99 Problems...and Thrush is One

I've been getting quite excited with the progress that Maxwell's disgusting summer sore has made over the last month. I've got to take a picture of it this evening so I can finally do the post about the whole ordeal. I've been waiting to have an 'after' picture. Those suckers take forever to heal.

Anyhow... I've got quite a predicament in the same foot as the summer sore now. Ugly nasty deep sulcus thrush. It also appears that he's got it along the grooves of his frog as well. I'd like to pretend that he didn't have thrush and it just popped up randomly late last week, but I'd probably be lying. Anyhow, he's got quite deep grooves around the frog on this foot, and it seems I probably wasn't aware of the thrush until it was exacerbated by my constant need to wrap above below and around the hoof, including the sulcus, in order to protect and help heal the summer sore, which is smack dab right on the coronet band.

Okay, so the frog is a wreck, the sulcus is deep and getting deeper, and I nearly fainted when the smell of that 'death' came floating out into my nose. I cried a little for my guy when I stuck the pick in the sulcus and he had some choice head movements to make, to let me know how it hurt.

The foot was kind of dirty here, but focus your eyes on the crack between his heel bulbs, and how deep it goes, and how it extends...this was almost hoof pick deep and very tender. There are also a couple holes in his frog. Agh!!

So the next adventure is going to be the treatment of this nasty case of thrush. I'll be soaking his footie tonight and begin some intense treatment on it. The farrier suggested Thrush Buster, but I wasn't able to get any at my local Tractor Supply, which never has anything in stock, so I opted for No Thrush which is a powder. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet, but I've heard good things. My heart broke for my poor baby when I came out and cleaned out the foot and saw he had been standing in urine soaked bedding. This is something that they often do when it itches and hurts, because the ammonia in the urine soothes it. This also does NOT help the thrush, obviously.


OH Baby Max....


In other news.....stay tuned for a special post coming up soon. It's absolutely amazing, to the point of giving me chills, the way that things come round full circle.

Maxwell's auntie Summer got us a very special surprise which means the absolute world to both of us. Here it is:

A beautiful & hard to come by Cavalor pad personalized with Baby Maxwell's name!

For those of you who don't know, or haven't read past posts, Summer is the wonderful woman who dedicates her life to caring for OTTBs and helping make connections with horses and owners to find their forever homes. She pulled Max off the track and only had him for a short 30 days before I came along and scooped him up! She also now owns the wonder pony that was once mine, Bella.