Yucky, Stinky Feet

So Ace has been hobbling around a bit the past couple of days. Not sure if it was from his aggressive trim or if he knows I want to ride him this weekend....  :P

So I take a look under there today. We have had one minor sprinkle of rain here in a month and a half. The earth is dry, dusty and rocky. Perfect hoof weather. He has some manure in his feet constantly, especially those back ones from backing into the manure pile like a semi into a loading dock.

So anyway, I pick them out and he has deep narrow grooves in the central sulcus of the frogs, with holes running down the center of them towards the toe that are filled with white cheesy material. These were beautifully open before?! I tried, knifeless, to open the cave up and let air in there. I then injected the 50-50 solution of Canesten and Polysporin into the hole, and between the narrow groove leading to the heel as well as along the frog up to the point. On the right hind hoof there is a pocket going right deep into the sole starting to the left of the point to frog and running underground toward the heel. It is about 1/2" deep and full of black thick substance. I cleaned and injected here as well. I then proceeded to spray all 4 soles with Iode Spray (Iodine) to kill all the nasties.

He is has the thick crescent shaped callous close to the hoof wall (more so in the fronts) which seem more pronounced? Did the hay do a number on him, is this just appearing different from the last trim, is he having issues again...? *sigh*

Right Front -Note deep hole in frog.
Callous is up from the wall at the toes by
about 1/4"

Left front -Deep hole running length of frog.
Callous is higher than the toe wall.

Left hind -best of the feet (as usual)

Right Hind -Note the 1/2" deep hole where my
Precision Pick is inserted.
Point of toe is shedding off (looks crooked).

Bring the toes back!

Fronts Complete

 I had Heidi Chartrand come out and do Ace's feet. His toes had gotten SO long and I found myself unable to bring them back with rasping alone on those dry hard summer feet! We took them back fairly drastically, I think we have the first slope angle grown out now. There are still a few more coming down the hoof wall. Not the best photos, should have gone outside for better light, but you get the idea!

We ended up with some inappropriate 1st cut Timothy and his bum has been bad this last month. I do not have access to any more for a bit, so we will be doing Timothy Alfalfa cubes to get us though. I hope this minor dietary hiccup doesn't take us backwards too much in his feet. Heidi had some suggestions for supplements I am willing to try ;)

One done, he is holding his own lead rope ;)

Pretty Toes!

left front

right front

right hind

left hind

Profile of front -note new wall angles coming down the line!

Update on Lameness

Yup, just a sprain. Whew! He took a couple of weeks to get moving freely again, but is back at it.

I am having a heck of a time trimming, physically. He is heavy and there is a lot of growth to keep up with. I picked up some nippers, but they were so dull I could not make a dent in his walls, so returned them. I am feeling confident and want to move them back, I can see where they need to go, I just have no means to get them there.

I am going to have to have someone come in and get them caught up.

I need a good set of tools and a strong body if I am going to keep up with trimming 2 horses! I did get leather gloves finally. I have some permanent scars on the left hand thumb and index finger knuckles!

Got a crummy batch of Timothy, first cut, rather coarse. He is a bit loose and that makes me worry about the effect on his feet. Waiting for more to come out of Washington and adding more Timothy / Alfalfa cubes to reduce the hay and balance him out. This seems to firm him up a bit, but not perfect. He still seems a bit "off".

Our Feet

Yesterday Ace was very lame. He had been reported laying down in the sun at several times throughout the day and when I had a moment to get up there and check on him he was barely walking. I gave him some bute and panicked a bit.

This morning I took the above video Sorry about the crummy quality my 8 year old was filming so I didn't know when we were filming, and I felt bad moving him. I gave him more bute, confined him to a smaller area away from the mares, and put padded boots on him. It does not seem to be his feet. He is standing strong on both fronts, but does not want to lift his right, not because he doesn't want to stand on the left, but I think there is a muscle or tendon pull higher up. Once I get it up he is okay to hold it there. You can see at the end of the video the odd angle of the joints in the lower leg.

Here is hoping he was just feeling the good weather and hurt himself tearing around the hills *fingers crossed*. I really was hoping to take advantage of the nice weather and get out for a ride today. Luckily, so as to not rub it in, it clouded over and cooled down ;)

Latest Update on "the feet" May 23, 2013

I apologize for the delay in posting. Sometimes life just gets away from you....

Here is today's self portrait after the trimming -tired and happy.

Here are pictures of the front feet. Sorry I was so tired I couldn't pick up the hinds for photos after doing 2 horses trims. How DO farriers do it!? I swear I took more, but they are not here. I had a nice front feet "after" shot, but this will have to do for the time being.

One done and one not, then I went back and did it again ;)

Starting to look a bit more like hooves you would see on a horse, though there are about 3 months growth left to get to the new angle the hoof wants to take. Here you can see the horizontal line across the hoof where the new angle begins. There is yet another closer to the hair line.

So here you can see the thick rubbery line of lamilar wedge growing out just inside the line of the hoof wall. (sorry about the cheese grater marks, I got a new rasp that I tried a few days before and it was awful!!)

Nice open central suculus of the frog, heel bulbs are firm and springy. The extra bar material is shedding away rapidly, and he is SOUND! The frog is slowly backing up to a better position.

