Chipped feet

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Walrus

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Hi,

My pony has never worn shoes (fell pony), we recently moved to a new yard which has increased the amount of roadwork he is doing (previous yard had off road hacking). He is coping with the roadwork but when we go on the chalky tracks we have access to his feet tend to chip. This used to happen previously as well on similarly chalky tracks. He's not footy or anything but some of the chips can get quite large.

Any tips to avoid chips on his feet?

Also, (question 2) - now we hack on tarmac I seem to spend an age picking tiny stones out of his white line - any tips for this too?

For those who are interested, for information he is turned out for approx 4 hours a day (fatty pony) and is on weighed hay and worked 5-6 days a week - combination of schooling and hacking.

Cheers. :)
 
Hi my pony is also barefoot and I have found that she only tends to chip her walls if I have let the outer wall get too long. Keeping the wall off the ground should tighten up the white line as well.
 
I would need to look at her feet when newly trimmed to comment really. The trim can really make a difference to chipping.
 
get farrier to round off bottom of walls to prevent chipping and use good quality hoof moisturiser
 
Perhaps get a pair of hoof boots. If he has got good thick soles, you should be able to relieve the walls. the walls are not primary weight barers anyway, but dont if the pony hasnt got great soles or has low grade laminitis. Relieving the walls should enable you to close the gap btween the wall and white line. If you relieve the walls and the pony hasnt got great soles, hoof boots should help until the white line closes up.
 
Hi

I was worried about chips on my cob(good doer) since having shoes removed and lots of flint in the field etc. My farrier actually poo poo'd it and told me not to worry about them??? He has a 2 pence piece out of the side toe but is not lame and fine ...I suppose you need to keep an eye etc as their feet are all different. He had shoes on originally as i did lots of road work. So without shoes is new to me....as well. The only thing is I dont ride him anymore but its quite alien not to have them on(which is stupid I know)!

Perhaps post a pic as suggested.
 
Sounds like natural wear & tear to me. Looks unsightly so best just to round off and tidy up as you go along. That's what I do anyway. The back feet of mine never seems to chip at all but the fronts do a bit and when they do, I just give a quick tidy - it's not a proper trim as such I leave that to my professional.
 
Thanks guys. Tallyho - I think that's pretty much it - it's unsightly, it doesn't seem to bother him which is why I'm reluctant to go down the shoes route just yet. The other concern I have is that small chips obviously have the potential to get bigger.

What would you use to neaten his feet up? I've heard about those hand files which are for owners and wont let you take too much foot off!

I think I'll try and be more clear with the farrier too next time and ask him to roll his toes a little more.
 
Walrus said:
Thanks guys. Tallyho - I think that's pretty much it - it's unsightly, it doesn't seem to bother him which is why I'm reluctant to go down the shoes route just yet. The other concern I have is that small chips obviously have the potential to get bigger.

What would you use to neaten his feet up? I've heard about those hand files which are for owners and wont let you take too much foot off!

I think I'll try and be more clear with the farrier too next time and ask him to roll his toes a little more.
Click to expand...

Chips are just natures way of giving him a mustang roll! lol :D

Chips don't tend to get bigger only because the stress forces in the hoof wall where it has chipped, has now gone - and appeared as a chip. hope that made sense. If you left your nails too long and started hard manual labour, your nails would chip because it was in the way. You just cut it then don't you to where it won't get in the way. Rubbish analogy but best one I could think of at the mo.

Chips will appear in the same places indicating the way the hoof is used by the horse and hoof wall is designed to be able to chip away so it doesn't get in the way of efficient mobility.

I use a normal rasp as much cheaper than those riders rasp things. I asked my pro to show me how. Maybe you could ask your farrier to show you how to rasp off a little chip and roll the toes.This does not replace a proper trim i hasten to add.

http://www.equipodiatry.com/wintertm.htm
This describes it quite well and I'm sure if you googled it, you would come up with more...
 
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My two year old feet are very chipped - but it's coming away from the flare line which my trimmer says is totally normal - I send him pics on a regular basis and as long as he's sound then he's told me not to worry. Unfortunately because of the dry weather the fields where I am are rock hard and a bit stoney. It looks a bit unsightly that's all.
 
tallyho! said:
Chips are just natures way of giving him a mustang roll! lol :D

Chips don't tend to get bigger only because the stress forces in the hoof wall where it has chipped, has now gone - and appeared as a chip. hope that made sense. If you left your nails too long and started hard manual labour, your nails would chip because it was in the way. You just cut it then don't you to where it won't get in the way. Rubbish analogy but best one I could think of at the mo.

Chips will appear in the same places indicating the way the hoof is used by the horse and hoof wall is designed to be able to chip away so it doesn't get in the way of efficient mobility.

I use a normal rasp as much cheaper than those riders rasp things. I asked my pro to show me how. Maybe you could ask your farrier to show you how to rasp off a little chip and roll the toes.This does not replace a proper trim i hasten to add.

http://www.equipodiatry.com/wintertm.htm
This describes it quite well and I'm sure if you googled it, you would come up with more...
Click to expand...

^^agreed^^
 
indie999 said:
Hi

I was worried about chips on my cob(good doer) since having shoes removed and lots of flint in the field etc. My farrier actually poo poo'd it and told me not to worry about them???
Click to expand...

My farrier said exactly the same!
I was a bit concerned because previous owner told me her farrier had said that the mare could not go without shoes. We took her back shoes off to introduce her safely to the herd and then didn't really want to put them back on (she's a bit too free with her feet in the field). We've had her 4 months now and although it's early days, she seems to be fine, although her feet are chipped.
The ID had her shoes taken off just over a year ago, I was concerned about chipping and farrier recommended putting fronts back on as we brought her back into work. The backs were still chipped for a few months but recently the farrier has had a struggle to cut anything off the feet as they have become so hard and now her back feet are fine without shoes. I am wondering whether to try again without fronts shoes. It just takes time, I think.
BTW we changed new mare's diet and she now gets no cereal/mollasses.
 
I have this :
http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=9284964&fh_location=//catalog01/en_GB/categories%3C{9372015}/categories%3C{9372043}/categories%3C{9372176}/categories%3C{9392045}/specificationsProductType=planes/specificationsSpecificProductType=planes

My barefoot trimmer recommended it to me ages ago and it is very good to "tidy up" any chips! (I don't have to use it very often as my ponys hooves are very good though!)
:-)
 
Looked at my newly barefooted cob and has a huge chunk out of the side of his hoof(he stumbles a lot ) and we also have lots of flint

I asked my mentor and they said exactly as has already been said you chip your nails dont you.....ur yes..........

well dont worry about it!! But of course I did!
 
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