Dr. Silverhoof's Schedule

It's day five of our soaking/wrapping adventure, and I am ready to tear my hair out. I officially hate hoof abscesses with a passion and wish that they would go the way of the dodo.

But, in the meantime, I've been doing my best to help Royal heal and ensure this crap doesn't happen again. Since I've given up on soaking him in the arena, he's been mostly good. It probably helped that I filled a big drink thermos with warm water from home (the barn doesn't have warm water) and used that for soaking. Royal still isn't too keen on the idea, but he's a lot more willing to tolerate it.

Of course, standing there for 20 minutes is Very Very Boring. I tried getting some hay and feeding it to him during the soaks, but he didn't want to eat it. Probably because there is grass all around us and he would much rather eat that. I don't want to let him do that since he would move his hoof and defeat the purpose of soaking. So, my solution is to feed him mints and/or carrots periodically to keep him happy. I also indulge his licking habit. Royal likes to lick stuff. I don't know why, and he licks everything (me, gloves, coats, gates, fence posts, fans). He gets free access to mineral blocks and a full serving of balanced grain every day, so he probably doesn't have any deficiencies. It's just a "Royal thing".

After he's taken his hoof out at least twice, it's been around 15 minutes. I then put some sugerdine on his hoof, put a diaper or poultice pad on the hoof, wrap it in imitation Vetrap, then duct tape. And Dr. Silverhoof comes back.

On Saturday, it was creme.

There is a glimmer of hope. Yesterday, I took off the wrap to find it all gooey and smelly. There was also a hole in the coronet band, pretty much directly above where we found the original abscess. The edges of the hole were soft, but he didn't seem bothered by me pushing on them or putting sugerdine on the hole. Today, the wrap was mostly dry with a little wet spot at the hole. And the imitation Vetrap was purple. Since tomorrow is July 4, I wanted to do a sort of patriotic theme, but couldn't find any Vetrap like that. So I decided to go with light purple, since that is red, white, and blue all mixed together.

Hoping we're on the road to recovery.