Corns - how did you treat and how long until better?

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Charlie31

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I’m interested to hear of people’s experience of corns, how they treated them and how long it took for the horse to get better.

My horse has been found to have corns in both front feet. They’ve been dug out and packed with some stuff and then he was shod with fuller heals for greater support. He’s sound and happy on soft ground and in the school but not at all keen to go forward on the road. I guess this means his feet are still hurting!

I’m wondering whether I just need to give it a bit more time with the shoes on while the bruising heals or whether it would be better to remove the shoes for a while and either turn him away or see how he goes in hoof boots.

Vet and farrier have both been involved so far and I won’t make any decisions without speaking to them first but I just wondered if anybody here had any first hand experience of how they dealt with it.
 
They are usually caused by being shod too short or shoes being left on too long and it is something I have rarely dealt with but usually once the farrier has taken them out and shod longer at the heel the issue is fairly quickly resolved, probably a couple of weeks to be fully comfortable on hard ground and roads but you do need to ensure he is kept shod correctly so they do not reoccur or go barefoot and remove the cause completely.
You could take the shoes off but it probably wont make much difference to how long he takes to recover and it may give you other problems if he doesn't cope without them straight away.
 
Thanks for your reply. He's always been shod every five weeks but he does forge so the farrier shod more to prevent that and I'm wondering if that was what caused the problem. It's the first time he's ever had them so I hope it's just a one off but yes, the shoes are longer at the heel now. He's only had the shoes back on for a week so maybe I'm being a bit impatient and need to give it a bit longer. I thought he seemed more comfortable in the brief period the shoes were off though so I guess this is why I'm wondering.

He doesn't have very good feet at all so if the shoes do come off I know it won't be easy and there'd be no way we could ride without boots. I think I just wonder if he needs a break from shoes more generally though.
 
I would have a bit of a concern about your farriers thoughts on forging and how to deal with it, usually they will keep the hind feet a bit shorter at the toe and keep the fronts shod correctly possibly with the toe set back a little and quarter clips to improve breakover which is in part the cause of forging.
It is mainly a schooling issue with the horse being on the forehand so you can do your bit, taking the hinds off would help and may be a good first step to getting him out of shoes for a while which is probably a good idea if it is possible, most horses benefit from a break and plenty can work barefoot if the owner can deal with it, I have had a couple with really bad feet in full work barefoot as have many people on here so definitely worth looking into.
 
Hooves are grown from the inside - if his feet aren't good at the moment what are you feeding him? Others on here are better placed to advise on feed but my mares feet improved enormously when I changed to Thunderbrooks base mix and fast fibre rather than a standard bag of mix.
 
be positive said:
I would have a bit of a concern about your farriers thoughts on forging and how to deal with it, usually they will keep the hind feet a bit shorter at the toe and keep the fronts shod correctly possibly with the toe set back a little and quarter clips to improve breakover which is in part the cause of forging.
It is mainly a schooling issue with the horse being on the forehand so you can do your bit, taking the hinds off would help and may be a good first step to getting him out of shoes for a while which is probably a good idea if it is possible, most horses benefit from a break and plenty can work barefoot if the owner can deal with it, I have had a couple with really bad feet in full work barefoot as have many people on here so definitely worth looking into.
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The farrier did shoe the back feet as you said but wasn't keen on the quarter clips approach for the fronts that you describe. He explained his reasons to me and they did make sense but I can't remember that they were now. Most of the farriers round here don't shoe with enough heel support in my view.

He has had his shoes off briefly in the past although not for long enough to give him the real benefit. I'm pretty confident I could keep him working with boots but I do know from before that it was hard work, especially as we have loads of gravel on our yard and the walls pretty much fell off up the old nail holes. I do just feel that if I can stomach it the break would do him good but I suppose I'm a bit worried that with there being issues now I might end up inadvertently making things worse!


D66 said:
Hooves are grown from the inside - if his feet aren't good at the moment what are you feeding him? Others on here are better placed to advise on feed but my mares feet improved enormously when I changed to Thunderbrooks base mix and fast fibre rather than a standard bag of mix.
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His feet have always been poor ever since I got him. He is on a high fibre and oil diet but is incredibly fussy and won't eat some of the stuff he would ideally have so I have to do the best I can. So he has a low sugar and starch balancer and a hoof supplement that also has extra magnesium oxide in. I only swapped to this hoof supplement recently so it's too soon to know if it will help. The main issue though is that the grazing at our livery yard is ridiculously high in sugar and the yard owner won't allow us to strip graze or anything like that so I'm up against it regardless of what goes in his feed bowl really. That said his feet have always been bad regardless of what yard he's on. I'd love to find a track type place for him but they simply don't exist round here.
 
My eventer suffered from corns. I used to take him to a large farrier practice on a busy Saturday morning where they had several farriers of all ages from the young apprentices to the old, nearly retired. If the really old chap shod him he was OK till next time, if one of the younger ones shod him I could feel him getting a bit short and pottery before the next appointment. The old chap said it was how his hoof grew, as well as how he shod him. This was when I was in my 20s so I knew zero about hooves apart from taking them to be shod. A local vet said that he considered the farriers caused the corns, but I think that was a bit over simplifying.
 
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