Bare foot horse and laminitis.

ester said:
paddy it is worth saying because I think it important that he was mostly self trimming but when the work reduced earlier this year his heels started to under run again on pictures (at which point I did suggest that if he couldn't be putting the mileage on some judicious trimming might encourage them not to get so excited about disappearing).
I think he is a tricky horse, who has plenty going on physically even outwith the probable grass sensitivity he seems to have so I think he is terribly tricky to manage/balance his separate needs for his attached bits.
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thanks for the info. I appreciate he has many issues. Having tried just about every way of trimming over the years including self trimming i have found that putting the best feet possible on a horse seems to help. Some of mine have been rescue pasture pets (horses not ponies) so producing feet from work has been out of the question. I have had to produce good feet by trimming. Trimming seems to have become thought of as at the very top of the pyramid ie the last thing needed but I think that using the rasp to create good feet for example getting heels back, with reasonable height and keeping them there plus short toes and no pull on the WL with a good bevel etc etc are very important.
I can think of some horses I have had who now I would look at and wonder if they would be "grass sensitive" they were definitely the EMS sort. The were fine and sound out 24/7 in fields until they reached a ripe old age. All of them had either good feet which were back and with height naturally or they were kept that way by me. I can think of a couple where I didn't have enough knowledge at the time and looking back now I think they would have been better if I had trimmed more effectively.

for the horse you describe possibly bringing the heels which may well be long in the wrong orientation but low with a long toe may create better structure at the back of the foot and your "judicious" trimming may be needed to improve the foot.
PS I love the expression "encourage them not to get so excited about disappearing"
 
We had horses retired and barefoot for years, with a bog standard farrier field trim with no grass restriction and no lameness until the day they died, one horse was 36! Yet now I can't even keep a 17yo sound. Perhaps I'm overthinking things, we never used to give it any thought and they were fine lol.

I'm sure someone else could manage my horse with a lot less palaver, but when more than one variable changes at once I can't keep things going. For instance last weekend it was hot, sunny, and the ground was hard I took him on a longer than before hack (by about 10 mins nothing too drastic) and he goes footy. A few days later after 2 days of rain, lami risk on the app has gone down and the ground is soft so he's not footy. But all the comments I get are based on the hard ground, nothing concerning grass. Clearly the hard ground makes things worse, but I don't think it's what is causing it.
 
SF no I don't think you are overthinking at all, he needs thinking! What used to bug me was that we used to work RS ponies for several hours a day in standard cottage craft girths and I could put all sorts on mine and within an hour he would have a girth gall! That was his tricky ;).

I did wonder re the hard ground/grass combination and what part each plays, but well, you're too far away to equate the weather, I assume it is wetter ;).

You are definitely trying your best for him, for me his frustration is I think you just think you've cracked it and then something else goes on again.

Paddy I've never seen them in real life but I still remember SF first reporting he had a navicular diagnosis, which I was surprised about because his feet had looked quite good out of shoes (for his other issues) on her previous photos, after the dx she put some pictures up and the heels had run forwards and flattened. More recently with the reduced workload they looked to be doing the same again.
Hypothetically I was considering that his not long home from rockley foot would be what he needed to aim for but maybe I am wrong to think that? IME of one, we did try to improve his heels a couple of times (they weren't bad just could have come back a little more) and each time he didn't tolerate it and soon resolved so for him I only ever touched the front 2/3 of his hoof really.

SF has anyone ever made a comment on sole depth with him over they years? is it fairly good?
 
ester said:
Hypothetically I was considering that his not long home from rockley foot would be what he needed to aim for but maybe I am wrong to think that? IME of one, we did try to improve his heels a couple of times (they weren't bad just could have come back a little more) and each time he didn't tolerate it and soon resolved so for him I only ever touched the front 2/3 of his hoof really.
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hypothetically (not SF's horse as I have no idea what it's feet are like or course) I don't necessarily go on the approach of letting the horse grow the foot it wants which I believe is the Rockley approach. That is because having tried it with several horses as an experiment I found it didn't work. If the toe wanted to wander off in front then I found nothing stopped it except trimming correctly.
I live amongst feral ponies and they are totally self trimming. If their toes start wandering off forward they is nothing they can do about it, they don't correct it by self trimming. I don't think you can improve the heels by trimming them, you are at risk of making the horse sore.
 
stencilface said:
We had horses retired and barefoot for years, with a bog standard farrier field trim with no grass restriction and no lameness until the day they died, one horse was 36! Yet now I can't even keep a 17yo sound. Perhaps I'm overthinking things, we never used to give it any thought and they were fine lol.

