Just a little over three weeks ago my mare April kicked her foot through the shed wall. I have never had this type of injury before on any of my horses so how this all heals is new to me.
We found a chunck of tissue in the shed that was about 2 inches long and 1 inch wide. When the hind foot was lifted the hoof just hung down in the back leaving a gapping hole. The pictures are not the greatest but you can see where is sliced up the back and around the side, going through the cornet band and cracking the hoof all of the way to the toe. April had surgery on her foot the next morning and ended up in a cast that went up high enough to hold her stiches tight. She has nails and staples to hold her hoof together The cast was to stay on for 4-5 weeks
For the first two weeks everything seemed to be doing fairly well. She is on stall rest only to be pulled out once a day for 6-12 steps and she was putting some pressure on her hurt foot. Then last Friday she would barely hop on it so we hauled her into the clinic. The vet took the cast off and found everything looking normal. He thought that her hoof may have shifted a bit (or grew) causing her pain. So he placed some putty in the bottom of her hoof to keep the hoof from shifting and she was casted back up. I left her in the clinc overnight... I wanted to make sure everything was set well before taking her back to the barn.
By Monday she was not walking on her foot again. After the cast was looked over it appeared like there was a bulge in the bottom. We thought that maybe the putty had moved. April's normal vet was out of town so the clinic sent out another vet and he applied a rubber pad on the bottom to take some pressure off from the hoof by the bulge. It seemed to help a lot but my Wed night she was very sore. Her normal vet came back out yesterday and he took the cast back off. I was not there for this (since I was at work) but the BO was there- she told me that where the stiches were there was some dead tissue that was trying to push its way out (body's way of discarding??). So he took the stiches out and removed the tissue. He did not feel like it needed to be stiched back up and then he casted her again (it has been three times now).
I am just hope that this cast can work for her until the 25th of July which is when she will get her bar shoe. Since all of this is new to me... what am I to expect with the healing of this hoof? I know it takes about a year to grow out an entire hoof and I have her on hoof supplements already. I know it has been only three weeks but with all of these set backs it is just really stressful(let alone all of the vet bills). The last picture I have attached is from last Friday. You can see the staples in the hoof and her stiches. I just hope she comes out of this whole ordeal sound.
We found a chunck of tissue in the shed that was about 2 inches long and 1 inch wide. When the hind foot was lifted the hoof just hung down in the back leaving a gapping hole. The pictures are not the greatest but you can see where is sliced up the back and around the side, going through the cornet band and cracking the hoof all of the way to the toe. April had surgery on her foot the next morning and ended up in a cast that went up high enough to hold her stiches tight. She has nails and staples to hold her hoof together The cast was to stay on for 4-5 weeks
For the first two weeks everything seemed to be doing fairly well. She is on stall rest only to be pulled out once a day for 6-12 steps and she was putting some pressure on her hurt foot. Then last Friday she would barely hop on it so we hauled her into the clinic. The vet took the cast off and found everything looking normal. He thought that her hoof may have shifted a bit (or grew) causing her pain. So he placed some putty in the bottom of her hoof to keep the hoof from shifting and she was casted back up. I left her in the clinc overnight... I wanted to make sure everything was set well before taking her back to the barn.
By Monday she was not walking on her foot again. After the cast was looked over it appeared like there was a bulge in the bottom. We thought that maybe the putty had moved. April's normal vet was out of town so the clinic sent out another vet and he applied a rubber pad on the bottom to take some pressure off from the hoof by the bulge. It seemed to help a lot but my Wed night she was very sore. Her normal vet came back out yesterday and he took the cast back off. I was not there for this (since I was at work) but the BO was there- she told me that where the stiches were there was some dead tissue that was trying to push its way out (body's way of discarding??). So he took the stiches out and removed the tissue. He did not feel like it needed to be stiched back up and then he casted her again (it has been three times now).
I am just hope that this cast can work for her until the 25th of July which is when she will get her bar shoe. Since all of this is new to me... what am I to expect with the healing of this hoof? I know it takes about a year to grow out an entire hoof and I have her on hoof supplements already. I know it has been only three weeks but with all of these set backs it is just really stressful(let alone all of the vet bills). The last picture I have attached is from last Friday. You can see the staples in the hoof and her stiches. I just hope she comes out of this whole ordeal sound.