Another hoof cc - pretty please!

Wow - this is all fascinating stuff. Got me thinking about that off fore. The first hoof pictures I took were in June last year, generally they looked much better then and were performing better, but the off fore has always been a bit weird. I'd be interested on your takes on how this foot has changed.

of230june_zpsb1b4f67a.jpg


God photobucket can be annoying - sorry it's so big, is there something betterthan photobucket?
 
Wagtail said:
Thanks. I always thought the bars were a bit like an iceberg and if you saw them overgrown on the surface there was even more underneath acting like a corn and squashing the structures of the hoof and putting strain on the ddft. Would you trim them or leave them? The OPs horse has been BF all her life.
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I would always leave them. My experience on several horses is that far from being the tip of an iceberg they peel off the surface when they are no longer required and are most definitely surface-applied temporary scaffolding. I have other pictures of peeled temporary callouses.

Pete Ramey records the same thing, particularly in TBs which work hard. I would never leave a bar ground-bearing, but other than that I would not touch them.

I still have that piece of bar that went right round the frog on my desk :)
 
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cptrayes - I'm glad you said that, I don't really want to have to do anything with the bars if I don't have to. As it has appeared relitively quickly I'm hoping it will disappear quickly too.
 
Just to add, for me they are always a sign of a structurally weak foot and they disappear by peeling off when the hoof develops sufficient strength. I have seen it happen right around the frog once, at the toe twice and on the point of the pedal bone as a 10p piece at the tip of the frog once. On each occasion, the additional material peeled and left a smooth sole when it was ready to do so. On every occasion the horse became sounder days before the peel happened. The incidents were in four different horses.

Hope that helps.
 
Gorseyhorsey said:
cptrayes - I'm glad you said that, I don't really want to have to do anything with the bars if I don't have to. As it has appeared relitively quickly I'm hoping it will disappear quickly too.
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To me they are a sign that the foot is weak and has built itself additional bracing. The cause of that (work and diet being he first two culprits) needs to be found and corrected if that is possible. When you have done that,if it can be done, then they will disappear on their own. To trim them down when they are not ready to go will serve only to weaken the foot. Some horses always have long bars. If they are sound then in my opinion it does not matter at all.
 
To me they are a sign that the foot is weak and has built itself additional bracing. The cause of that (work and diet being he first two culprits) needs to be found and corrected if that is possible. When you have done that,if it can be done, then they will disappear on their own. To trim them down when they are not ready to go will serve only to weaken the foot. Some horses always have long bars. If they are sound then in my opinion it does not matter at all.
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That all fits, her feet are not good at the moment, hence starting this post. I hope that if I can get on top of the thrush and make a few changes to her diet, then her feet will be strong enought to do more out of boots and will improve generally. Thanks
 
Gorseyhorsey said:
That all fits, her feet are not good at the moment, hence starting this post. I hope that if I can get on top of the thrush and make a few changes to her diet, then her feet will be strong enought to do more out of boots and will improve generally. Thanks
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Her feet have definitely got weaker since that earlier photo. Can you identify any particular reason? Diet (batch of hay), lower workload, illness, change of livery yards to mineral imbalanced grazing? If not, then I would seriously consider testing for Cushings and possibly for Insulin Resistance, because something has changed. They were very good, and now they are bracing themselves to provide extra strength, which you are also feeling in her performance.
 
Most things are the same but she was on Baileys Lo-cal and Alpha A oil with brewers yeast until last summer, I then added linseed and magox and stopped the Lo-cal. Stupidly I didn't replace the general vit/min supplement until Christmas when I started the pro balance so am wondering if that was the main reason.

All the wet hasn't helped I'm sure. Maybe the haylage has been richer this year, it was off of the same fields but the grass did grow better last year. I've just put her on hay (for other reasons) but it will be interesting to see if it helps and am thinking of adding extra copper. Also will really try with the thrush.
 
Have you dropped the brewers yeast? Two of mine were footie without yeast and fine with it, the yeast being the only thing I changed.

The pro balance should have yeasacc in it and that's fine.
 
Oh yeah, I fairly recently swapped the brewers yeast for yeasacc. (don't think its in pro balance only pro hoof) we were already having problems by then. I was hoping the pro balance would have made a difference by now, although I struggle to get her to eat it.
 
cptrayes said:
I would always leave them. My experience on several horses is that far from being the tip of an iceberg they peel off the surface when they are no longer required and are most definitely surface-applied temporary scaffolding. I have other pictures of peeled temporary callouses.

Pete Ramey records the same thing, particularly in TBs which work hard. I would never leave a bar ground-bearing, but other than that I would not touch them.

I still have that piece of bar that went right round the frog on my desk :)
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Thanks for that. It makes a lot of sense. Nothing like first hand experience!
 
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