As many of you know, I have a long history with some pretty interesting hoof abscesses. In fact, if you search abscess on my page, you get 32 results. Now 33. Yikes!
Last week, just before my two week anniversary since Ernie joined the family, I started trotting in the ring only to find my trusty steed gimpy. I had ridden him two days before and he was just fine.
I put him on the lunge line and watched him go, deciding on right front as the likely culprit. For the first time in a long time I was wrong on the leg though, as it turned out to be a left rear issue.
The next day when I went out to the barn to check on Ernie, I picked his feet and found quite an amazing phenomenon – the frog crater.
This crater was creepy huge. I could fit my thumb in it!
I trotted him around in hand in the parking lot and he looked almost normal so clearly we had our culprit. That frog had been getting weirdly shaped and I’d wondered about it, but in all my years I’ve never had an abscess come out in this area and of course he wasn’t lame when I first noticed it. I’ve been trying to think of how long it had looked weird, and it has to have been at least a week and probably more!
On Monday when the farrier came I had him take a look. He was impressed, and trimmed up the frog for me which makes it look better but also makes it clear where the abscess came out. The farrier didn’t think I needed to soak or anything and could just work on hardening up the area so that makes things easier.
So we are back in action! Whew!
WOW. Now THAT is an abccess crater. Yowza. Glad he seems recovered and you can get back to it!
Wow, I haven’t seen that before and I’ve seen a lot!
Oh wow! Poor Ernie! Glad it resolved pretty quickly!