It all began when I noticed Casper had sensitive skin on his legs. I brushed all the dirt I could off and then slathered on some MTG on all four legs. This continued for the next couple of days. Casper was getting more and more sensitive and would start to lift his legs to avoid me touching them. I continued to brush his legs as well as I could and putting on more MTG. Soon I realized that my method of treatment was not cutting it. I asked Kaila for help and she suggested a foot soak with Epsom salt and apple cider vinegar.
The next day we set up four buckets and started the miserable struggle of trying to get my poor pony to stand with one leg in each bucket. We finally got three legs in. Then, just as I started to lift up the last leg Casper skillfully jumped out of the other three buckets and spilled all of then. Right.... Plan B was soaking both front feet in a rubber maid container for half an hour and then doing both hind feet for half an hour.
I then proceeded to put on more MTG. While Casper did get some relief he was still very sensitive. The mud fever got worse and the growth got thicker and bigger. A couple of days later the vet was at the barn to check on two other horses so I decided to take the opportunity and have the vet look at Casper's legs. After the check up it was decided to put him on a course of antibiotics and to soak his legs again and to scrub his legs with surgical scrub.
After soaking his legs I took the scrub, slathered it on and started to gently massage and pick off the growth. It was horrible for both horse and human. It was all slimy and black in color and awful. I tried to explain to Casper that I was only trying to help him and that I would be done so much faster if he just stood still but he was having none of it. After a couple of completely agonizing hours I had removed every single bit of black growth. I then put on some more MTG and gave my patient, wonderful, amazing pony a stud muffin and a scratch on the withers and put him back in the paddock.
The next day I examined his legs and discovered to my horror that the growth came back just as bad as before OVERNIGHT! I treated it the same as before and continued as normal.
This repeated for a few more days. Kaila moved him out of the knee deep mud to a stall set up in the arena.
I became more and more fed up with the fact that Casper was not happy and that I did not see significant improvement. I googled some remedies with my dad and we discovered that not all remedies worked for all horses and came to the conclusion that baby diaper cream was worth a try.
On the way to the barn the next day we stopped at the drug store and bought some diaper cream. I washed Casper's legs and put on some diaper cream. I learned two things: one, that diaper cream smells bad and two, that dirt sticks to the cream like crazy. I then remembered a picture I saw on the internet of a horse wearing socks with the toes cut of. The heel of the sock perfectly cupped the horses pastern. I am pretty sure they did it to keep the bugs of the horses legs.
Anyway I took some socks that Kaila kindly gave me and put them in Casper's legs. I was laughing my head off at Casper's indignant look.
The next day I pulled the socks off only to find that most of the scabs came of with the socks and the dried diaper cream. I washed his legs and socked (with clean ones of course) them again.
I visited him in two days and decided to wash his legs and then not put the socks on. After leaving it completely alone to let the skin heal for a few days I noticed that the growth was coming off by itself!!!!!!
I am currently keeping it dry and brushing his legs gently.
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