mud fever, and what to do if you've got it.

...this is a mud fever post...

........ a one-stop shop, let's beat it once and for all.

TCJ blog's most popular posts are all the mud fever ones (all year round), and ragwort advice. 

Tom and Henry are of course, in at night still, so they have hours with dry feet, this helps.

*It doesn't just happen in the muddy conditions of winter, Henry had it after a wet summer, as you can clearly see from the photo above. 

*don't be ashamed to ask for help, call your vet, I did, and my vet was brilliant, we couldn't have gotten through it without her help. your vet will give you pain killers and anti-biotics to fight it from the inside, whilst the creams fight it from the outside.

*ignore stupid advice from yard types who think they know everything, it's mostly passed along bad advice, and treatments have changed so significantly in the last few years your vet with have creams most people won't have even heard of.

*be super-vigilant, catch the small scabs and treat them before anything serious occurs.

*mud fever can cause terrible swelling resulting in incapacity, terrible lameness and pain.

*Wash the area thoroughly, use a diluted soloution of water/hibiscrub to pick the scabs completely off.  wear gloves, and disspose of them afterward.

 


*Without rinsing the hibiscrub away, dry the area completely.  The vet advised me to use throw-away blue paper roll to dry it, and not a towel as I had been using.  mud fever is contagious, and you need to be clean, work clean and throw everything away afterwards.

*Once dry, add a light coating of fuciderm cream, again wear gloves for this and throw them away after.  lay a dressing over the area, and hope your horse is as good as Henry here, not tied up, just standing and waiting for me to finish.

*Wrap the whole area in vetwrap, black is the correct colour for the season.  be careful not to make it too tight, your horse will need to move in it.

*Make a neat job, it'll be more comfortable that way.

*Slide the hoof-boot on.

*If your horse, like Henry, had secondary infection which casues the leg to swell, that's what your vet will give you equipalazone for, bandage the leg too.

*Fuciderm cream, it has a picture of a dog on the box, but trust me, it really works.  get it from your vet.

*Hoof-boots, very handy indeed.

*Above, after a week treatment, it's sore, but the vet told me to leave it alone unless a large amount of scabs returned, which they didn't. Henry was on anti-biotoics, bute and fuciderm cream. then after two weeks no cream, no anti-biotics, no bute.

 CHECKLIST:

• check the pasterns ever day, even the smallest scab can be very painful.
• clean the area with lots of water or if you can, stand your horses foot in a bucket of water to soften the scab.
• wear rubber gloves, the sort of thing you see at crime scenes on the telly.  mud fever is contagious, you don't want to spread it from one leg to another, or to another horse either. throw everything away afterwards.
• add a cap-full of pink hibiscrub to a 100 parts water, it's weak, that's what you want. wash the area, use this to help remove the scabs.
•  pick the scabs completely off, be gentle it'll hurt your horse.  be patient with him, he'll be in pain. if the scabs are many CALL THE VET.
• this part is important:  use disposable blue-roll to absolutely and completely dry the area.  you can throw it away. 
• give your horse an hug and a handful of well-deserved treats.
• once dry, put more gloves on and add a little cream from the vet to the area.
• add equipalazone or equibutazone to his dinner, alongside anti-biotics, and breakfast, usually for about three days. that's why calling the vet is important, it'll only last for weeks longer if you don't.
•  then, if your horse is going out, put a clean gauze over the area, with gamgee over that, held in place with vet wrap.
• and use hoof-boots, I promise you, once you get some, there'll be no going back, they're brilliant.  

LESSONS LEARNED:

• CALL THE VET, IT'LL SAVE YOU TIME AND YOUR HORSE PAIN IN THE LONG RUN, the mud fever infection will be treated from within with drugs, and without with cream and barrier methods.

Henry's pastern after three weeks: