sooo lame from cracked heals/mud fever?

[Tots N Dots]

Danny has a touch, and it is only a very small area, of mud fever/cracked heals on his white legs, his near side front and hind you wouldnt even notice if I didnt pick his foot up and point it out, and his off side hind really isnt that bad, well I didnt sleep last night and called the vet 1st thing this morning as he wasnt weight bareing on it last night, trotting like a Jack Russell holding his back leg up, I was in a panic thinking at best a foot absess, at worst something broken or dislocated? yes he is that lame! well vet has now been and can find nothing at all wrong, apart from this little patch of mud fever which I have been hibiscrubbing and putting udder ointment on. has anyone elses horse been absolutely hopping lame from a tiny patch? it doesnt even look that sore, it has only appeared in the last week, nothing at all through the winter when it was actually muddy!

[elise]

Could it possibly have been around a lot longer than you noticed? If it got infected and didn't drain it could cause an abcess.

My horse had quite a bit of mud fever and was semi-lame, but nothing that kept him from running in the pasture on his own.

[Tots N Dots]

as I say vet has been today. she has pressure tested his whole foot and heels, there were a couple of black tracks in his foot which disappeared when she followed them, there is no heat what so ever, he is sensitive where this little patch of mud fever/cracked heals is but again no heat and its not infected. I wouldnt class him as a wuss? vet spent a good hour thoroughly checking his leg and foot. but couldnt find anything

[elise]

Very strange. Maybe the skin is just really dry or tight or something? I know when we spray Axel with betadine he hops around on 3 feet, like there's something wrong with the foot we sprayed. Must feel weird or something so he hops. Probably kind of a far fetched idea, if your horse has been lame for a while though :/

Could it be completely unrelated? Like maybe a hip problem or something higher than his actual foot?

[Tots N Dots]

Probably kind of a far fetched idea, if your horse has been lame for a while though :/
Could it be completely unrelated? Like maybe a hip problem or something higher than his actual foot?

thats what i was worried about, Vet says all his leg is fine? I thought it may be a stifle or something but apparently not? I have been chatting to Danny's Physio Lady and if he is no better after the weekend she is coming to check him :o a friend has suggested that the cracked heal may have been very very sore to begin with, and now he may think its going to hurt when it doesnt? he went suddenly lame on it on Sunday I think it was, didnt seem to be weight bareing on it on Tuesday but was yesterday a bit,
he will happily extend his leg out behind him (held by me or vet) or to have it picked right up, the only time he showed any discomfort at all was while she tried to get one tiny particular scab off his heal?
I am at a loss! :(

[freespirit]

my horse has a very mild bit of mud fever at the moment and it is not hot etc, he is not lame **fingers crossed** now i have said that i will go and catch him and find he is lame

i am using hibby scrub

[ponylover88]

Get a tub of fungatrol. Its like vaseline, so it keeps it moist, but its got antifungal stuff in to clear up the mud fever. Bertha gets it this time of year too, and not when its really muddy (shes awkward!) but we just dump aload of fungatrol on her heels. Goes quite quickly - within a week, when used everyday. :D

[Tots N Dots]

have this tub of green goo that the vets make up themselves :eek: , he has had another load of scabs come up on that heal but he is a lot less lame than he was :D so I am actually coming to the conclusion that it must be down to the cracked heals. I think he must have had it before as when he arrived it was a nightmare trying to put boots on his back legs. since the vet has played about with his foot so much yesterday he is being a right grump and very stroppy about me doing anything to it, as soon as OH comes home and can watch the kids I am off with buckets, towels and green goo! if I give him a load of hifi lite then he will stand still, I am going to attempt to tub his foot with the hibiscrub for a good soak then rinse and dry and apply green goo, I am of the opinion I may end up wearing more than him :( :eek: :D
since his origional owner had him from 4 years old till he was 12 you would have thought with him being sensitive on his back legs and it seeming he may have had this before that she would have said something, but hay ho, then he has told me so much more than any previous owner has let on to and he cant talk, at least I would have been ready for it and probably able to prevent this had I known!

[Tots N Dots]

WELL! I was a bit naughty and sought a second opinion :o , I kept saying to a friend that I really didnt think it was mud fever as it didnt look quite right, as he is so so so lame with it. so she said trust your instincts and we phoned someone in the know :D well this person was finishing our sentences as we described the problem, even to it going wild when vet had removed scabs! and on how lame he was and his tendon being puffy and the no heat in his leg thing, the fact that the field has been really muddy over the winter but he had nothing then and now there is no mud he has got it and its only on his white legs at the back :D apparently it is a skin infection but the bacteria is photosensitive so the morning dew off the grass gets on Danny's heals and magnifies the sunlight and makes it worse. a weeks course of antibiotics and it will be gone :D , its something that lives in the soil so I have to keep my eye on Pickle too, but have been checking him anyway. to anyone suffering similar problems it shows up with wet weather and intermittant sunny days like we have been having, it is often mistaken for mud fever. I may be jumping the gun a bit as he hasnt had the antibiotics yet but as she described it to a "T" without us telling her, she laughed as when she came across it she thought the horse in question had broken a leg or something as it was so lame. just the same as I did :D my vet was a bit confused as to why he was so hopping lame with only a touch of mud fever! ummm if its gone after the antibiotics it will just go to prove that its not what you know but who you know. I have taken photos today which I will upload tomorrow when I find my camera lead. :D I am just happy to have got some answers to his severe lameness.

