Barefoot - How's it looking?

[cptrayes]

That makes sense actually, she's happy to go forward with non lateral work, but the lateral work is where she would really need to sit to do it, so that could be the difference, in your experience how long on average does it take for that sensitivity to go? She is cautious too if something has hurt before so I don't expect her to be back to normal in a matter of days.

I missed your point about heavy paring of the sole, it hasn't been pared at all in the last 8 weeks at least, it is scrubbed clean in the photo. I'll pm you once I get some ground level pics.

Thanks for all the advice everyone, it is appreciated

My experience with my latest horse is that he took eight months to get his digestion sorted out and then grow a new foot with a stronger heel and better attachment with no bull-nose. If they have had previous digestive trouble, and mine almost certainly had been properly laminitic before I bought him, then this timing isn't unusual. Until the coffin bone angle is corrected they just can't move like they should, can get a sore back, and when standing still often look as if their hind feet are too far underneath them.

You may need to be aware that lateral work difficulty and hind toe dragging are both symptomatic of early spavins. What is she like working downhill, do you know (since you don't hack you may not ) ?

 

[cptrayes]

He's basically saying your horse is shuffling.
Walls look over rasped to me.
No horse wears their toe all the way through the white line.

Don't be so silly Oberon !

Of course that's not what cranial arc means - shuffling indeed

He means it's dragging its toes


OP if your horse is wearing its toes as badly as that in a sand/rubber/fibre arena then you have a lot more going on than a bit of barefoot soreness - she'd have to have been out there for hours a day to cause that on my own sand/rubber/fibre. Personally, I don't believe that toe has been "rasped off" by your horse's action on that kind of arena surface, but none of us were there, so what do we know


A Guilding you sound like a farrier. I'm not sure if you have seen many horses which work all the time on fibre combination surfaces, so excuse me if I am teaching you to suck eggs but they are relatively new. I have just bought one, precisely because the horse works on top of it, not in it, and the hoof wear compared to my friend's sand/rubber surfaces is totally different. A horse would really have to be dragging its toes horribly to cause significant toe wear on my surface. Of course the OP's may wear differently, but if so whoever bought the surface has wasted their money on it.

 

[Oberon]

Don't be so silly Oberon !

Of course that's not what cranial arc means - shuffling indeed

He means it's dragging its toes

My bad

FWIW to the OP, I believe the horse IS shuffling/dragging/lowcranialarch but that amount of wear wouldn't have been so significant to go through the hoof wall without the over rasping in the first place.

When they wear naturally they cause a roll at the wall - not a flat area of missing tissue.

That's prob why CPTrayes enquired as to a body issue in the first page of this thread

 

[Andalucian]

Great stuff from CPTrayes as usual. Ignoring her observations is like sticking your head in the sand OP, she's right in all that she is telling you.

 

[rlhnlk]

Okay, so firstly, we have the sit on the cold concrete photo's from tonight:
Off hind:

Yesterdays for comparison:

Near hind:

Yesterdays for comparison:

So I think the one's for tonight don't look half as bad as the original ones. Obviously that's my thoughts alone and your thoughts are welcome and appreciated.

amandap - her frogs were wet, she'd just come in from the field and I'd roughly scrubbed them to get the worst of the mud off. They were totally dry after a night in her bed, I'll give them a scrub with salt water and put some sudacrem on just to be sure, it won't do any harm.

cptrayes - mine has never had any issues as extreme as laminitis, she is a tb so I would be very worried if she had although I know the breed doesn't specifically rule that out. Obviously without scan etc I can't say for certain that it's not spavins but my gut feeling is that the difficulty with the lateral work (which is purely since the shoes came off) is related to soreness. The low arc is partly her natural action and again my gut feeling is that this also relates to the down time and box rest she had, resulting in a lack of fitness and muscle strength, I know I keep saying this but it's something that is improving dramatically all the time but I'm well aware there is still a way to go. She's not ridden downhill but there's a couple of steep hills down to her field and she is fine walking down them.

Oberon - They've only been rolling naturally for 12 days now, prior to that she had shoes on so I would imagine this would affect how they wear and roll?

Andalucian - I have a lot of respect for what cptrayes says, and I have taken note of all of it. In fairness though, cptrayes is judging on still photo's and what I've told her, I'm judging on the whole so while some of what cptrayes has said makes sense and is very relevant, some is less relvant, I would imagine mostly because she doesn't have the full picture in front of her.

 

[cptrayes]

That's better! no stumps now

The kind of laminitis that causes bullnoses is not extreme, it's at the low end, doesn't cause critical lameness (but does cause sole sensitivity), and takes a long time to produce any serious effects. From your latest photos, I would say that your horse has true bullnosed hind feet.

My first guess would be that she does have a sub-clinical problem dealing with carbohydrates in her diet and that they will stay that way until you can get her onto a low carb, low sugar and quite possibly restricted grass, regime. That will tighten up the attachment of her bones to her hoof wall, and if you continue barefoot her heels will get stronger and deeper and the angle of her pedal bone will right itself and stop poking out at the front like it is at the moment.

There is still a possibility from your new photos that she has worn off her toes, or they have been rasped off, but if so the "bump" created in the hoof wall is unusually high, and if you carry the line down from her coronet to the floor then that would show that if they were not worn off, then she would have disastrously long toes.

