Help! My mare has a really bad abcess and I can’t bear to see her in any more pain. It has been three days and she is non weight bearing on her left front. I have had it poulticed under vet wrap for two days and it still hasn’t burst. This afternoon I am going to soak it in warm water with epsom salts.
Are there any other suggestions, please help…
Help! My mare has a really bad abcess and I can’t bear to see her in any more pain. It has been three days and she is non weight bearing on her left front. I have had it poulticed under vet wrap for two days and it still hasn’t burst. This afternoon I am going to soak it in warm water with epsom salts.
Are there any other suggestions, please help…
If the infection spreads to the cartilage (yes it happens - is called quittor or collateral cartilage infection) then you will be looking at surgery since there is so little blood flow there that systemic infections will not clear it up
Also, infection can spread to the bones - once it gets there the %s for recovery are very low
Willow - please get your vet or farrier out to look at it. They may need to dig out the abcess so that it will drain. This has happened to my horse - he could barely stand - as soon as my vet dug a hole in his hoof and drained the abcess he was much improved.
Just wanted to let you all know that the vet has been called!He will be out tommorow morning.
I just couldn’t stand the thought of something like this turning into surgery, etc. I have been at the office all day and I can’t stop thinking about my poor mare. I put her out today in a small paddock with lots of hay and she isn’t moving around on it she just needs some fresh air.
The weather has gone from dead of winter to a spring like week and I can’t bear to see her stare out her window at all of her friends.
All I can say is YOU GUYS ARE GREAT! Thanks for all of your suggestions and warnings. Hopefully all will be well tommorow am. 
It is horrible to have to watch them be inthat kind of pain. If you haven’t had the vet, I too would highly recommend it.
My horse had the same issue, I panicked and hauled him three hours to a vet in CA. I thought he had damaged a suspensory. Was throwing his front leg up in the air and grimmacing with the pain. Vet did a block, pulled the shoe, and found the site, drained it and a few weeks of layup he was good as new.
If you can’t see the exact site, you can soak in warm water and Epsom salts for about 30 minutes then pack the hoof cavity with Ichthamol, nasty smelling goop. Cover it with gauze or cotton and totally vet wrap and duck tape it. You can leave this wrap on for a couple of days, then do over. It is meant to draw the pressure from the hoof area.
I have also done this on two other occasions, different hoof, with the same horse. Soundness returned, but the next shoeing the farrier could see a bruised, blackened area when he pared the sole. It just never manifested to a draining abcess.
Hang in there, and do all you can for the horse.
THE ABCESS BLEW ON SATURDAY!
yaaaaaaay!
It blew through the coronet band. I am so happy and so is the horse!!!
You really need to get to soaking it. Hot water, just so you can stick your finger in it. Don’t let the water touch the back of his heels though at first. Pour enough Epsoms in so that they start to not dissolve. If you are using one of the shallow black feed tubs, with the right level of water, that should be about 3/4 of a carton of salts. Soak until the water is getting cold. Keep the foot clean. This will help draw the abcess out. Pack it with icthammol, then gauze, then a piece of cardboard cut to fit his foot, then a duct tape “bootie”, and then vetrap if you need more protection. No turnout until she’s walking better - she might strain something trying to keep weight off her foot. Your vet or farrier can pare her sole down to try to drain the abcess. If/when it does pop, you’ll need to keep it cleaned out, squirted with diluted betadine, and the some caustic powder on top of that, and keep it covered. Hopefully her abcess will heal itself quicker than the one I’m working on!
That is the good news…now the bad news all that hand walking and layup. 
Don’t make my mistake and NOT adjust feed accordingly. I left my horse on his ration of beet pulp while layed up, thinking what a good time to get him fattened up. He was pretty thin. WRONG. He ended up tie-ing up big time when I brought him back to work. Well duh, sugar in beets, lactic acid in muscles. Grrr.
Lesson well learned.
Good luck and glad to hear you are on the mend. 
cut a hole in the abscess so it will drain. The pain is from the pressure of the abscess on the foot. If you have some bute, two will help the pain and reduce the inflammation. I give mine penicillin as well for the infection, but I always have the shoer come out and open it up to let it drain. It’s probably from a stone bruise and if she has alot of them, you should consult your shoer about pads. I just had the new plastic stuff put on my flat-footed abscesser, and he won’t be getting any more stone bruises. He had pads on, but kept throwing the shoes. The new plastic stuff will cover the sole and can be shaped just like a shoe. I haven’t worked him yet in it, but he turns out fine and runs around with great traction. I think the stuff used was called Equi-Thane(sp?). You might look into it for your mare. Stephi
I agree with the others… Have your vet out to take a look at her.
How do you know it’s an abcess? The reason I ask is that my horse came up three legged lame two weeks ago.
I had my vet out and she suspected an abcess. There was no heat or swelling or anything. She removed his pad and shoe and probed around but couldn’t find anything. He was negative to hoof testers. We took a bunch of x-rays and it turns out he has an avulsion of the navicular bone (a small piece of the navicular bone has broken off of the main bone but is still attached to the tendon that runs under the navicular bone).
My horse is on thirty days stall rest, hand walking, isoxuprene, and is wearing an egg bar shoe for added support while he heals.
Don’t mean to scare you or anything… Just wanted to share my experience.
If it is indeed an abcess, soaking in epsom salts twice daily and poulticing with Icthamol is the only remedy, as far as I know.
I know ABOUT abcesses, but HOW do horses get them?
They can get a abscess from a puncture wound in the frog or sole of the foot. A “close” nail, a nail that touches the sensitive, blood vessel filled lamine of the hoof, which causes an infection. A bruise usually causes not enough hemorrhaging to cause the extreme pain of a hoof abscess. This is one of the most painful conditions a horse can have. We don’t like to see our “Fur” children in so much pain.
THANK YOU all so much!
You guys have been a great help.
Here is an update.
She is still on three legs. I soaked her foot for about 30 mins last night. I packed her foot with iccthamol, put a piece of feedbag on her sole then wrapped her foot in a baby diaper (they are great) and then vetwrap. She is on bute 2x a day but is still in pain.
I have owned horses my whole life and never had one with an abcess-EVER! The same mare has fractured her knee and badly fractured her ankle last year and I have never seen her in so much pain. I am giving her until Friday to call the vet because I have a horse going for surgery in trwo weeks and financially I don’t want a vet bill if I can take care of it myself.
Once again thank you all for taking time out of your day to help me!
BTW, “fur children”-----ROTFLMAO!
Willow, I don’t want to be an alarmist, but it might not be such a good idea to wait too long for the vet to come out. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, that infection can move upwards, not downwards. Here’s where I get a little foggy because I have never had this happen to me, but, I believe that it can get into the coronary band and cause serious havoc.
Feeling strapped for money is not fun, but if that should happen, you would probably be in for a great deal more expense.
I always call the vet at the first sign of an abcess, and I have one who used to get them quite frequently until I finally put her into shoes for the summer (she’s a lawn ornament, with nice hard feet, but the expense of the shoes was less than the expense and time involved healing the adcess). Most times he has been able to locate the abcess and drain it, before it got too bad.
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