Sore feet

Poor Daisy has sore feet again. She had an abscess which made her quite lame. We, in our ignorance, did not know what it was. When the farrier came it had already come out the coronary band, but the farrier found that she also had a fungal infection in the white line. The white line is what joins the hoof to the internals of the foot and the fungal infection means the hoof seperates - which is obviously not good!

The farrier suggested we scrub the hoof with bleach, but this seems to be a bit of an old school treatment and there is concern that, not only does it kill the fungus, bit it kills the healthy cells in the hoof which then makes it more susceptible to further infections.

So we have been washing them and applying something called hibiscrub which is a anti bacterial, anti fungal, anti loads of stuff thing used by surgeons to scrub in and during operations. We have also been bringing them in for a several hours a day to reduce their intake of sugary spring grass as well as drying out their feet. We also ordered something called 'clear trax' which is meant to deal with the fungus without damaging the hoof. The downside was that EACH FOOT has to be soaked for 45 mins. She was much more cooperative than we expected as she stood with a groovy bag on her foot. We only did the front feet as the back ones are a bit too kicky, and not as bad anyway.