Wednesday, August 31, 2011

...and it gets worse

At the barn last night, I could see that Limerick was very sore when I led her out her stall. Of course, I freaked, thinking it was her soles. But then a more logical part of me suggested that perhaps those stupid hoof boots were rubbing her raw somewhere.

I took her fly boots, bell boots and hoof boots off. When I took the right hoof boot off, she frantically tried to jerk her hoof out of my hands. After a couple tries I managed to get it off and checked the back of her pastern and heels.

Sure enough, there was a large, raw sore on the back of her pastern. Ouch! Poor girl. My heart sank and I felt terrible...it had been a bad day, week, month, year and this was just the final straw.

There was a sore on the other pastern, too, but not as large. I put a large gob of human antibiotic ointment (the type with pain relieving stuff in it) and some aloe cream on a bandage and tried to wrap that to Lim's pastern with vetrap, but she would have none of it.

She is usually a very good patient so I knew it had to hurt! Which of course, made me feel even worse. I don't remember the last time I cried while tending to a horse wound--in all the years I've had Lim, I can on count on perhaps three fingers the number of times I've cried while tending to her medically, and this includes the daily bandaging of her laminitic hoof after it had been radically resectioned in 2002.

Finally I gave up on the bandages and smeared the ointment directly onto the wounds, gave her a gram of bute and put her back in her stall. I also decided that, at least for today, she should stay in from turnout.

(But as I was writing the last line, my barn owner emailed me to ask if she could do anything...and after some thought, I asked if she could let Limerick out onto the pasture with the others at 1pm. I figure that two hours of turnout on the grass will do her far more good than harm).

As for what to do next...I don't know. I could try wrapping her pasterns with vetrap then applying those boots again, but whether I can do that or not depends on the wound. We'll see tonight.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As bad as it might be for her feet, I would leave the hoof boots off until the wound heels, otherwise you can make a really bad sore that can develope into a big problem. I have done vetwrap/duct tape 'boots' before, less harsh on the skin, but don't offer as much support obviously.

There is a really great shoe we had on a horse in virginia, it was lightweight but coated with something, can't remember the name of the shoe but wow! it was a wider shoe as well, but it was not a glue on.

Personally (outside of aluminum race plates for the racers, obviously) I like hot shoes the best. I might just love the smell though, lol!

I hope she feels better.

Heidi E. Carpenter said...

Wise words Christine, I was thinking it would be pretty bad if that wound got worse. It's in such a tricky spot...better to let her be a little tenderfooted for a couple weeks(she will take care of herself and not gallop about like a fool) than deal with a potential infection.

Thank you :-)