Flat Feet - can they be improved?

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southerncomfort

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My little cob came with very flat soles.

They've improved a little with regular trimming but my trimmer thinks they will always be an issue and may have been a contributory factor in his recent bout of laminitis/bruised feet.

Is their anything that can be done to improve this or will I just need to manage him carefully and perhaps think about hoof boots when the ground is very hard?
 
What is he fed?

Some feet are flatter than others but it doesn't mean that the sole should be thin enough to bruise.
 
I think hoof care before he came to us was shall we say...minimal!

Sorry should have been clearer in that the bruising occurred at the bottom of the hoof wall (possibly concussive? he does like a good gallop in the field and the ground is like concrete at the moment) rather than on the sole itself. The soles are pretty hard and while not thin, their is a tiny bit of 'give' in them if you know what I mean.

He is fed nothing but a handful of Baileys Lo-Cal Balancer at the moment to keep his weight down and his weight is spot on, if not erring on the slim side now.

I have a vague memory of being advised years ago to put thick foam pads in hoof boots to encourage concavity in the sole. Can't remember if it worked or not though!
 
southerncomfort said:
I think hoof care before he came to us was shall we say...minimal!

Sorry should have been clearer in that the bruising occurred at the bottom of the hoof wall (possibly concussive? he does like a good gallop in the field and the ground is like concrete at the moment) rather than on the sole itself. The soles are pretty hard and while not thin, their is a tiny bit of 'give' in them if you know what I mean.

He is fed nothing but a handful of Baileys Lo-Cal Balancer at the moment to keep his weight down and his weight is spot on, if not erring on the slim side now.

I have a vague memory of being advised years ago to put thick foam pads in hoof boots to encourage concavity in the sole. Can't remember if it worked or not though!
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I would put him onto one of the no iron, no manganese, high copper supplements available from Forageplus, Progressive Earth, or Equimins.

Most UK grazing is too high in iron and you need the copper to balance it.

Bruising of the white line suggests weak laminae, which will cause flatter feet. It can be quite astonishing how quickly feet concave up when the laminae tighten.
 
From a website: Corrective hoof trimming and maintenance can help lift the sole and return some of the concavity to the underside of the hoof. In most cases, your farrier will need to shorten the toe of the hoof and add height to the heel. It will take an extended period of time to correct the shape of your horse's hoof enough to eliminate the appearance of having a flat foot.
 
My boy has very very flat feet due to very poor shoeing before I got him. We tried many ways to try and correct this but the only way he is kept comfortable while being in work is having pads on his front feet and making sure his feet never get too overgrown otherwise its back to square one, he has stuff called magic cushion against his sole on then a leather pad to keep that in place(also to stop pain if he stands on a stone) then shoes. He has a couple of months when he is not in hard work with just shoes with no pad, his sole and frog are sprayed with iodine regularly to help harden the frog and sole before having the pads back on.
He used to be on farriers formula then once that had done all it could do I moved him onto a supplement called Kerabol Biotin which has been brilliant and smells lush which is a bonus.
 
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We have flat soles, they improved with correct diet and lots of work but were never amazing. They were very thick and flexible but just lacking much concavity that means that if you did hit a stone on a hard surface you would likely get a reaction as he had no 'buffer zone'. gravel/moving stones a bit different. They have been functional though and didn't stop us hunting etc bare, though long distances on the more challenging terrains would not have been possible without boots, especially on consecutive days. We suspect that his pedal bone position may have limited the amount of concavity but never x-rayed to check that theory ;)

They have recently got a lot flatter again and are causing some concern as part of the collection of issues we seem to be dealing with, I'm not sure if it is the lack of work or his metabolism.

Some certainly do recommend booting with pads to increase concavity but it isn't something I've ever tried. If we didn't need boots for what we were doing I'd rather not use them.
 
Following this thread with interest as my boy has flat soles too.

I was advised to put him in boots with pads - like very hard styrofoam which apparently mould to the shape of your horses feet. All it succeeded in doing was bruising his soles. They do mould to your horses feet, but I don't see how this helps - it just means permanent pressure on the sole, which for a horse with flat weak soles must surely be painful. Surely he needed the pressure taking off his soles at that point? Someone advised me to do this on my thread about his X ray findings, I didn't realise until later when I had chance to google it. Won't be trying it again.

He also had retracted soles in the winter - so his soles seemed concave, but in fact they were flat with a sort of sudden lip up to the white line. He was basically walking on sole, around the edge of his white line. I think this was partially caused by the mud and partially by a trim which took away too much hoof wall, leaving him with nothing to walk on but sore sole :(
 
My big rangy TB ex chaser has hopeless feet - very flat, very prone to cracking down the walls, very brittle. He has minerals, a good trimmer and up until recently, low sugar diet but the improvement has been minimal (had to start him back on barley recently as it's the only feed he gains weight with. Feet aren't any better and maybe a bit more sensitive but it's rock and hard place).
The best improvement was several years ago when I took a bit of a leap of faith and too his shoes off. Its counterintuitive but the cracks improved hugely - my then farrier was surprised. But the feet are still really poor.
 
The recommendation for padded boots isn't meant as a cure for thin soles/lack of concavity as such. I think it goes back to some of Pete Ramey's teachings. He says that as long as a horse is so uncomfortable that they cannot properly stride out, or their heels are so weak that landing on them is painful, they will continue to land toe-first, which prevents the hoof from strengthening (and potentially leads to continued weak/contracted heels with long toes, and stretched laminae often go together with lack of concavity).
If padded boots make the horse comfortable, he'll stride out properly for a heel-first landing, and then each foot fall will help to build strength in the hoof. Also, constant pressure on the sole is bad, but pressure/release spread over the entire bottom of the hoof (e.g. from walking on a conforming surface, or strapping said conforming surface to the hoof via padded boots) stimulates sole growth, or so the theory goes. I don't see the point in hard pads.
I think in summary, lots of walking *when the horse is comfortable* will strengthen the hooves (including potentially improving concavity, as a tighter hoof capsule grows down), and padded boots will help if they make the horse comfortable. But I think you could equally just lead/ride over comfortable surfaces (grass, arena footing...).