I'm sure someone else could manage my horse with a lot less palaver, but when more than one variable changes at once I can't keep things going. For instance last weekend it was hot, sunny, and the ground was hard I took him on a longer than before hack (by about 10 mins nothing too drastic) and he goes footy. A few days later after 2 days of rain, lami risk on the app has gone down and the ground is soft so he's not footy. But all the comments I get are based on the hard ground, nothing concerning grass. Clearly the hard ground makes things worse, but I don't think it's what is causing it.
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I appreciate somewhere you said he was not cushings. I can identify totally with your comments above. You get trapped into a spiral going round in circles. I was in that spiral for about 6 years. I was sure mine was perfectly managed. He had good feet, grass totally managed and everything else you are doing. I even got Pete Ramey to trim him I was so convinced it was his feet. I could never find the variable that changed just as we seemed to be getting onto an even keel. That was between his age of 5/6 to 12 years. At 12 he tested negative twice for cushings. One result was 11 so very negative!

I looked at his symptoms and got vet to put him on a prascend trial. We never looked back.The test results for him were totally out of line with his condition. If I was in your position I would revisit cushings and consider every single symptom. If I was convinced he was negative then I would look at the foot and (if Ester's comments are correct) work on improving it.
 
thanks Paddy, SF I hope you don't find the discussion too random on your thread.

Fwiw Frank would never be self trimming (experimented a bit at times), he doesn't wear evenly enough because of his movement so his medial toe does wander off and do it's own thing, while his lateral toe stays short and the more that happens the more it encourages his break over to be lateral (which given his then coffin joint djd probably wrong diagnosis I was not happy with :p)
I can count on one hand the number of times he has managed to generate a chip, they are almost too tough to do so I think.
 
Thanks both. I can't remember all the Cushing symptoms, but he does lose his coat, can still have a trial if I can't do it via equishure first. I'm hoping that could resolve his lami and hind lameness SI issues. That would be too neat a solution for my horse I think!

My only other issue is time, as in I don't have much these days. That's something that banging shoes on may help me cope, but I took him barefoot in response to other issues and thought I was doing a good thing for his health and longevity. No foot no horse and all that jazz.
 
stencilface said:
Thanks both. I can't remember all the Cushing symptoms, but he does lose his coat, can still have a trial if I can't do it via equishure first. I'm hoping that could resolve his lami and hind lameness SI issues. That would be too neat a solution for my horse I think!

My only other issue is time, as in I don't have much these days. That's something that banging shoes on may help me cope, but I took him barefoot in response to other issues and thought I was doing a good thing for his health and longevity. No foot no horse and all that jazz.
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symptoms of cushings are:- (not in any order)

more peeing and drinking.
more prone to infections, ie need antibiotics when for something a normal horse with deal with easily
eye infections
weight loss, for example mine at <500kg was eating a 44lb bale of hay a day and still losing weight
loss of muscle, loss of topline. Compare old pics with his current top line
pot bellied
for my gelding mucky, sticky smegma and more of it. When treated and under control less and much drier.

lethargy when ridden.

coat is way down the line, best to catch it before then.

the big one of course with cushings is laminitis.

I would suggest anyone shoe rather than leaving a sore horse. The big BUT of course is that it may be less easy to spot the start of laminitis in shoes.
 
Definitely a struggle with muscle and topline but could attribute that to less work.
He does get weepy eyes sometimes, but fixed with a fly mask for a day.
Lethargy certainly!
He does seem to be losing weight atm if not on grass at all.

I'll try the equishure, if Scarlett reckons it's as good as it is it should show improvement quickly. If not I'll ring the vet and re discuss the cushings test. It was his first thought instead of just lami.
 
stencilface said:
If not I'll ring the vet and re discuss the cushings test. It was his first thought instead of just lami.
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don't forget prascend is not a quick drug to get a horse on. Many introduce it gradually and build up to a full dose over a month. Once on the full dose it can take some several weeks to then adjust. It is not a drug whereby you give 1 tablet and have instant protection. If your ACTH test doesn't suggest the same as your clinical symptoms your vet could consider the TRH test to try and get a more definitive answer.
 
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