abcess + q about shoes

Rosie'smum

Rosie'smum

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Rosie has had a hoof abcess at the top of toe. Farrier has dug out as much as he can but it hasnt appeared yet. (only started poulticing last night)
Question is would you keep her on box rest untill it has cleared away or try to turn her out? bearing in mind it is wet out. she is lame on it still more so in trot.

Also she is normally bf but farrier has suggested putting front shoes on to stop it happening again as our yard is very stoney. (there's no releif from them) She hasnt exactly been coping with workload and stones and wearing her feet down alot. When ever I try to giver her a break from the school and go on a hack im worried about wearing her feet down(we have a lot of road work)
I just feel that im giving up too soon on bf hoping it will get better but then if shes uncomfortable do i just stick a set of shoes on?

Farriers keeps telling me she has good feet which is why abcess is struggling to come out!
I just dont know what to do for the best. What do you guys think?
 
Will she keep a poultice on in the field, or do you have a boot you can pop on for turnout? Movement will help clear things out if it can be facilitated.

Regarding reoccurrence, it may be more beneficial to the horse to consider underlying causes. By that I mean - why is the white line stretched and weakened and therefore allowing foreign bodies to enter it? Usually the answer is diet; too much sugar/starch and/or insufficient or imbalanced minerals.

What is the horse eating currently?
 
She is on 50g linseed tiny bit of speedibeet 8g of mgox and 25g of pro balance. she did have more linseed during winter months but since cut it back.
She doesnt get any sugar ie carrots or apples etc but the occasional herby treat for stretches.
I was wondering about her diet as she does have another crack on the other foot. She does seem to suffer from these cracks. I would like to try keep barefoot as i feel i am giving up on trying if i resort to shoes.
 
What about grass/turnout? That's usually the biggest source of sugars in the diet. I'd also pop her back up to the full dose of pro balance, just in case she's not getting sufficient minerals.

If for whatever reason you are unable to resolve her issues, there's no shame in putting shoes on to ensure her comfort. Personally I'd explore the grass/minerals issue first, though.
 
Shes on restricted grass. But out for 24/7
Her field was basically dirt and id give her a small strip of fresh long grass a night.
I knw there's nothing wrong with shoes im not against her being comfortable. I just don't feel ive tried everything yet.
 
If your horse is uncomfortable without shoes on then you ought to put them back on rather than persevering with her being uncomfortable. Some horses feel better with that bit of protection for their soles. Horses are not supposed to be ridden unshod on roads. Shoes were specifically invented to enable them to be ridden on roads. The horn is not hard enough for sustained work on tarmac.
 
Hmmm, if out 24/7 you may find its the grass, despite being restricted. Is it possible to try stabling her during the day, with night time turn out? If you can increase work levels too, that may also help.

Otherwise you could boot for ridden work if she's uncomfy. The abscess may not necessarily reoccur, and the extra minerals from the full dose of pro balance will help.
 
Yeah have thought bout Turing out at night need to think on that. Still nothing this morning. But farrier is coming back tonight to have a look. I have thought about shoes, jus havnt quite got around to sizing her up yet.
 
Darremi said:
horn is not hard enough for sustained work on tarmac.
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The Houston Police, Austen and others do 8hr x 6 days a week on the roads. They use boots for rehab and riots but otherwise are generally bare. They've not used shoes for years.

As other posters have mentioned diet is important and so is a regular(ish) pattern of exercise as the hoof will adjust growth, both quality and quantity to wear.
 
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Darremi said:
If your horse is uncomfortable without shoes on then you ought to put them back on rather than persevering with her being uncomfortable. Some horses feel better with that bit of protection for their soles. Horses are not supposed to be ridden unshod on roads. Shoes were specifically invented to enable them to be ridden on roads. The horn is not hard enough for sustained work on tarmac.
Click to expand...

There's a slight flaw in that argument. ;)

Hipposandals (hoof boots) were around in Roman times and well preserved examples have been found. Nail on horseshoes from circa 1000AD have been found. Tarmac was invented in 1830.

Of course when horses were used as transport on cobble streets all day, every day (think pulling a cab in London) shoeing was needed. How many modern horses work to that extent in this country?

Don't forget that hooves grow. As long as the wear is the same (or slower) than the growth you wont have any problem. Tarmac (and sand) are actually really good for BF/unshod hooves but you must build up the distances of the hacks/in-hand walks slowly so that the hooves can respond to the demands (ie start to grow faster - and yes, that really does happen). It would be very unfair to take a newly deshod horse for a 3 hour road hack.


To the OP. One abscess is not a disaster, many shod and unshod horses will unfortunately sometimes get one despite the best care. If the horse gets them more regularly then that would concern me as I would also suspect that the white line is stretched. The comments about diet are correct. All my horses grew tighter hooves when I changed from molassed chaff to non molassed chaff.

