He got up for some breakfast and walked across the field for it, gingerly. I took him and Harley back into the sand arena. I tried to get him to eat his medicine-laced feed, but he wouldn't touch it. For fear that he could lose too much weight, I just gave him breakfast without the meds and he gobbled it down. This afternoon, I fed him low sugar/high in fat mash mixture with his pergolide in it and he ate most of that. Then I had to leave for work.
This evening he was in a lot of pain. I gave him some oats with the usually assortment of stuff: MSM, rice bran, etc., but this time I added APF. Advanced Protection Formula which can be purchased from some Equine websites and the Parelli’s recommend it.
So I got my tools out and went to work on him again. I came to this conclusion. If I don't do something drastic to help him, he's going to die. So I can't afford to be cautious at this point. I've just got to go for it. So I stood looking at the bottom of his MOST painful hoof, the front left, and thought back to a presentation I’d attended by a Swedish practitioner and I did what he recommended. The results were astounding! I took all his weight off his hoofwall completely. Then additional sole material just turned loose and I came into some old abscess material that had been harbored in his stacked up hoof for years probably.
I was able to actually bring the heel down more than we have ever so far! I'm so pleased! However, he wouldn't let me do anything more to the other hooves. The left front is now more painful than ever I’m assuming. But it had to be done. So I have to wait and work on him again this weekend. I’ll be out of town tomorrow.
I did a little hoofwall trimming on his right front and cleaned his hinds. I soaked all fours as you can see in the photo in epsom salts and surgical scrub. Next time, I will use Borax in the water.Without the bute he's tender on all 4 feet, so the assumption is he has foundered in all fours. And that's likely a true statement, but something else is going on in his hinds. As I mentioned before, there is thrush around his frogs, but I didn’t realize (because of the bute) just how bad his case of thrush is. His frogs are super tender and he even tries to kick me when I'm cleaning around the frogs and hit super sensitive areas. So the pain in his hinds is likely curable, good news there.I think he was amused by having his feet soaked, but he liked it. I cleaned all of his hooves really well, sprayed with iodine and stuffed with ichthammol ointment. I can't wait see if we get some pain-free hind feet that he can use to transfer some of the weight off his fronts.The last thing I did was mix a double dose of bute into some applesauce and into a syringe and got that down him. He should have a comfortable night anyway. And if anything I did will relief some of his pain, I'll be so happy. Another note: He is shedding. So the pergolide must be kicking in too!Okay, so I'm pretty excited. This weekend if he can't allow me do work on his hooves further, we have a horse sling that we're going to use to lift him off his feet so he doesn't have to bear weight on the other 3 and I can get some work done without getting mad at him. He's such a good boy and if you get mad at him he looks at you, like "Well, just what the hell would you like me to do? My friggin’ feet hurt and I'm doing the best I can..." So I can't get mad at him. I think he knows I'm trying to help him and he does the best he can. What a nice boy he is. I really want to save him. Sniff.
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