[Yann]

That's brilliant news, thank goodness! :)

[Tots N Dots]

pictures of Danny's foot! its such a small patch I couldnt understand why he was so lame?
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c34/totsndots/Danny%20Shoulder/dfoot3.jpg
the bit up the side had come up straight after all the scabs were pulled off
I should also apologise for thinking that origional owner should have mentioned it as it could be something new to Danny :o but as there does seem to be things about Danny that just dont tie up with what I have been told I think its only natural I would have thought that way :rolleyes: :o

[Jessey]

;) but isn't mud fever just a bacterial skin infection???? sounds like 2 ways of describing the same/similar thing :o

That does look like quite a big area of mud fever, and quite sore. When my guy got it in the autum he wasn't lame (but he doesn't really DO lame) but even as he walked it was tearing open the scabs and bleeding profusely, I think any other horse would have been quite lame, it was on his back 2 feet.

J x

[Tots N Dots]

;) but isn't mud fever just a bacterial skin infection???? sounds like 2 ways of describing the same/similar thing :o
I know what you mean but we have been treateing as mud fever for a week and it just gets worse, apparently this is one that reacts to sunlight? which I hadnt realised till it was mentioned and then I clicked that after a sunny day its worse? its looks more sore than it did as the vet pulled all the scabs off and then it doubled in size the next day. he has been out in a muddy field 24/7 over the winter, I checked his feet at least once a day and there has been nothing they were completely clear untill a week ago and my field hasnt been muddy for quite a while now? so it wasnt due to chapped skin/heals etc the skin was perfectly healthy.

[Jessey]

Hmm, I know what you mean maybe we can call it dew fever ;) funny you say it acctually, Bo had mudfever in the autum just gone (as I already mentioned once :rolleyes: ) and conventional treatment didn't seem to touch it, what baffled me was the fact that Bo used to live in an area known for being terrible for mudfever and never got it, even when he was turned out in clay up to his hocks, now suddenly in around October when its not all that wet (definatly not boggy) and we are on sandy soil (so never any standing water or anything) he gets it, in all it took about 8 weeks to clear up, with vets help and some very expensive silver cream, plus many other wonder cures tried. We never went the antibiotic route, the vet wasn't keen to give it just for 'mudfever'. I have to say that with everything we tried it seemed to ease a bit then come back, until I started feeding for the winter and he was getting his garlic then it cleared within a week.

Another thought, I have seen similar caused by mites, when the horse gets itchy and starts chewing at the fetlock causing sores, that horse was quite lame from it even though it didn't look that bad, might just be another thing to keep an eye on if 'dew fever' doesn't pan out ;)

J x

[teabiscuit]

haven't read all the thread so apologise if i'm repeating anyone-i had a part arab pony with white fetlocks like yours and she got a similar thing in the summer from the pollen

[Tots N Dots]

haven't read all the thread so apologise if i'm repeating anyone-i had a part arab pony with white fetlocks like yours and she got a similar thing in the summer from the pollen Dont worry its the chestnut wonder horse. I tell you what he is gonna live till he is a hundred cause after the last couple of months he has had so much go wrong that he will never be ill in his life again :eek: :D


Another thought, I have seen similar caused by mites, when the horse gets itchy and starts chewing at the fetlock causing sores, that horse was quite lame from it even though it didn't look that bad, might just be another thing to keep an eye on if 'dew fever' doesn't pan out
J x
we went down the mites route in thought, as there has been sheep in the field previously and apparently horses can get some mite thing that doesnt bother the sheep? I think I am the only person in england who has been unhappy its so sunny today :rolleyes: and as predicted by second opinion scabs gone nuts in sun and all up front leg too :eek: but I have the antibiotic cream and he started on the powders now so hopefully! I have been telling him to stand in the shade all day ;) ,
Have to give him his dues, forgot headcollar tonight :eek: I have creamed his legs! fly sprayed him! (which he dislikes:( ) and done goodness knows what else to him, and he stood (glared for fly spray ) for the whole lot! :D I think he knows I am trying to help him as he has changed so much since I got him, its so nice to see a fairly happy boy come out of the obnoxious thing that he was :D (obnoxious is an understatement really, TBH he used to scare me whitless :D )