Coffin joint and fetlock joint remodelling-barefoot a solution?

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rubymay

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Hi everyone, I haven't posted much on here but am really hoping for some help and advice. My newforest pony has been diagnosed with some subtle remodelling of the coffin joints and some mild remodelling of the hind fetlock joints. She is bilaterally lame in front and 1/10 lame on her near hind and it was picked up as she started not wanting to go forward when being ridden. She has had a period of rest and is due to go back to the vets next week to be assessed. She does appear to be happier after the rest and isn't at all pottery in the field she looks pretty sound when trotting and cantering round in her field now but obviously this hasn't been fully assessed yet.

I have decided I am probably not going to inject her at the moment only due to doing quite a bit of reading and finding the majority of cases seem to find this isn't a long term solution but I am completely open to reconsidering this.

I am now looking into doing a barefoot rehab with her and wondered if people thought this could be helpful for her? One thing I am a little concerned about is the amount of roadwork in the rehab as the vet did suggest it may have been the amount of roadwork and the concussion from this that has set the problem in the coffin joint off. What are people's opinions on this please? Any help or advice greatly appreciated thank you for reading this far, sorry for the long post!
 
Personally I wouldn't make any decisions until she's been to the vets for her assessment, I think you need to know exactly what you're dealing with first. I can understand the reluctance to have her injected, but agree that it's not something to completely rule out. As for barefoot, it might help or you might find the time you spend conditioning her feet interferes with the rehab that she needs for her other problems, plus do you have the facilities to do barefoot if she proves less than straightforward.

Whatever you do I hope she has a good future.
 
Thank you for your reply, you're right I will definitely go to the assessment first and I will ask their opinion of going barefoot too. If I go down the barefoot route I will try to plan very carefully, we have lots of little lanes that are really quiet and flat that I can do in hand work and we have some tracks round the paddocks I could use too. She can have 24hr turnout or be brought in. I have been looking into nutrition too but I think I will wait until next week before taking things any further. Any other tips for things to consider greatly appreciated.
 
I would definitely try barefoot before anything else. Shoes obviously don't allow feet to model themselves to match the rest of the horse. If shoes have been put on to a less-than-perfectly-trimmed hoof, the leg is forced to work in a way that's not ideal for it. I think this can be very subtle - not a ham-fisted farrier who doesn't care, just that I don't think it's possible for a human to get a perfect trim, and of course it changes as the hoof grows anyway. This probably isn't damaging when the horse is on soft ground - any slight imbalances won't be transmitted up the leg - but when working on roads it's bound to have an effect. Take the shoes away, the hoof wears to where it wants to be (which might look messy/unbalanced to a human eye!) and the forces going up the leg through the joints even out. With this view, road work without shoes is a very different prospect to road work with shoes, and it can be very helpful.
eta: bones are always remodelling, all the time, in all of us - it can happen in a benign or positive way as well as negative.
 
Road work shouldn't be a problem, as to start with you would walk out in hand. Also, a barefoot horse has less concussive forces on its legs. As opposed to a shod horse.
 
soloequestrian said:
I would definitely try barefoot before anything else. Shoes obviously don't allow feet to model themselves to match the rest of the horse. If shoes have been put on to a less-than-perfectly-trimmed hoof, the leg is forced to work in a way that's not ideal for it. I think this can be very subtle - not a ham-fisted farrier who doesn't care, just that I don't think it's possible for a human to get a perfect trim, and of course it changes as the hoof grows anyway. This probably isn't damaging when the horse is on soft ground - any slight imbalances won't be transmitted up the leg - but when working on roads it's bound to have an effect. Take the shoes away, the hoof wears to where it wants to be (which might look messy/unbalanced to a human eye!) and the forces going up the leg through the joints even out. With this view, road work without shoes is a very different prospect to road work with shoes, and it can be very helpful.
eta: bones are always remodelling, all the time, in all of us - it can happen in a benign or positive way as well as negative.
Click to expand...

Thank you this is really positive and helpful. Really useful info about the bone remodelling too.
 
Regandal said:
Road work shouldn't be a problem, as to start with you would walk out in hand. Also, a barefoot horse has less concussive forces on its legs. As opposed to a shod horse.
Click to expand...

I was hoping this to be the case, I would definitely start with in hand work for the first month. Thank you
 
what are her feet like at the moment?
Injecting isn't a long term solution but it doesn't mean it is a bad idea short term, especially when you want them comfortable. My own had his coffin joint injected because we knew it helped, just not for very long a few days before his shoes came off.
regarding roadwork, it is usually good because it provides stimuation and some wearing, however it isn't a total necessity if you have off road hacking, you just have to do the wearing with a rasp instead. I would also suggest that you will likely need to take it quite slowly, as yes although bare hooves are better at absorbing shock, newly bare hooves will not be, you need to give it time for the internal structures to build up to that.

