Unlimited access >

Recovery time for a close nail?

What are people’s experiences with recovery time for a close nail? Horse was shod Thursday morning. I wasn’t there but barn manager didn’t notice any lameness when she turned her out. Thursday evening horse was clearly lame at trot, and occasional off step at walk. Clear heat/pulse in the foot (right front). Farrier came back out Friday early afternoon and removed and reset shoe. He said there was one nail that was “tight” and may have been the problem. Horse was much improved Friday evening, pulse and heat in foot much reduced, but still off at trot. As of Tuesday afternoon, horse is better, but still slightly off at trot. Farrier says that since she seems to be improving, it probably isn’t abscessing and just to give it a few more days. Horse has pads in front, and farrier put them back on when he reset the shoe so there is no real way to poultice the foot. Is this normal recovery time for a close nail? Or is it likely that there probably is an abscess and that’s why she’s still off?

I’d suspect an abscess after this long. I’ve only dealt with a close nail one time, but she was back to sound within 48 hours. She didn’t have pads at the time, though, and I did a Sugardine pack for those 48 hours.

1 Like

I am not used to the lameness associated with an abscess being described as slightly off.

It might be time to call the farrier back and have them take a look at what is going on.

1 Like

Yeah, that is more the timeline that I was expecting, although more based on intuition than past experience. It just seems if you remove the source of irritation and there’s nothing else going on, a couple of days to recover seems reasonable. However she is generally a bit sensitive on her front feet (hence the pads) so maybe that’s why it’s taking her a little longer?

Farrier saw her today while he was out shoeing other horses. He watched her jog and felt for heat/pulse and maybe used the hoof testers (although they’re not super useful with pads). I think it was watching her trot that made him think there wasn’t an abscess and she was just still a little sore.

I was out this evening. Previous report was from barn manager who said she looked the same today as yesterday. I actually thought she was much improved. She looked fine in a straight line on soft ground and only very slightly off on the concrete barn aisle. So I am feeling a bit more optimistic.

I’m just super frustrated because we had scheduled our first XC schooling this week after a long time battling hind end lameness and I was really looking forward to the outing. But that’s just the way things have been going this past year.

My lease mare has very sensitive feet, especially the front. The one time she had a close nail, she was sore for about 4 - 5 days after and then it pretty rapidly cleared up. There was definitely immediate improvement when her farrier came out and corrected it, but she was visibly off and slowly improved in a little under a week. I would consider her on the very extreme end, and we love her very patient farrier lol.

If it went on longer than that I’d definitely have him back out just to ensure the nail placement didn’t cause secondary issues like an abscess.

Sorry about your XC outing, I am very much in the same boat as you right now. Here’s hoping for a fun summer.

1 Like

Thanks - sounds like this is closer to my girl’s timeline. Keeping my fingers crossed that she keeps improving over the next few days.

Thanks! I’m trying to remember that it’s just the start of the season, but after such a hard year (horse wise and everything else) it’s hard to take another setback. Best of luck for your summer also!

I experienced this for the first time (after 25 years in horses) a couple months ago. Farrier drove a new type of nail a little too high and my horse instantly reacted and didnt want to put his foot down. Farrier knew what happened and removed it immediately and squirted disinfectant into the nail tract. Relocated that nail and left the shoe on since we knew where the issue was and it had been corrected. Horse was quite lame for 3 days on all surfaces, was on NSAIDs for about a week, and was finally sound on pavement fully, at about 2 weeks, maybe a little less. For the first week, I soaked the whole hoof in epsom salts (even though he was shod and had a pad), just in case it could pull any infection from that outer wall hole that remained. Better safe than sorry. Not sure if it actually helped, but it made me feel like I was doing something. I squirted Betadine into the hole after soaking.

Disclaimer–I have a 1400 lb. extremely sensitive horse, so I fully expect that his reaction to this was probably a bit more extreme than it would have been for other horses. He is a drama queen with any discomfort! lol

Everything I read online (I feel like I read the internet) said they should be fine in a couple days. Not my case.

1 Like

Just to update, horse finally trotted sound on a hard surface on Friday (so a full week after shoe was reset). I was off camping over the weekend so she got a few extra days off, but was sound when I rode her for some light WTC Monday evening. XC schooling rescheduled in two weeks - we’ll see what she manages to do to herself before then. Lol.

3 Likes