Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Good / Bad News

Thrush - pretty severe - in her right front club foot.  Because of the club, Riva has a deep crevice in her frog that I have to clean out every time I pick out her feet.  I also put Thrush Buster in it about every 2 weeks - per our farrier's advice.  Seems that the putty that the farrier packed her hoof with, before he put the full pad under her shoe, did not keep everything out and she has a bad case of thrush in that crevice.

My sweet husband met our farrier this morning at our barn - in the pouring rain...got roped in to helping bring horses in from the pasture, etc.  So husband said Riva was flying around the indoor arena with the other mares, having a grand time, acting as if her foot has never hurt her.  Gotta love em.

Farrier arrives and starts checking her left front first to see her pain reaction with the hoof tester.  Goes to the right front and can't get a pain reaction from her anywhere.  Starts checking her shoulders and legs - still nothing.  Farrier had husband put her on the lounge - soon as he got her in trot, she started the head bobbing - downward motion every time her right front hit the ground.  Even the BO said 'see, it is the right front'.

Farrier starts poking again and finally found the problem when he pulled on a loose piece of her frog that was partially covering that crevice.  Then Riva flinched.  Farrier starting cutting into the cervice and found the culprit - nasty thrush.  He said it was not to the blood level yet - but if it would have went a couple of more days, could have abcessed.

He cleaned out the cervice, put some stronger mixture of Thrush Buster in it, and shoved a cotton ball into the crevice.  Said to Bute her keep her in the rest of the day.  No problem there - with the storms today, all the horses were kept in the remainer of the day.

Now we are to clean it out every night this week, put Thrush Buster in and a cotton ball.  Can also give her Bute once a day.  Farrier said if she is not 100% sound on the foot by Thursday night, that he will come out again on Friday.  We leave for the show Friday evening and he believes she will be fine by then.  But if not, he will put a medicated pad on that foot, under her shoe, that has a pain reliever in it.  Trouble with the pad is he said it will only last one or two days.

I got her out tonight to lounge and see how she is doing.  She was not as lame on it tonight as she was last night, but still is hurting her.  So we doctored her up, groomed her, and put her back to bed with hay, treats, and hugs and kisses from me :)

2 comments:

Achieve1dream said...

Poor Riva! That's what scares me about pads. I just don't like not having the frog exposed to the air. One suggestion I'll make that helped me out a lot with thrush is salt water. Put a quarter to half a cup of salt in a spray bottle, fill with water, shake it up and spray it on the bottoms of all of her hooves. Make sure to clean it well first and then spray really good in the grooves. Be careful though because it might sting. This works great for drying out the thrush and killing it. It also works great as a preventative (hence using it on the other hooves too). Once you do that you can put the thrush buster (I think it's okay to use together might ask since I'm not familiar with that product) in. The salt water really helps to finish cleaning it out and drying all of the yuckies out. Please keep us updated. I hope she's better in time for the show. Good luck!

Kelly said...

Thank you for the recommendation! We did soak her foot in epsom salt water before putting in the thrush buster last night. She HATES putting her foot in the bucket - so I have to stay squatted down, holding her knee flat and holding the bucket - fun!