LadyGascoyne
Well-Known Member
I had the most interesting day yesterday. Finally, after weeks of trying to persevere and get my usual farrier to see us, I gave up and switched.
I inherited my previous farrier with a shod horse that I looked after for its owner while she was abroad. He is really good with shoes and so nice to the horses, and he has kept Mim’s feet nice and balanced. I’m very grateful to him and would absolutely recommend him for shod horses
But...
I have now switched to an equine podiatrist (L) and it was a completely eye opening experience.
Firstly, L watched them trot up on the road and took photos to assess their landing. She listened to the rhythm of their footfall, and watched how they used their bodies. Mim isn’t terribly balanced and her footfall can be quite irregular, not from a soundness perspective (and she has has a recent full MOT by my vet) but because she’s constantly looking around and not terribly focused. She is very baby-ish. L thinks she’ll benefit from upping the amount of pole work we are doing, and also varying terrain on hacks and walks so she really has to think about where her feet are. She lands heel first, slightly towards flat so can improve her landing but nothing to worry about.
Milagra moves really well, but her heels are very high and probably have been for a number of years. L will be really careful dropping them, and do them really slowly as she can see how much atrophy there is through Milagra’s back, and I have seen Milagra look quite stiff in her hocks occasionally alright yesterday she looked right as rain.
L then talked me through an assessment of their horn quality and talked through the event lines, and asked lots of questions about feed and forage, and significant events in their lives.
Mim doesn’t really show event lines beyond subtle changes when she moved onto the new fields a few months ago, and L thinks this is indicative of her being quite resilient as an individual and having good overall health.
Milagra’s feet are the opposite- they have rings and rings of lines through them. I know she’s a worrier but it was really interesting to see that there is a physical map of stress in her feet.
Then L looked at their soles and frogs. Mim’s feet are very nice and L says have the potential to be excellent. She has the start of some seedy toe in one foot so that has been scraped, cleaned and packed with “hoof stuff”. They did go for far too long without a trim though as I just couldn’t get the farrier to actually arrive, so I think there was just too much opportunity for bugs.
Milagra’s frogs are awfully contracted and the central sulcus is effectively a slit, with infection deep within it. L thinks this has been developing over years.
L has trimmed really conservatively and will come back in 4 weeks, so we can adjust slowly. It’s going to be quite complicated to get Milagra’s foot to open up and the heels to drop down, as they are really constricted.
L then spent a bit more time with Milagra, looking at her teeth and her back, her skin and her coat. She made some recommendations for other professionals who might be able to help.
Interestingly, one of the things she kept going back to was gut health - something I have read as being linked to EORTH. There isn’t a huge amount of research available so it’s hard to tell what the relationship is but ulcers and digestive issues were present in the majority of horses with EORTH also had gut issues. It seems likely that Milagra was very underweight at some point and possibly kept under a rug (so I’d presume here in the UK rather than in Spain) as her coat shows signs of wear and white hairs where her bones may have been protruding- point of hips, top of SI, shoulders and withers. She also recommended a specialist dentist that she uses with her own horses to give Milagra’s teeth a second look.
I am going to get a sample of the field analysed to look at what they are getting from a mineral and nutritional perspective.
L spent about 3 hours with us, and it was such a brilliant day. I think the horses really enjoyed it too. Mimosa especially loves being faffed about with. She spent the whole trim mutually grooming L or my husband, who was on horse holding duty, and she found the tools fascinating.
So we now have a plan and some exercises, stretches and research to do with each of the horses.
I inherited my previous farrier with a shod horse that I looked after for its owner while she was abroad. He is really good with shoes and so nice to the horses, and he has kept Mim’s feet nice and balanced. I’m very grateful to him and would absolutely recommend him for shod horses
But...
I have now switched to an equine podiatrist (L) and it was a completely eye opening experience.
Firstly, L watched them trot up on the road and took photos to assess their landing. She listened to the rhythm of their footfall, and watched how they used their bodies. Mim isn’t terribly balanced and her footfall can be quite irregular, not from a soundness perspective (and she has has a recent full MOT by my vet) but because she’s constantly looking around and not terribly focused. She is very baby-ish. L thinks she’ll benefit from upping the amount of pole work we are doing, and also varying terrain on hacks and walks so she really has to think about where her feet are. She lands heel first, slightly towards flat so can improve her landing but nothing to worry about.
Milagra moves really well, but her heels are very high and probably have been for a number of years. L will be really careful dropping them, and do them really slowly as she can see how much atrophy there is through Milagra’s back, and I have seen Milagra look quite stiff in her hocks occasionally alright yesterday she looked right as rain.
L then talked me through an assessment of their horn quality and talked through the event lines, and asked lots of questions about feed and forage, and significant events in their lives.
Mim doesn’t really show event lines beyond subtle changes when she moved onto the new fields a few months ago, and L thinks this is indicative of her being quite resilient as an individual and having good overall health.
Milagra’s feet are the opposite- they have rings and rings of lines through them. I know she’s a worrier but it was really interesting to see that there is a physical map of stress in her feet.
Then L looked at their soles and frogs. Mim’s feet are very nice and L says have the potential to be excellent. She has the start of some seedy toe in one foot so that has been scraped, cleaned and packed with “hoof stuff”. They did go for far too long without a trim though as I just couldn’t get the farrier to actually arrive, so I think there was just too much opportunity for bugs.
Milagra’s frogs are awfully contracted and the central sulcus is effectively a slit, with infection deep within it. L thinks this has been developing over years.
L has trimmed really conservatively and will come back in 4 weeks, so we can adjust slowly. It’s going to be quite complicated to get Milagra’s foot to open up and the heels to drop down, as they are really constricted.
L then spent a bit more time with Milagra, looking at her teeth and her back, her skin and her coat. She made some recommendations for other professionals who might be able to help.
Interestingly, one of the things she kept going back to was gut health - something I have read as being linked to EORTH. There isn’t a huge amount of research available so it’s hard to tell what the relationship is but ulcers and digestive issues were present in the majority of horses with EORTH also had gut issues. It seems likely that Milagra was very underweight at some point and possibly kept under a rug (so I’d presume here in the UK rather than in Spain) as her coat shows signs of wear and white hairs where her bones may have been protruding- point of hips, top of SI, shoulders and withers. She also recommended a specialist dentist that she uses with her own horses to give Milagra’s teeth a second look.
I am going to get a sample of the field analysed to look at what they are getting from a mineral and nutritional perspective.
L spent about 3 hours with us, and it was such a brilliant day. I think the horses really enjoyed it too. Mimosa especially loves being faffed about with. She spent the whole trim mutually grooming L or my husband, who was on horse holding duty, and she found the tools fascinating.
So we now have a plan and some exercises, stretches and research to do with each of the horses.
. 
