Anyone heard of ergots?

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missieh

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My cob has now had his feathers trimmed, revealing four very pronounced chestnuts on the back of each fetlock, which could always be felt but never seen. I have found these referred to on the web as ergots. They are harmless and can be trimmed similarly to chestnuts further up the legs, but as I had never heard of the word ergot I thought that I'd mention it. Anyone else heard of them?
 
Yup, just funny little extra chesnuts! Have no idea if they have any function though. I only come across them when trimming up heels, the rest of the time you would never know they are there! Always struck me as an odd name!
 
Yep :) I've searched and searched for Bally's, but can't find them. I'm guessing they must be either very small, or under the skin. Or both!
 
Ergots are evolutionarily (is that a word?!) what's left from the first primitive horses more toe-like feet - they had feet like tapirs and the ergot is what remains after the rest of the foot turned into a hoof I think as horses evolved...that's probably not quite all correct scientifically/biologically speaking but something like that anyway. My horse has very pronounced ergots so I can see his even though he has feathers.
 
yes i have heard of them my old cobs used to get really big so my farrier used to cut them back for me to try to make him look like a normal horse lol
 
Yep, almost all horses have them.

Cold blooded horses have much more pronounced ergots than hot blooded horses. Some of th very 'bred' horse such as trakaners, TB and akle Teke (sp) sometimes don't have any.
 
yes, my shetland split his and bled like a stuck pig. The vet couldn't actually remember what it was called though I could from my 30 year old BHSAI, so i changed vets.
 
Silverspring said:
Neither do Arabs, they are clearly more evolved than common coblets. I suppose it's the difference between humans and chimps ;)

*ducks as everyone throws their over size cob shoes at me*
Click to expand...

or, for anyone who remembers the cartoon strip I think was called 'Ibn' - because they have been worn away by the blazing sands of the Sahara desert ...
 
The primitive horse was very small, about the size of a muntjac and ran on five toes. As the horse evolved for speed to run away from predators, it started growing in size and running on tiptoes until over the hundreds of thousands of years of its evolution the peripheral toes became redundant and the horse ran only on the tip of its middle finger...today's hoof. The splint bones are vestigial remains of the 1st and third fingers, the chestnut is the remains of the thumb and the ergot the remains of the little finger.

That's dregged from the depths of my childhood memory, evolutionary opinion may have changed since then as my childhood was a long time ago!!!
 
My mare has very big ones and I have always noticed that horses that are feathered have more noticable ones (is that something to do with all the hair) because are,nt hooves made out of the same kind of stuff as hair.
 
Cobs seem to have bigger ones than finer horses. The YO's dog hovers and hoovers as the farrier goes when he trims them-bleurgh!

If left alone, they may split and resemble mushroom stalks that have exploded. This can be sore for the horse so best to get them trimmed when the farrier comes.
 
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