Any Farriers / Hoof Experts Out There?

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Basically my dissertation has gone tits up, so I have been given an alternative project looking at the hooves of horses one week and one week after shoeing.
My lecturer wants me to focus on medio-lateral balance but me and my farrier are completely stumped about what I can base my question on and what I need to look at!
HELP!
 
I think your tutor wants you to judge whether horses grow one side of their feet more than the other. So a week before shoeing, it will be unbalanced and a week after shoeing it will be flat. This would mean that when your farrier shoes a horse, he would take more hoof wall off one side than the other and you ought to be able to measure that.

Hope that helps.
 
You can if there is a ruler in the shot.

But if she does not mean you to measure - what DOES she want you to do? You can look at hair lines as an alternative, is that what she proposes? Why are you having to second guess what she wants?!!?
 
You would have to use measurements as well but what to measure I'm not sure as everything will move in response to the shoeing and trim for shoeing. lol Land marks such as coronary band shape and balance to ground, collateral groove depth might be one way? Way of walking/trotting another so video with documentation of changes after... :confused:

Probably no help at all, sorry. lol Perhaps a chat with your tutor to clarify what they mean might help? Good luck
 
Hi, what course are you doing to be looking at horses hooves? I am a farrier apprentice. To get more info on what Medio-lateral imbalance is try looking in Athe principles of Farriery by Chris Colles or Hickmans Farriery. I would have thought these would be in your Uni Libary?
You will want to look at more than just the hooves, but the whole limb of the horses as what this is like (toe in, toe out, base narrow, cow hock, knock knee and so on) will affect the horses hooves. In an ideal world the hoof will be completely balanced. Principles of farriey has lots of pictures and diagrams which helps show this better than my description!
The thing I don't get is why a week before shoeing, I would have thought it better to get photos just before the farrier does the horse, when the shoes have been taken off before it is trimmed up, and then when the shoes are freshly on and finished off. (and then maybe every week until the next shoeing, that would be quite cool to see what happens)
Oh and you will probs also what to measure the angle of the hoof wall.
I hope that helps you a bit? You could also try emailing the farrier colleges and see if they could help you at all, if ou go to the farrier training agency website will have there email addresses and phone numbers I would ave thought.
 
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