Mine got his first abscess in about 4 years in October... a combination of (I am speculating) me deciding that feeding the Hoofmender when his hooves were now clearly great was superstition and him developing thrush deep in his frogs. I am also speculating these two things are not independent of each other. It has been a particularly horrible winter in the west of Scotland for horses who live out... we don't have an "in" to dry out feet and they have been saturated since September.
I treated the abscess as a wake up call, and restarted feeding a barefoot friendly supplement (Pro Hoof), and got on the case by applying everything I could think of to the affected area (to date NT-Dry No Thrush powder, Field paste, salt water scrubs, cider vinegar scrubs, athlete's foot spray, sudocreme balls packed into the central sulcus...). No reoccurence, and the part of the back of the frog where the abscess popped out is now filling out well again and looking healthy.
So from personal experience I would say (a) check for thrush, infection or any weakness in frog and back of hoof and (b) check horse is getting the right vits/mins for the pasture they're on
And try not to stress too much (I can't say I managed this one
).
