest of the feet so he went to the back left, she wouldn't stand still.  At that point I had to tell Lincoln, "Let me work her feet for a few minutes" and I did just that.  Foreward, backwards, yield her hind end left, then right and the front end left and right finally getting her to listen, calm down and drop her head so we could work her hind feet.

Lincoln went to her left hind foot and she moved away again, so I worked her again.  I remembered, she does not like her rump to be petted as you are getting ready to pick up her feet, bypass her rump and go right down the leg and lift the hoof.  She knows you are there and will lift every time.

We were on a roll, she picked up all four feet and got all trimmed up for the first time since April when we got her. No telling when the last time she had all four hooves trimmed or had shoes on.
 

Megan now has a hole in her foot we had to do something right away to keep it clean, clear of mud, sticks and horse poop.  It was now the perfect time to get a boot so we could have her foot soaking in Epsom Salt water and draw out the poison in the abscessed hoof.



We got the boot and mixed up some saltwater, that was the easy part and the hard part was soon to come.  Putting the boot on was more than I expected and at one point it put me in a position of questionable safety, That was not fun at all!!  She was flipping her foot in the air kicking off the boot once, then finally stopped. I got the boot back on and she was much calmer but not completely liking this huge chunk of rubber on her foot.  I got Megan calmed down again and was able to pour saltwater into the boot and without her freaking out and sloshing out all the water.  We have done this over three days now and it is time to dry out the boot and hoof.

After doing research on the web, calling trainers, farriers and the local horse people, everyone said they used diapers to draw out the moisture. Well, I know diapers are expensive and there will be a lot of waste in cutting down the diaper to fit her foot. I did some thinking and went to the local drug store (Bi-Mart) and asked one of the pharmacists about using a feminine absorbent pad for something like this. She felt sorry for the horse but was very understanding and helpful finding the correct product to draw moisture out of the open hoof.  I stuffed 3 absorbent pads  (with sticky backs) into the bottom of the soaking boot and wrapped the top with two more. There will not be any moisture, dirt or sticks floating around in that boot!!

Tomorrow we add iodine to the mix and will be done with it in a few more days once the hoof closes up.