These signs were not consistant with colic and the more I watched, the more I wondered if he had a sever case of founder or laminitis, because it seemed the pain was in his feet. There was no history of any feed change or excess grain feeding, which would back up a diagnosis of founder, but I decided to block all four feet. Several minutes after depositing some local anthestetic around the digital nerves on all four feet, the horse got up and walked over to some grass and started eating as if nothing had been wrong. We hauled him to the clinic so I could keep a close watch on hime since the diagnosis was not clear. A couple people had called and reported some of their horses had vesicular stomatitis with the typical blister and ulcers on the lips, gums and tongue.
Vesicular stomatitis can also effect the feet, causing severe inflammation at the coronet.
In the weeks after all that, the large animal veterinarians in the area saw many cases of vesicular stomatitis. Sometimes every horse on a farm was affected, other places would only have one horse with symptoms. Cattle also were affected and economic losses to dairy farmers were enormous since the udders of the cows could also be affected. In horses the mouth lesions were the most common. At first vesicles would develop and break, leaving a raw ulcer which was very sore.