I long reined my own for nearly 3 months, he did the first 6 weeks bootless but then went very sore (he had flat feet) so was booted for all roadwork and unbooted for grass work for the next 6 months. He had a coffin joint DJD diagnosis but nothing on xray and no progression 6 years later so I suspect our issue was more soft tissue although the joint injection did help.

Be prepared for the vet to be less than keen (it depends on the vet) but if you explain that you have done your research and have the patience to try it then most are happy to go with it.

If you do need to use boots I really would advise you get some with the best breakover if you have coffin joint issues.
 
ester said:
what are her feet like at the moment?
Injecting isn't a long term solution but it doesn't mean it is a bad idea short term, especially when you want them comfortable. My own had his coffin joint injected because we knew it helped, just not for very long a few days before his shoes came off.
regarding roadwork, it is usually good because it provides stimuation and some wearing, however it isn't a total necessity if you have off road hacking, you just have to do the wearing with a rasp instead. I would also suggest that you will likely need to take it quite slowly, as yes although bare hooves are better at absorbing shock, newly bare hooves will not be, you need to give it time for the internal structures to build up to that.

I long reined my own for nearly 3 months, he did the first 6 weeks bootless but then went very sore (he had flat feet) so was booted for all roadwork and unbooted for grass work for the next 6 months. He had a coffin joint DJD diagnosis but nothing on xray and no progression 6 years later so I suspect our issue was more soft tissue although the joint injection did help.

Be prepared for the vet to be less than keen (it depends on the vet) but if you explain that you have done your research and have the patience to try it then most are happy to go with it.

If you do need to use boots I really would advise you get some with the best breakover if you have coffin joint issues.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your advice, I have spoken to my vet today and after assessing her on Wednesday we may go with taking her shoes off he was very open to this and said it was definitely worth a go. We also discussed injecting her with Arthramid if she still appears to be in pain. He said it would be useful to inject her if needed at the start as hopefully it will reduce the pain straight away (fingers crossed).
 
excellent, sounds like you have a plan to go forwards with. I think it is something to approach with some pragmatism, if it all goes tits up/the horse genuinely cannot cope despite boots and pads etc it is not a big job to put shoes back on.

Will you plan to do this with your farrier?

It is best done at the end of the shoeing cycle and no trimming to be done at that point as a bit of extra length is helpful, as is a less is more approach initially, no touching the sole/frog etc other than treating any thrush (a good idea to do regularly as a in case measure, particularly at this time of year).

Often horse step out of shoes quite well but go sore after about 6 weeks as the hoof seems to wake up. We started with 5 mins walkng on the road and was up to about 20 when my own went sore, then he continued building up the road work in boots and I took them off for all grass areas.

What are you feeding?

Boot wise you definitely need something with a good breakover, I think the easybloot glove sole is probably the best for this (it is the same on the black country version). Good boots depend on good fit and there are a loads about now but some are definitely better for break over than others- unfortunately they are often the ones that are better on fully transitioned hooves but we have only just replaced out pair of gloves recently :), unusually his didn't change size enough to make a difference
 
I was hoping to do it at the end of this shoeing cycle with my current farrier which is in another week but she had an abscess about 10 days ago which seems to have heeled up but she has a bit of a hole from where it was dug out so I wasn't sure if this could affect things. She has also just got a bit of a crumble of the outside of her hoof too which is a bit of a bummer, there's a bit of a hole from that. I don't know if that's because her feet are due though.

Diet wise she's currently on thunderbrooks healthy herbal chaff, speedibeet and topspec light balancer. I have been doing some reading and wondered if I should take her off the balancer and put her on pro hoof by progressive earth and possibly also start some micronised linseed. Does this sound like the right way to go? I was thinking of adding them to the thunderbrooks and speedibeet. She is coming in at night at the moment and has overnight pretty much ad lib hay. She's been coming in because of the abscess and I wanted her feet to have some time to dry out. She would normally be out 24hrs so I would probably go back to this if the vet agrees.

The info about the boots is really helpful as I really don't know much about these.
 
I would, topspec isn't the best.
pro earth, forageplus, equivita, and equimins are usually the go tos, I use the latter but add some extra magnesium as it is a bit low and I know what is in my forage.
Micro linseed is definitely good all round stuff, make sure you get it made by charnwoods as they are the only company that can infra red cook and the other stuff is higher in starch.
Regarding the boots, all of our retailers are super helpful (hoofbootique, urban horse, cannock chase, the saddlery shop, equine podiatry supplies) it is easiest if you send them pictures of the sole with a tape measure in the pic with width and length. But becuase of the diagnosis of yours you should stress to them the importance on minimal impact on break over point.

with the above, a bucketload of patience waiting to see if it might work and you will be lookng at all horses from the hoof up in no time, even when their riders are trying to hold a conversation with you. :D.

ps good hoof pics always welcome ;)
 
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