Do you think Betadine will be enough?

Clarissa · Do you think Betadine will be enough?

We are back to wet winters I think. This Autumn we have had lots of rain with more forecast for every week to come.

I was doing Jude's feet this afternoon & noticed a black line beside her frog on 1 front foot. That doesn't happen very often so because the ground is so wet I decided I should run the knife along the collateral groove to clean it out. I don't usually trim the frogs unless they are tatty.

The line went deeper & deeper right back under the bar into the heel! I did eventually scoop it all out but I got into pink sole & there was a tiny bit of weaping. I checked all her other feet & had to use the looped knife to trim along the frog on all feet but not as much as the one front.

Then I decided I should check Sonny's 'cos it's 2wks since his were trimmed. I brushed his feet clean & he too had dark lines (along what would normally be collateral groove ifhe had any) beside his frogs where new sole seems to have been pushing hard against the frog. I slid the knife along the side of the frog & it felt spongy so I went carefully.

Then the knife just fell into soft material scooping a big hole & a gusher of blood poured out!

I can't repeat the gush of swear words that came from me

He hasn't shown any lameness although yesterday he did seem 'off' during an impromptu group liberty play session with my other horses. I tidied around the soft spot & the blood kept flowing dark red. I checked all other feet & same dark grooves all round to a lesser extent but thankfully no more blood!

I have never had fungal probelm before but with the wet this year it looks like I'll learn about fungus!

I shouldn't be surprised really because he never had any infection in his sheath until he came here & swam in the dams. Now it's an ongoing battle to keep that area cleaned up

With the day turning rapidly to dark, I wondered what I should do. All I had was betadine which is my fix-all basically. Will that be enough on Sonny's gusher? I put his boots on both front feet after swabbing the soles with betadine. I know the boots will eventually get wet inside as the night wears on when he walks in the wet grass & drinks from the dam but all I wanted was for the hole to have a chance to seal up before it got filled with soil & junk. I also swabbed Jude's feet too, but no boots for her.

There is no chance of any form of dry-lotting or keeping them out of the 3 dams as all dams have wet soggy areas both leading into & out of them. Not muddy, just wet sodden grass with spongy soil that they crop closely, spending most of each day moving from 1 dam to the other. There are no internal fences here. I can bring them up into the house yard during the day but they get up to too much mischief at night in here! Still the ground in the house yard is soggy too, so no chance of any type of dry standing.

So whatever treatment I do will have to be done to their feet which I know is not the best solution.

We are expecting quite cold weather coming overnight for several days which might be a saving grace actually to kill the fingus but there will be rain with it later in the week.

I do have some of that bluestone stuff that Pat Coleby prescribes to feed to horses for copper deficiency (I can't understand why anyone would feed toilet cleaner/proud flesh killer to a horse !

are they wanting to clean out the horse's guts too?

)

I digress....

But it might be the right thing to paint onto the soles of Jude & Sonny's feet to kill the fungus. There is a recipe for that somewhere that is made with vasoline. However I thought the best way to kill fugal infections was to allow the air into the area & maybe use some peroxide. I can buy peroxide tomorrow.

What do you all think?

PasoBaby_CarolU

I don't think you'll hurt anything with the betadine and it will kill most infections. I've had good luck with a phenol solution I bought. I think if I lived in a wet area I'd haul in tons of road base and make a raised mound that drains off one side or both so the horses have a dry, clean spot to stand. Definitely where their shelter and feed is, so they'd spend most of their time there.

bit

I think it was Pete Remy? My barefoot trimmer also recommended the same thing, and it works really well. 1/2 athletes foot creme, and 1/2 neosporine. Mix it, put it in a syrange (no needle) and apply on the foot. It works great, and quickly. Are you concerned about that open foot getting muddy? It sounds like an abscess, right? Should he be out of the mud, duct taped and diapered until his foot can close up?
Big debate for me. Bunny had a few abscesses, but once they blew, I never used the duct tape diaper thing. With Gunner, (his foot was opened at K State and there was a two inch canal from the sole traveling up along the cannon bone) I had to keep it clean forever. He's getting a vet tec sole gaurd tomorrow, so he can return to the pasture. He needs two to three more weeks of protection.
Hope your rain stops and you get a chance to dry out, Clarrisa. Ya'll had quite the rain last year, if I recall. Flooding, right?

Clarissa

Thanks for the tips Carol & Bit. Phenol is no longer available in Australia unfortunately.

I was thrilled this morning when I let the horses back into the houseyard to find Sonny's feet almost totally dry inside his boots. The boots have pads inside which makes them quite a firm fit & obviously kept the water out when he went for a drink at the dam. The boots were covered with yellow clay so he had been for a drink.

His soles were quite clean & dry even with a slight yellow tinge so I swabbed more betadine on & let him go barefoot because the grass & soil were quite dry this morning. There has been a cold front come through bringing strong dry winds. What a difference 24hrs has made.

I was able to take some photos this afternoon & was able to see that the gusher came from his frog, not his sole! I don't know if that is a good or bad thing really.

Here are some photos I took this afternoon firstly of Sonny's foot that bled, then Jude's where I had to dig out the black line of fungal infection following it along the collateral groove & way in under the bar on that side, removing most of the bar. Then one of Cassie's front feet which is a bit eroded with fungus too.

I think they will all heal up now that the weather is drying up.

Newfman

At least you are consistent.