I have an 11-year-old Belgian. He has been lame for several days on a front foot. Today I found what looks like one heel bulb is abscessed, a bubble about the size of a quarter. I had noticed he seemed to be resting his foot on the toe. Should I lance the abscess and then apply ichthamol, or should I just apply the ichthamol? I have had an abscess come out the top of the hoof before, so I am used to treating that, but never had one on a heel bulb. For a year now I have had to do my own trimming, so I am wondering if I have done something wrong to cause this. I try to trim the toes short and not trim the heel at all. I think I need to apply at y'alls school.

You have simply had an abscess move to the bulbs instead of the coronary band. I would treat with warm water epsom salt soaks twice a day for 15 minutes each, and then place icthamol on top of abscess after the soaks. As to the trimming, it is rare that only the toes need trimmed every time and never the heels. You can cause problems with the amount of stress on your superficial flexor tendons with that type of trimming. A lot of people do not understand the effects of angle on the anatomy of the horse, so you should try to attain the natural angle for your particular horse. You could have potentially caused this abscess if you caused a bruise from being too short, or quicked your horse when trimming.

My horses went for approx. 6 months with nobody to trim. In that time they got very laid back on their heels and started to drag their toes and stumble a lot. So I started trimming the toes mostly to try and get them back upright and less drag. This is a Brabant Belgian with a lot of feather and itch. I see him scrubbing his heels on fence panels and the water trough. Sometimes he actually frams his leg down on the trough, so I have wondered if this could be the cause of the bulb problem. As I said, I hardly trim the heel, so I don't think I got that too short. Should the abscess be opened to drain? Any other pointers will be appreciated. I understand it is hard to handle this by computer.

I can't tell you without looking whether or not to open the abscess. It is something that an experienced person would have to see in order to do the right thing. We generally open them up, but if it is something else, you could cause problems by opening it up.