I dug the hole to stand her in while I hose her feet. It was hard. The ground is very hard right now. I started with the tractor and finished with a shovel and pickaxe, with my son's enthusiastic help. :)
She didn't like standing in the hole, and she especially didn't like being hosed off while in the hole, but she did it with only one false start.
The water slowed to a trickle and I realized there was something wrong up at the cistern. That's where I had the opportunity to make a new friend. He's very cute, but my phone refused to focus on him.
Due to the lack of water, we did the ice water routine again tonight. I think I'll alternate ice water and hose/mud treatment.
She's such a good girl, standing in her ice water for 20 minutes while I sit and read. I do have to put a foot back in now and then. It's like it gets to cold for comfort and she carefully lifts her foot out.
You can see the most recently broken open hives in the above picture, next to the halter on her face. Those are the ones that are still bumpy.My Wonder Mud was less than wonderful. It didn't stay packed in there long. So I now have a dilemma. Duct tape pads on, therefore trapping heat, or let her be in her soft footing and with the water treatment she'll have mud in there some of the time. Or I could buy bedding and keep her penned in a smaller area, but movement and circulation is important too. So many options! What would you do to support her coffin bone? Shoeing her isn't one of the options.
5 comments:
She looks like she stands very well in the tubs. I'm no expert on these things at all - wish I had some advice to offer but I don't.
I have no clue how to help the poor dear, but what a wonderful patient she is! And lucky, I might add, to have you in her life. Remember when she tore your trailer apart when you brought her home? Sheesh...so many would have given up on her by now. You're a good man, Charlie Brown!
She is wonderfully well behaved for all this.
I don't think I have it in me to give up when there's so much to be done to help.
Tracey, how dare you say this sweet mare could tear up a trailer! She's an angel! :) (She did paw all the way home from the adoption. Bang, bang, bang... And up until recently she'd still rock the trailer, trying to get her head over the divider so she could get some reassurance from the horse next to her. Silly girl.)
The first thing one of the farriers up here does with laminitic horses is to tape blue board insulation to their feet. She cuts a piece about an inch bigger around than the hoof and uses duct tape to secure it. Don't know how it would work with all four feet.
AKPonyGirl - There are some really good instructions for the blue foam pads here: http://www.hopeforsoundness.com/techsupport/instguides/styrofoamguide.htm
He sells his own special foam now, but when the article first came out he used the foam you're talking about, that we can all buy locally.
I was thinking of padding Bella up like this, but opted to just go with the Easyboot Comfort Pads since they made her comfortable.
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