Wellll Solomon's feet are mushy again. That didn't take long. He has three rows of mats but the back of his paddock is gravel and dirt, which is now mud because he uses it as a litterbox.
On the one hand, it's easier to get stuff out from the tight spot at the backs of his feet.
On the other hand, everything is mushy and parts of his hoof are turning into white crumbly powder. AGAIN.
I removed an entire driveway worth of gravel and pee-mud from his feet today, and then medicated them. I am going to try something new next week though. Half triple antibiotic ointment, half athlete's foot medicine. A farrier gave me the tip, she said it works better than anything else she has tried. Won't hurt to try it anyway.
In the pasture his feet are very hard and dry. He still gets crap in them, but at least they are dry.
In a stall, they fall to pieces.
I think he also needs a trim again though. But that will have to wait until his leg is a little better. I met the local up and coming hotshot barefoot farrier. The feet of the horses she does look good, but she insists on trimming every 4 weeks, which I'm not sure I can really afford. But maybe I can get her to do 6 weeks. Sol's feet grow pretty slowly. She does do good work. I did like the other farrier but he didn't do much to correct them, just prettied them up. She took a closer look and had a lot more to say about each hoof. She said that he had a club foot,a nd another was underrun, and that the toe was too long in another. And that one of his front ones had uneven growth. Not sure about a club foot, don't know a lot about those, but I could see what she meant about the rest, totally. A lot of it is stuff the BO pointed out.
So maybe we'll give it a try.
Today Solomon did not eat much of his bute. Tried to paste him first. Even tried blindfolding him. He didn't panic at all about being blindfolded, but as soon as he felt the tube touch his lips he was tossing his head violently again. Buh. Have to do the applesauce in a tube thing.
Otherwise, he still looks to be healing well.
We went for a little hand-walk. He was not well-behaved. But we did it. And he didn't get to run up the road to the pasture, much as he wanted to. He did get me pretty good with that long, luxurious (mostly) white tail of his though. Heh, stingy! He also bared his teeth when I didn't let him drag me up to his pasture. Heh. People walked past as I was saying "oh yeah go right ahead, if you bite me I WILL bite you back, mister!" Of course he didn't though, it was all show. He just hates living in a box.
Wounds are still healing well.
Solomon got fly spray today. It was a new kind, rather strong, borrowed from one of the volunteers who spends time with the old old mares back in our paddock section. Solomon did not like it, and tried to get away from it. First time I've seem him seriously try to evade a spray. No flies on him after that though!
A friend from the old barn came by- thought he looked great, despite the scrapes and sutures!
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