Saturday, December 18, 2010

Coriander's frogs

Ugh, I've been sweating bullets over his feet for a few weeks now. At the recommendation of my trimming consultant, I used a specific product to fight thrush in Coriander's feet.

Here are his frogs before I used the product, you can tell that all was not well in Frogsville.

 Here are his frogs about a week after I flipped out about how his frogs had disintegrated and decided to stop using that product. The pictures make his frogs look better than the reality. The flaps next to his heels weren't attached to anything and there was nothing between them, I could stick my whole pinky down the central sulcus. Holy Freaking Crap, what had I done to his feet!

 The last photos are after I started using Pete's Goo a week ago (a mix of antifungal and antibacterial creams). This week has been a little hairy. Once the rutted ground in the pasture froze up, Coriander went DEAD lame. Thank goodness I have the Cavallo boots because he's been living in them since Monday. That is so NOT ideal since I worry about nasty crud breeding the boots but he couldn't get around without them. Fortunately it looks like he's finally getting some frog growth again. I cut out the flaps at his heels since they were doing more harm than good and I think that's made a ton of difference in making him more comfortable. Comfortable enough to leave the boots off today, I'll have to see how he's looking tomorrow, but I've got the boots ready if I need to stick them back on.


I contacted the company this week, basically telling them that their product appears to have destroyed his frogs. Here's the response from the president of the company:

"Thanks for letting us know about your horse.  We would love to see the 
pictures!  I have personally seen and heard of this development many times. 
And believe it or not, it's entirely positive. It sounds like your horse's 
feet were quite diseased.  When the [product] dries out any diseased hoof it 
looks like the frog has been "eaten" away - in actuality, that part was most 
likely mush before you dusted it, once dried out there is nothing there. Now 
that the you have made the area inhospitable to thrush/disease, the new 
healthy frog has a positive environment to grow back.  So, I know it may 
look dramatic, but I believe you're on the right track!"
 
Um, really? A little warning on their website would be nice. I sent them a document today with these pictures. I'll have to wait and see what they say about what happened. I'll decide about revealing the product name until after they've responded to my photos. At this point I don't know if their product really did the trick or if it was the switch to Pete's Goo. All I know was that I didn't see any improvement in frog growth until after the switch.

I'm just super relieved that he seems to be improving!

5 comments:

  1. Holy crap. Very nasty. I am so glad to hear that he is improving. Whew! I can't imagine the worry you must have been experiencing.

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  2. I'll be curious to hear what product it was. I probably need to use something on my gelding's back feet. I've been just cleaning them and relying on our dry weather to try to help dispose of the thrush, but his goes very deep as well. Thankfully he's sound, but still, not good. I hope your boy gets better very soon!!!

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  3. Well Wolfie, I feel like a pretty crappy caretaker of my horses right now.

    The company did get back to me today. They say that according to the first photos he had really awful thrush and so their product is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, it's just that there wasn't much healthy tissue left there to save.

    I'm very thankful that they took the time to respond to me and allay my fears. I've never seen this happen to a hoof before. Hopefully now totally healthy frog can grown back in. Now hopefully some other people can read this and know this can happen too without being taken by surprise.

    Jessie it's called No Thrush, pretty easy to find on Google.

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  4. Shannon - You are a good caretaker! :-) Gwen and Coriander are lucky to have you.

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  5. Thanks, Wolfie. At least I know now, this won't happen again!

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