White lightning and glue on composites

[fivestrideline]

I’m concerned my horse has WLD, or the beginnings of it. This popped up rather recently (it’s been SOPPING wet out, and he was in boots), but I carved out as much as I felt comfortable, hit the areas a bit with the torch, and just put him in glue ons.

I know that using white lightning on a metal shod horse can rust the shoes but doesn’t necessarily hurt the horse - but if I were to get some, would I need to take the shoes off? Would it degrade the glue or something?

I’m quite concerned… but I’ve had two farriers look at him and they seemed to shrug it off.

One of the feet, before I did some light carving that didn’t get it all:

[fivestrideline]

FWIW - two vets also saw him and did X-rays/hoof testers with no comments or concerns.

[barnesthenoble]

I’ve never done WL/Oxine (which is much cheaper and just as effective IME, you get a ton of it: https://www.healthyhoof.com/articles/Thrush/ThrushRevisited.html Scroll about halfway down the page for instructions) with glue ons on. I’m not sure if it would harm the glue bond–I would think it might, but I suppose there’s only one way to find out. Though if my choices are between having to re-glue a bit early or letting WLD fester, I’d probably take my chances and just give it a shot.

If I pull shoes off a horse and find funk, or want to glue but am concerned about funkiness, I’ll keep them in boots for a few days first and do a daily ~30 min Oxine soak. For really bad ones I’ll do 3 or 4 soaks, for ones that are just a bit gross I’ll do 1 or 2. I try not to glue until 24hrs after the last soak because I don’t want it to affect the glue bond. It’s possible that’s just superstition, I’m honestly not sure.

Then when I go to glue, I do a quick pass of a torch and I smear as much Artimud or medicated hoof wax as possible in any funky spots. You can roll a ball of product into a noodle type shape and then shove it into the white line using a finger or a hoof pick. I’ve had good luck clearing it up this way.

Did you apply any antifungal/antibacterial product underneath the glue ons?

[fivestrideline]

Just packing. Nothing else. I did run the torch over the spots and applied some iodine before doing anything else.

I think in our case, the boots are the reason the foot got funky. They were seriously holding a ton of moisture and I’m not 100% confident he was getting them taken off every day.

Anyway, I can get some artimud! I imagine he will need a trim and reset soon so I can White Lightning him and do the mud pack under the regular packing. I was working with what I had on hand

[barnesthenoble]

Boots definitely hold a lot of funk! I fight way more with gunk in my booted horses than I do when I have glue on them or even when they’re totally bare. The moisture + dirt + poo + heat just creates a gnarly bacterial/fungal soup in there.

The torch plus iodine should help a bit, may even fix it! Then adding the artimud will help with any further treatment and prevention of general gunk. I smear it all over the frog and collateral grooves, and on any funky spots in the sole/heels/wall.

Totally hear you about using what you have on hand! Sometimes you just have to improvise!

[fivestrideline]

@barnesthenoble

The torch plus iodine should help a bit,

Thanks for the encouragement

Funny how horses will find the one or two things you haven’t dealt with yet and go THAT’S WHAT I’LL DO! So fun.

[barnesthenoble]

@fivestrideline

Funny how horses will find the one or two things you haven’t dealt with yet and go THAT’S WHAT I’LL DO! So fun.

It’s just the BEST! Currently gearing up to try a full direct-glue with casting package on the problem child, something I’ve avoided doing because of the expense and having to set the glue non-weightbearing…so if we decide we object to having our foot held up that long, there goes $30 worth of glue and $15 worth of DIM and a $20 shoe But he hasn’t liked anything else, he hated what I put on Sunday, and he’s not loving the Clouds either…sigh.

Horses!