I'm not entirely convinced how helpful it is to focus on concavity. In this dry weather we've had recently, the dead horn of the sole can really fill in the centre of the hoof, making the hoof look much less concave than during wet weather, when all that dead horn sheds out more easily. (In fact, Pete R. argues that this is likely a useful adaptation to give more support across the entire bottom of the hoof in dry weather/on flat and hard surfaces, while during wet weather there's enough contact anyway with dirt squishing up into the concave hoof.) But I think there's a difference between (apparent) concavity and how thick/thin the sole is. If you can bend it with thumb pressure, I doubt the horse will be able to step on a pointy stone without feeling it (and possibly getting bruised).
 
I also think it came from the fact that if your horse is flat footed, and you have to boot it a lot, you do remove some of the sole stimulation that you might otherwise get if going over mixed terrain which might help develop some concavity.

supsup, my farrier thought that was likely at least part of our issue currently (dead sole, especially as he was being ridden in boots and now isn't) I'm hoping that is the case.

The one and only abscess we had we did dig as it was the result of the him flinting his sole hunting, it was interesting as the vet was surprised how flexible his sole was with hoof testers and couldn't see how he ever managed on his hooves... until she started digging and realised how thick they were.
 
What supsup said :D

Flat feet can become less flat when the horse is given a certain type of work - developing a more dressage/sj type way of going that is rounder in action and more likely to have a distinct moment of suspension. A lot of natives tend to have pronounced concavity from their naturally round, compact way of going. Horses that tend to slide along movement wise tend to have flatter feet, but that's not necessarily a bad thing if the hoof suits the work they are doing and isn't a result of them moving in such a way as to compensate for something elsewhere in their body or because their feet are sore.

It sounds really vague but it's a case of gradually building up the hoof the horse needs for the work and lifestyle it has - just like any other part of the body. Much easier with an untouched youngster than a horse that has been shod/had an on off work schedule and many different jobs for half it's life :p
 
Oh, maybe worth mentioning is that as much as type of work surfaces can make a big difference, so those doing a lot of surface work tend to have more concave hooves than those doing lots of road walking.

I do know a couple of natives with fabulous concavity, but they have persistantly weedy looking frogs so also wouldn't be considered 'ideal' but do the job for what they need :).
 
I do also think that some of it simply down to genes/the horse as an individual. A friend of mine has two natives, same breed, and one has a tendency to grow tall "tin can" hooves with contracted frogs but lots of concavity if left for too long (and incidentally will stomp over anything if he loses a shoe, without a hitch), while the other one has a tendency to low heels, long toes and will go flat and flared if overgrown. This one more often gets stone bruises and/or abscesses, and is immediately unsound if losing a shoe. Same breed, same diet, same type and amount of exercise (same farrier as well) and yet very different feet. I don't think any management change would get horse number 2 to develop the same concavity as horse number 1 has.
 
Thanks everyone, great thread and lots of food for thought.

When he first came to us he had very boxy, very upright feet which I'm sure were not helping a jot. His recent trims have helped a lot but the trimmer is concerned that rather than (and I'm sorry I probably won't describe this very well) his foot following a straight line, their is a very slight change in the angle about halfway down the hoof. My trimmer says this is something to keep a close eye on but with regular correct trimming should improve.

He seems quite sound on pretty much all surfaces, even jogging on a stone track last week (suspect I should discourage this for the time being!). Interestingly he is shedding a lot of sole at the moment.

He's seen a physio recently and he has that physique of a cob that is used to pulling himself along from the front rather than engaging and powering himself along from the hindquarters so we are doing some lunging with a tail bandage around his hindquarters to try and encourage him to step under and use himself properly.

He's never been taught how to relax in to the rein when ridden. If you offer him the rein so he can stretch down he hasn't a clue what to do, so I don't think he's had any formal schooling at all, he is a green as grass. So it will be interesting to see if once we get him working correctly, if their is any improvement to his feet.

Thanks again, this has been really helpful. :)
 
I wouldn't be overly concerned at the change of angle, if it is an improvement - so if he had very upright feet before, and the foot is now growing at a better angle, then once the last of the upright foot has grown down and worn away, he should have less upright feet. It happens quite often, if you look at some of the Rockley Farm rehab horses - their angle of growth changes completely. I'm sure working correctly will help his feet, whether it'll solve flatness I just couldn't tell you. Certainly ester is right about the type of surface worked on - lots of work on a sandy arena surface should result in more concavity.
 
Horses do change their angles, we only changed ours once on transition, it also looked funky as they were bullnosed before
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Re. the different surfaces IIRC J1ffy experienced this when her PRE boy went from rockley back to spain and was working on sand beaches a lot.

SC if he isn't keen to stretch down I'd consider reading the straightness training stuff for him, it is based on having them forwards and down initially. It sometimes feels like you are putting them onto their shoulder a bit but it's a stages thing.
 
One of mine has very flat feet and also extremely thin soles. I give him a couple of months off in winter without shoes and it does a lot to improve his hooves.
 
Give him the pro earth supplement and don't try and reshape or remodel the feet, leave them alone! You'll knacker the collateral ligaments and all the soft tissues further up the leg and that did for my old horse
 
Thanks again for all comments/advice. He is currently barefoot but I think would benefit from exposure to different surfaces to be honest.

I had looked at the straightness training and was going to start a thread to ask if it's something that would help him, so we'll crack on with that
 
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