Could you boot your horse for the stony track if she is fine at all other times?

You might decide that it's easier to shoe when the grass is rich and then take the shoes off for the winter. This is a good compromise as the hooves get to have a break from shoes and peripheral loading.
 
I think you should ask your farrier what advice he gives on abscess prevention to his clients whose abscessed horses already have shoes on.

Shod and unshod horses BOTH occasionally get abscesses.
 
Darremi said:
If your horse is uncomfortable without shoes on then you ought to put them back on rather than persevering with her being uncomfortable. Some horses feel better with that bit of protection for their soles.
Click to expand...

This is true. Such horses normally turn out either to be on the wrong diet or to have undiagnosed metabolic disease.


Horses are not supposed to be ridden unshod on roads. Shoes were specifically invented to enable them to be ridden on roads. The horn is not hard enough for sustained work on tarmac.
Click to expand...

Heavens, I must tell that to the five I've done BE eventing on, the four I've hunted on, and the other dozen I have ridden or accompanied on long hacks on tarmac :D

Shoes were invented to keep horses as machines, able to continue to work in less than ideal circumstances.
 
Darremi said:
Horses are not supposed to be ridden unshod on roads. Shoes were specifically invented to enable them to be ridden on roads. The horn is not hard enough for sustained work on tarmac.
Click to expand...

So they are not designed to travels many miles over all terrain in search of food? The magic thing about horn is that it grows and amazingly enough people compete on endurance rides barefoot, and some hunt all season.
 
Don't worry Darremi, I thought exactly the same as you until everything went wrong. It really opened my eyes to the damage that can be done by shoes (and specifically not getting the hoof balance right and then putting a shoe on) and also the horse never needed the shoes back on (I did cut sugar from the diet). It made me wonder why on Earth I had her shod in the first place?
 
She hasn't got good hoof balance. She really wears the outside down alot more than her inside. I have recently up'ed her workload as want to combat her being fat. She has done alot of road work not that long ago. But cut it down a bit now her feet aren't growing as quickly. I will take some photos of her feet later and post and see what you guys think. Farrier suggested front shoes on to stop it happening. I did think about also having shoes on in summer and off in winter.
 
Rosie'smum said:
She hasn't got good hoof balance. She really wears the outside down alot more than her inside. I have recently up'ed her workload as want to combat her being fat. She has done alot of road work not that long ago. But cut it down a bit now her feet aren't growing as quickly. I will take some photos of her feet later and post and see what you guys think. Farrier suggested front shoes on to stop it happening. I did think about also having shoes on in summer and off in winter.
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Have you tried using hoof boots for long rides on the roads and maybe leave them off for shorter hacks?

This is what I've done with my girl and she is coping much better.

(We have Cavallo Simples as my girl has large round feet)
 
Yeah Im going to have a good look into boots. Her back feet arent round there long but her fronts are quite round. need to measure them up. Im borrowing a cavallo atm they look ok to me.
 
Clava said:
So they are not designed to travels many miles over all terrain in search of food? The magic thing about horn is that it grows and amazingly enough people compete on endurance rides barefoot, and some hunt all season.
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Emmm...tarmac wasn't invented back when horses travelled miles on foot to find food! Big difference to natural terrain.

I'd never have my horse unshod because he has to event, and I think it is really unfair to ask a horse to jump round 1.20m cross country for 10 minutes without shoes on all manner of ground. Fair enough unshod if you're pleasure riding. Millenium Master is the absolute minority in eventing at top level.
 
Darremi said:
Emmm...tarmac wasn't invented back when horses travelled miles on foot to find food! Big difference to natural terrain.

I'd never have my horse unshod because he has to event, and I think it is really unfair to ask a horse to jump round 1.20m cross country for 10 minutes without shoes on all manner of ground. Fair enough unshod if you're pleasure riding. Millenium Master is the absolute minority in eventing at top level.
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You are completely and utterly wrong about road work, why can you not just accept that from the hundreds of us who do it?

Millenium Master is the second Millenium horse to compete advanced with no shoes on, I think. The first was either Magic or Mischief. Tom Robinson said he competed the horse shoeless because they could not keep him sound in shoes.

There are not more eventers at that level because the riders want studs.

What protection do you imagine a ring of steel is giving your horse's feet? The biggest effect it has is to massively increase the concussion of jumping on hard ground.

I hunt for several hours jumping fences far, far bigger than anything that you are jumping on a 1m 20 course (though I also did Novice BE on two horses). I jump on very hard ground and very soft ground and I've done it on four different horses and hunt alongside up to 4 others with other people on them.

You are wrong about the need for shoes for to protect the feet for roadwork and for jumping.
 