 

[amandap]

For more info on bull nosed hind hooves read here. http://www.barefoothorse.com/barefoot_Flares.html

 

[rlhnlk]

Thanks for the article amandap, some interesting stuff in there.

I think from what I've seen the best option for me is going to be to let her carry on as is, but keep a close eye on her. Hopefully if by remaining barefoot it improves her heels that may help with the rest of her hoof shape. If not then the shoes might have to go back on. I'm weighing everything up and changing her diet is not something I really want to do. She's murder to feed as it is, since she isn't always a great doer and is finicky too. She doesn't like most of the high fibre options, to the point where she won't eat them at all, she absolutely refuses to eat chaffs too. What she is on now isn't ideal from the point of view of the starch element, but I don't want to alter that and jeopordize the weight and temprement elements of her.

I'll see how she gets on, thank you for all the advice.

 

[cptrayes]

Oh you are caught in a tough place with a fussy feeder Bad luck!

Is she worse at eating in winter, by any chance? I had a mare who would not eat when not coming into season regularly, unless she was given oestrogen every 2-3 weeks. My vet said it was a very rare condition, but it was unmistakable. I tried everything to tempt her, then I injected her, and we went for a 2 hour hack and when we got back she stuffed her head in a bucket and ate her breakfast for the first time in weeks. Every time she stopped eating again, I gave her a jab and she started again. Magic.

 

[Nocturnal]

My TB had bullnosed feet in shoes as well; it wasn't caused by the farrier rasping the hoof wall (I was always present at shoeing, so know that for sure), but I'm not sure what did cause it. All I know is that it started to grow out from the moment I took shoes off. I hadn't changed his diet at this point - he was still on power and performance (20% starch) but he managed fine, went hacking out across the mendips with no probs. With mine it was definitely shoe-free work that solved the problem.

ETA: Now I've taken his fronts off as well! His lateral work is much improved since going barefoot- more swing, better connected, the works. His movement had improved significantly 2 months after taking his hinds off, and has improved again since taking his fronts off. So now I'm a total convert!

 

[TigerTail]

She's murder to feed as it is, since she isn't always a great doer and is finicky too. She doesn't like most of the high fibre options, to the point where she won't eat them at all, she absolutely refuses to eat chaffs too. What she is on now isn't ideal from the point of view of the starch element, but I don't want to alter that and jeopordize the weight and temprement elements of her.

90% of her calories ought to be coming from hay ideally, rather than a bucket feed. I only use feed to carry pro hoof, to balance whats missing in the hay, and mine gets half a cup of micronised linseed for the lovely omega oils in it.

Is yours on linseed? Ive not come across one yet that wont eat that? Especially with warm water to make it porridgey

 

[rlhnlk]

She's obnoxious to feed all year round. She's fussy, suspicious and gets bored of feeds. She is always on ad lib haylage, through winter she gets this in her field too so that does provide the bulk of calories in her feeds. She will not entertain any of the dengie feeds, I think she finds alfalfa too bitter and the hi-fi too sharp, strangely she quite likes happy hoof though. She was on Bailey's endurance mix for a while maybe 18 months, then she wouldn't eat it. Got away with Bailey's conditioning mix for 3 months then she said no, spillers slow release energy cubes lasted about a week. Currently she's on allen and page calm and condition. If she needs extra on top of this she gets grass nuts which are fab at bulking her up when she needs it. But I only get a couple of months out of them before she leaves them. Linseed I haven't tried yet, when she decides she doesn't want to play with the C&C it might be next on the list. This is a horse who has turned her nose up at runny molasses because it wasn't in her feed the day before....

She doesn't tend to be affected at all by her seasons, I only know about them because she turns into a total tart with the boys in the next field. She also doesn't tend to hot up on any specific feeds, having said that she seems more sensible since starting on brewers yeast(amazingly there has been no fuss about eating this) .

On the plus side though, tonight when I rode her the lateral work was almost back to how it was when she was shod, she was willing to canter, and it was a nice canter Still not 100%, I think she's very slightly sore but overall I'm pleased. Plus I'm guessing that the actual hoof quality is pretty good since there hasn't been a great deal of cracking or splitting etc so that must help a bit.

I think once the soreness has eased her work will be better than it was, so yay

 

[cptrayes]

90% of her calories ought to be coming from hay ideally, rather than a bucket feed. I only use feed to carry pro hoof, to balance whats missing in the hay, and mine gets half a cup of micronised linseed for the lovely omega oils in it.

Is yours on linseed? Ive not come across one yet that wont eat that? Especially with warm water to make it porridgey

It depends on how much work the horse is doing and its metabolism TT. If I gave my fit hunter less than 5 kilos a day of cubes on top of as much haylage as he will eat from 6pm t 9am, plus grass, he'd be a hatrack. One of my dressage horses has a fast metabolism and has 3 kilos of cubes a day plus the haylage and the other, a bigger horse, has only 1 kilo so he is at the 90% or more level, but he's the only one of the three.

OP my mare was the same. New feed she would eat for a month, or a week, and then suddenly stop again. Horses like her are a nightmare!