Left front after trim

Right front after trim

They are starting to round out a bit, not be so oblong. I brought the wall closer back to the edge of the live sole, moving through the lamilar wedge stuff. This always makes me nervous as I am not a farrier and short is scary, but I need to get these toes backed up!

The really noticeable thing here is the callusing on the right sole near the toe is essentially gone now! He is starting to gain some sense of concavity, though not much yet at the point of frog. The bars are peeling away like crazy and if I had a knife I would have reduced the flaps here and it would look that much better. He is getting a much more natural bar shape now.

My goal over the next months is to continue to keep on that toe, so we can grow out the cheesy wedge and get to the spot where the new angle is. Right now his boots are fitting and we are riding again :) We did a nice technical 3 hour ride with extensive trotting and he was fine in the feet.

May 2013

November 2012

January 2013

Above is a nice comparison of the right front as it progresses. This is the one that gave him the most trouble. What a change!!

Stefanie the Saviour!

left front

right front

right hind. Notice crazy double barring!

left hind. Notice nice sole near toe now!

Stefanie managed to make a special trip (of about 380kms!) out to see us and take a look at how Ace's feet are doing in real life. Lifting each hoof was like Christmas, slowly peeling back the wrapping of dirt and mud to find what lay underneath. 

All in all his hooves are looking much better. As mentioned he has been protecting his feet by building an absurd amount of barring along his whole quarters. Good news! On the right front the bars were beginning to peal, indicating he no longer needs them.Here is a visual of the before, during and after.

As well as the bars, the sole had previously been built up so thick, in a "Band-aid" kind of way, not a nice thick smooth, healthy way. Well the edges of this thick growth are starting to lift, giving hope they too will peal and reveal a new healthy sole underneath! Stay tuned....

Now the part that most worried me as a layperson was the length of his toes. They were crazy! I was nervous how much we could go back, knowing in the past his x-rays showed not much room for error! Well I learned something new (or rather understood something new, as I know I had been told). there was this weird line between the toe hoof wall and the crescent shaped "ugly callous". It was gummy and cheesy (no smell!) and it turns out -this is the lamiliar wedge!! This mysterious thing I thought was inside, covered with wall and sole, actually grows out the bottom too! So she brought back his toes with all indications that the time had come and the long toes were soon to become a detriment of their own (fine balance here, folks!) So here is one done, one not. The length is still a bit on the long side, as he is on rocks, mud, etc and we have to be kind. We reduced the hair line to toe tip length from 3.5 inches to 3 inches when all was said and done.

Feet not perfectly square, but you can see the difference clearly.

The other thing I had reinforced is the amount of that bevel on this new mustang roll. It really is a bevel, not all rounded off like I was doing and quite marked. He now has more hoof wall thickness, allowing more of an effective angle to add surface area to the hoof wall. This should create inward force as he steps into the soft ground, creating the "snowball effect" of packing his hoof together rather than letting it spread.

I thought this was a great shot of the bevel. Plus see the new hoof angle coming down from the hairline! 

One of the most remarkable things Stefanie pointed out, that I had not realized was a great thing, was the heel bulbs on a few of the feet, good height, and strong. Funny, those ones looked funny to me, as I had been looking at poor ones for so long!

So now we work on bringing in the toes and increasing the strong back of the feet. Hopefully the sole will shed and reveal beautiful new sole, indicating the health of the foot is back (or there, did we ever really have it?!)

The best part of the whole process was seeing, even after a substantial trim like this, that he is sound and strong on all 4 feet. So many times horses are tender after every routine trim. Doesn't that worry you? The foot is a pretty amazing thing and I am excited to be on this educational journey learning more about it! I hope his boots will fit again and we can get out on the trails, he has been bugging me for a ride now that he is feeling better! ;)

Stefanie will be doing another clinic in April for those who want to come learn more about feet and trimming (Shameless plug, but hey -it IS my blog!)

We hope to hit the trails soon! This is us heading out on my Birthday ride (4 hours), which was the ride when we realized we had a problem.

Scary looking feet

Our Feet

fronts

Well, they ain't pretty -the fronts anyway.

hinds

Ace is fairly comfortable finally and we have been making some progress on the bottoms of the feet. We have not been out riding, and I doubt his boots would fit!

Take a look at the pictures below and notice the crescent shaped callouses are fading. He has good collateral groove depth and is happy. He is due for a trim down of the flares in these pictures. I have been reluctant to take him shorter, as the flares are all through the sides of the hoof, and the toe (which is really long) is just coming level with the live solar plane, so I just keep rolling the toe. The other problem is the lumps on the bottom are level with the wall. I worry if I take the wall down he will be walking on the lumps and be sore.

This is where I rely on the opinion of a trusted professional ;) I am going to leave them this way for a week or so until Stefanie visits again and really get a good hands on look at the changes that have been made thus far.

left front

right front

left hind

right hind

So here we are, at a really ugly stage. But I wanted to share with you all the true journey to getting him sound. Interesting how the bars have come up around and thickened and spread to protect him when he was sore. 

I hope to post again soon with some pics of the cleaned up feet after Stefanie take a look and sets a new course for us!