Saturday, April 11, 2009

Riley's hoof: An update

If you read my previous posts, you may have caught a reference to Riley's hoof abscess -- a mystery abscess. Riley was 3 legged lame on March 5, and over the course of weeks he progressively improved to his current state of "totally sound by all appearances." The mystery was, the abscess never seemed to pop. Well, the farrier was out recently and when he trimmed Riley, look what we found...




Riley's hoof from .


Since then I've been trying different methods of keeping the foot clean. The farrier gave me a product for dairy cows for mastitis, and I'm borrowing different boots/socks to see what works best. Hopefully it'll grow out quickly!


4 comments:

  1. Wow..that is something I have never seen...quite the cracky splitty spot!
    Yea...we are just poulticing our abcess and wrapping it up gause-vet-dct then the sock with more duct over the top for it to stay.
    Good luck, and it'll grow fast now with spring!

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  2. A couple of items to pad with are baby diapers or sanitary pads. If you have access to linoleum floor samples or artist's printing linoleum you can cut protective shields from them to put on before the padding. Easy Boots work well but are expensive. Good luck, you have my heartfelt sympathies, but at least now it's open and can begin to heal!

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  3. My youngster was lame for some two months years ago with a hidden abcess. My vet and shoer were together one day, after xrays to consult on special shoeing when suddenly I heard, "Wow! Look at that?" Sure enough, they finally found the abscess.

    Duct tape is an absolute. But his walking and moving will help too because that will increase the blood flow and help that hoof grow. One of my boys ended up with a metal patch screwed into the hoof to hold the crack together after it had been all cleaned out.

    Glad you found it. Riley will be feeling so much better now.

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  4. Years ago with my old TB we used baby diapers and duct tape to help heal a stone bruise. Of course they probably have more professional bandages now!

    Hope he feels 100% soon. I bet he's feeling better already.

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