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Sorry Faracat I didn't mean to be so patronizing. Endurance riding is obviously completely different. To hacking.

CPTrayes - I agree that the reason for using shoes on eventers is for the studs. I am sure there are people out there that ride unshod horses on tarmac. Personally I would rarely ride on tarmac shod or not. It is not good for the joints. You try running barefoot on tarmac and then think about how your horse feels! Although it may inhibit the true shock absorption of the frog, where the shoe does help is in raising the sole off the ground in order to protect it from being bruised by stones.
 
Darremi said:
Sorry Faracat I didn't mean to be so patronizing. Endurance riding is obviously completely different. To hacking.

CPTrayes - I agree that the reason for using shoes on eventers is for the studs. I am sure there are people out there that ride unshod horses on tarmac. Personally I would rarely ride on tarmac shod or not. It is not good for the joints. You try running barefoot on tarmac and then think about how your horse feels! Although it may inhibit the true shock absorption of the frog, where the shoe does help is in raising the sole off the ground in order to protect it from being bruised by stones.
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You seem to be trying to tell those of us who regularly ride our horses on stony ground that what we are doing is not possible.

A good thick barefoot sole does not need to be raised off the floor to stop it being bruised by stones.

I personally find running on flat tarmac much easier on my joints than running on ground which is unlevel beneath my feet. I assume my horses joints feel the same effect.

You may also find it interesting to know that current research for humans is that running barefoot is less concussive to the joints than using running shoes.
 
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That's OK. :D I often type things and they don't come across how I intended them to.

There was a wonderful video (hopefully someone will find it) that shows the difference in shock absorption between an unshod/bf hoof and a shod one. It's really very interesting.

Also don't forget that you can boot ushod hooves and that there are boots available with studs (although I've never tried them). Hoof boots are getting much better and they are now a serious option for many.

cougar-rock-550.jpg
 
Faracat said:
There's a slight flaw in that argument. ;)

Hipposandals (hoof boots) were around in Roman times and well preserved examples have been found. Nail on horseshoes from circa 1000AD have been found. Tarmac was invented in 1830.

Of course when horses were used as transport on cobble streets all day, every day (think pulling a cab in London) shoeing was needed. How many modern horses work to that extent in this country?

Don't forget that hooves grow. As long as the wear is the same (or slower) than the growth you wont have any problem. Tarmac (and sand) are actually really good for BF/unshod hooves but you must build up the distances of the hacks/in-hand walks slowly so that the hooves can respond to the demands (ie start to grow faster - and yes, that really does happen). It would be very unfair to take a newly deshod horse for a 3 hour road hack.


To the OP. One abscess is not a disaster, many shod and unshod horses will unfortunately sometimes get one despite the best care. If the horse gets them more regularly then that would concern me as I would also suspect that the white line is stretched. The comments about diet are correct. All my horses grew tighter hooves when I changed from molassed chaff to non molassed chaff.

Could you boot your horse for the stony track if she is fine at all other times?

You might decide that it's easier to shoe when the grass is rich and then take the shoes off for the winter. This is a good compromise as the hooves get to have a break from shoes and peripheral loading.
Click to expand...

Great post *likes*
 
cptrayes said:
This is true. Such horses normally turn out either to be on the wrong diet or to have undiagnosed metabolic disease.




Heavens, I must tell that to the five I've done BE eventing on, the four I've hunted on, and the other dozen I have ridden or accompanied on long hacks on tarmac :D

Shoes were invented to keep horses as machines, able to continue to work in less than ideal circumstances.
Click to expand...

Another great post!!
 
Clava said:
So they are not designed to travels many miles over all terrain in search of food? The magic thing about horn is that it grows and amazingly enough people compete on endurance rides barefoot, and some hunt all season.
Click to expand...

LOL And a 3rd great post!! You guys are saying everything I believe in!!
 
Rosie'smum said:
She hasn't got good hoof balance. She really wears the outside down alot more than her inside. I have recently up'ed her workload as want to combat her being fat. She has done alot of road work not that long ago. But cut it down a bit now her feet aren't growing as quickly. I will take some photos of her feet later and post and see what you guys think. Farrier suggested front shoes on to stop it happening. I did think about also having shoes on in summer and off in winter.
Click to expand...

I have found the horse grows the hoof he needs, not the hoof I think he needs!! If some protection is essential due to human requirement then why not use boots? They last longer than nail on metal shoes and are more hoof friendly!!
 
Rosie'smum said:
Yeah Im going to have a good look into boots. Her back feet arent round there long but her fronts are quite round. need to measure them up. Im borrowing a cavallo atm they look ok to me.
Click to expand...

Hind hooves are supposed to be longer and front hooves rounder......
 
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