Here is a product I recently added to my arsenal to help horses in Wisky's condition fight to get their painfree hooves back. It's a great softening agent that makes trimming easier and it pads their frogs. It's simply pine tar and iodine and the texture is like thick, gummy, dough.
So Wisky wore the Soft Ride Comfort Boots for about 2 weeks. I like that you can leave those boots on for an extended period without worry of rubbing, normally, as long as the boot is not small for the hoof.
Then for a few days I just filled her hoof with the Hawthorne Sole Pack and let her go bare. I've stopped the bute for a few days to see where her pain level is and it seemed to be about at 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. She will walk over gravel for hay, but thinks twice about walking over gravel for water.
Here are a couple quick videos that I took of Wisky after she had been barefoot for a few days and soles packed with Sole Pack. I took these after I had just cleaned the Sole Pack out of her hooves. The pain meds had also left her system by this time. I spend lots of time evaluating her with and without pain meds, with and without boots and this is the worst she's been since arriving.
Again, this was just after I clean the Sole Pack from her hooves. Before, she was walking on the gravel, although painfully. Here she was considering taking a few steps toward the water, but just could not do it. The length of these videos was a long as I left her in this situation. Which I mention only so you know I'm not into watching horses suffer. I just need to gauge where horses are as far as pain level to determine if they are improving or going backwards.
I'm trying something different!
After these videos were taken, I repacked her hoof with Sole Guard, and put the Easycare Inc., Glove Boots on her. A boot that doesn't have as much padding, but she can navigate in without the weight of the Soft rides. The Sole Pack not only cushioning the bottoms of her feet, it is a healing agent. And I believe I can leave these boots on for extended periods. She was still walking gingerly afterwards, but she was walking.
She is also standing more square in this situation than she has before.
Wisky frogs were rotted and thrushy when I removed her plastic shoes, and this sole pack has helped. The problem with the Vettec CS (Copper Sulfate) that is generally used to pack the natural balance shoes that we see on many of these horses in her condition is that the Vettec CS literally rots the frog and surrounding sole. At least, that's what I see when I pull those shoes. The frog turned to a powdery residue that flakes off exposing the inner frog. So I don't believe Copper Sulphate is the answer to thrush.
So today, I cleaned and re-packed her hooves and put a pair of size 2 Easycare Gloves on her, her pain level seemed to drop to about a 4. She's pretty happy. These lightweight boots which help her move a bit more normally.
I'll see where she's at tomorrow with them and will be watching closely for rubbing. She is starting on her second month here. I have only a four more weeks to determine if there is any chance we can pull her out of the future.
Her owner lives too far away for me to travel to, but I found a competent trimmer in her area to take over her care.
I checked her hinds today also and she has sloughed a good deal of sole which has left her walls and bars high.
When I look at Wisky, I wonder if she is older than her owner thinks she is. He said she's always been a thin horse, but when you look under her tail, she is sunken, like horses that have been extremely underfed.
Her teeth need to be floated. But spending hundreds on a horse that may not make it, is something that must be condidered. If it appears that we can pull her through this, then I would highly recommend a dental. On the flip side, it would be less of a challenge to get her through this situation if her teeth were working properly.
She seems to be eating well for now. So the dental is a consideration we'll just have to put on the back burner until we can make a better determination regarding her future.
Stay tuned for the results.
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