04/09/2018
Dusty -vs- Concrete Nail:
On March 26th, I found one of our two horses, Dusty suddenly, completely lame on his left rear leg! I immediately pulled up his hoof to inspect it and was horrified to find 2 inches, of a 3 inch long concrete nail protruding from the rear (plantar cushion) of his frog (the underside the hoof)! I was able to remove it, using a lot of force!
Bill and I immediately gave him a Tetnus booster, injectible Pennicillin, Bute (an Equine pain reliver, thanks to Donna Brissette who had some!) then, Bill Teri-Savage and I hosed off and soaked his hoof in a warm bath with antibacterial/ disinfectant for 15 minutes, sq**rting a few syringes full of the disinfectant directly in the nail hole, then bandaged his entire hoof with thick gauze soaked in Iodine, covered with duct tape!
I continued antibiotics and Bute twice daily for a week. Along with 2 or 3 times daily foot soaks and re-wrapping Dusty's hoof! Then, as luck would have it, 🍀 only 2 days after Dusty's injury, my husband/my Veterinary Technician, Bill had to leave on a planned trip to North Carolina to visit family!
Needless to say, working on Dusty's hoof for about 2 hours everyday, was painful, back breaking labor for both Dusty and myself! Made worse and more frustrating each day by his growing, unwillingness to simply stand still and cooperate! When a 1200 pound animal decides he is DONE with his foot soak... he is ALL DONE! As the days passed, he also decided that he would ONLY cooperate and hold his leg up for treatments and bandaging, for a specific, predetermined (by himself) amount of time! There were many days that he could be seen dragging about 6 inches of duct tape, making it obvious that the previous bandaging took me exactly 0.2 seconds too long than he was willing to give me! Dusty also became rather good at "cheeking" his oral medication slurry that I would have to stand on my tiptoes and sq**rt in the back of his mouth twice a day! Even when I tried my best to disguise it with applesauce and honey! He would pretend to swallow it, then wait for me to look away, and simply open his mouth and let it all just drain out!
You might be wondering why I would have to stand on my tiptoes, sometimes even on a bucket, (and Im 6 feet tall!) to give him his antibiotics and Bute... Seeing as the easiest way to do all of this, is to have the horse on cross ties or simply tied up and restrained, so he can't lift his head out of reach or simply "limp" away from the person! Well, that's because on day #3.5 Dusty also decided that he will NO LONGER simply be quietly, walking behind me, on ANY lead ropes! Well, guess what? When you are by yourself and your 1200 lb horse decides that he is suddenly, absolutely NOT going to take another single, step forward... EVEN if you try to bribe him with grain, treats, carrots and apples... You have to THEN... change all plans, and shamefully, admit defeat, by carrying all of your supplies to HIM, wherever in the pasture he has decided to be!! Then, pray that a bucket of grain will be enough, to keep him from hobbling away from you and your pile of supplies!
I get it... he was in alot of pain! He was barely even "toe touching" (worse than a "limp" basically doing his best to get around on just 3 legs!) on that leg and he knew that I just wanted to "mess with" his painful hoof! But, boy did that make everything SO much harder for me! Twice a day, it would take me atleast 3 trips, to bring all of my supplies, including a bucket of warm water/disinfectant that was half emptied, all over my jeans and inside my boots, by the time I got it to him!! The skin on my fingers were dyed a nice blue color, for 2 weeks, since he certainly was NOT about to give me the time needed, after each hoof soak and before each bandaging... to put gloves on, before soaking gauze in Iodine!!
It was absolutly heartbreaking to see how terribly lame, this big, beautiful horse was for TWO FULL WEEKS!!! Thankfully, he did lay down a lot, otherwise I would have had to be very worried about his "good", right rear leg taking on much more weight than it is meant to! As lame as he was for 2 weeks.... he STILL didn't miss a single meal (even if I did have to bring his grain bucket TO him a few times) and, thankfully he never developed an increase in body temperature, and never had a "warm to the touch" frog, hoof or ankle! I DO know just how LUCKY we are!! SO many horses do NOT have a good outcome from a nail in their frog (underside of hoof)!! Many times it is absolutly a death sentence for a horse!!
Well, now that Dusty is almost, completly sound again... I do kind of wish I had taken a video to show how painful and lame he was... but, I never did! Anyway, without a "before" video to share... Here is Dusty's "after a very scary, frustrating, heartbreaking, 2 weeks", video that I took this morning! 😁❤
P. S.
Since this incident, we have gone thru the entire pasture and barn with 2 two foot long powerful magnets, searching for any more nails or anything metallic! We did find 1 more nail and some small pieces of metal. Which wasnt too suprising, since 100 years ago, our property was cow farms with rock walls and barb wire! Starting now, this magnet scanning will atleast become a yearly ritual! I saw another great idea, which is to screw these 2 long magnets to the rear, bottom of our tractor and simply drive around, always picking up metal!!
I have also learned that Veterinarians actually recomend leaving the nail IN the frog! This way they can take an xray before removing it, to see exactly where it went and how deep it was! But, since we are over an hour drive for Tufts Equine Ambulatory Vets to get here and it happened very late at night... There was no way I could have left the nail there, without causing more harm!
