Beautiful weather here and my poor horse has been in her stall for weeks with this foot abscess. Its all drained and she’s totally sound. I want to turn her out but its muddy and wet. How do people treat the hole in the bottom of the foot once the abscess is all drained. I saw a youtube saying put copper sulfate into hole and close up with cotton, but the hole is so small I can’t get any cotton in it. And I sure don’t want to make the hole any bigger, right? If you are saying to wrap it, how much longer does it have to be wrapped? ( I am sure using a lot of gorilla tape at $l5/roll!!!) Also read to put hoof putty in it, but don’t know if that will stay in either. Thank you in advance for your input.
What caused the hole? Did the vet cut the sole open to drain it?
IME, if the abscess drains without surgical intervention, with just soaking and poultice, it seeps out the frog commissures or blows out the heel (or coronet, which is not so great) and the hole is invisible and basically self-sealing. That’s why I would be very cautious about letting a vet open up the sole to drain, because the healing time is so long. And movement is great as soon as the horse can walk, it helps the abscess work its way out. I’ve never had an abscess take longer than a week to resolve once it’s drained into the poultice and I have the horse out in turnout and handwalking as soon as she is no longer three legged lame.
When you say hole, and say that it’s been weeks, is the hole actually leading to open flesh? I would think by this point, there would be a layer of sole grown down so that even if you still have a chip out of the sole, it isn’t an open hole leading to sensitive tissues. In that case you don’t need to worry.
Otherwise, what about a bit of clean hoof packing clay?
^Agree with the above; if it’s just a typical abscess drain, I’d just turn out. But they do make an epsom salt paste that my farrier used once to protect an abscess hole from debris. He wasn’t trying to keep it sterile, but just keep it from getting sand, etc. in there. Or packing clay should do it.
I would assume that a hole too small to hold any cotton means it’s too shallow, so isn’t about exposed tissue, but please correct if that’s not the case.
I’d still want to protect it. To that end I’d put a little Wonder Dust/Caustic Powder in the hole, gauze on top of that. use 2 strips of Gorilla tape to make an X over it, to come up over the foot from the quarters forward, wrap that with vetwrap, lay another layer of Gorilla tape around the edge of the foot, and put that in a boot.
As said, the goal isn’t really cleanliness at this point (unless the hole is exposed tissue), but more protection from anything pointy, and the WD/CP to help keep it dry and drying out/hardening off.
If it’s been a few weeks, the horse will be fine. An enclosed boot will ease your mind if you feel like buying one.
If not draining he’ll be fine. I leave it open and squirt iodine in hole once a day. No wrap no hoof boot. There’s times i never wrapped just turned out and abscess popped without anything being done. For the abscesses my horses have had i have only ever wrapped 2 times. Most of the time i just kick them out to pasture and let nature take its course.
Do you have a pic of the hole? After weeks it should be closed. If it’s still open to soft tissue I’d be suspect and have it looked at. If it’s just a depression, that’s a different matter and any of the afore mentioned methods would work.
