Heart Bar Shoes

Well i would be going with my truster vets advice over forum advice who haven't seen the horse or know it's history but are just giving knee jerk reactions (with no real back up for it).

I would agree if vets weren't taught diddly squat about healthy feet and shoeing.
 
Fair enough, I admit I know nothing about heart bars :)

If you had to shoe a lami cushings horse for short term support what type of shoe would you use / would be better?

Short term support for a sore laminitic is better provided by temporary padding that can be adjusted as necessary for comfort. Assuming the animal is not ready to be brought back into work.

Developing a thick sole is key for the comfort of any recovering laminitic. Shoes (removing any abrasion from the ground) reverse the thickening process, so are best avoided altogether. However once fully recovered, if the owner thought it necessary to shoe a laminitic/cushings pony I'd only ever go for a standard fullered shoe. Boots would be far preferable as they're only on temporarily, thus limiting the sole thinning issue.
 
I was advised to use them with box rest on my pony with newly diagnosed equine metabolic syndrome and serious laminitis. She had been lame most of the time for 8 months, and on and off alot before that.
I took the shoes off (she had always been shod) , (dropped soles rotated pedal bone etc) bought a muzzle, turned her out, bought a rasp. That was a year ago. I do her little bit of trimming myself and the only time she has been lame is when the farrier "checked" my work!!! He "tidied her feet" so she was lame for 3 weeks!!
No shoes, ever again for her, and I would never entertain heart bars for any of mine in any instance.

Impressive JEZA
 
I am sorry your horse has laminitis and I wish him well but you can't blame the farmer, surely. It is up to us owners to be aware of these things, there is no incentive for farmers to grow hay or haylage for laminitics. Fodder is grown to boost nutrient levels for cattle mainly there is no consideration given to sugar levels by most farmers. Haylage can also be too acidic for some horses.

ps. I've got it badly wrong with my pony on a couple of occasions. I try not to blame myself but learn as much as I can to avoid her getting laminitis again.

This mare had been on hayledge the seven years I have owned her and NEVER has suffered laminitus or colic before.At the start she was found stood all four legs apart ,sweating,in fact poisoned, ,last year being so wet apparently changed the sugar levels in the crop.No horse should be on rich dairy cow feed,I should have known ,and the seller certainly should have known.As the vet said,horses ain`t cows ,totally different feed requirements.Lesson learnt by me,farmer still pig ignorant,sadly:( In fact the vet said NEVER ever feed hayledge!
 
This mare had been on hayledge the seven years I have owned her and NEVER has suffered laminitus or colic before.At the start she was found stood all four legs apart ,sweating,in fact poisoned, ,last year being so wet apparently changed the sugar levels in the crop.No horse should be on rich dairy cow feed,I should have known ,and the seller certainly should have known.As the vet said,horses ain`t cows ,totally different feed requirements.Lesson learnt by me,farmer still pig ignorant,sadly:( In fact the vet said NEVER ever feed hayledge!
Was it poison from toxins formed by bacteria in too wet (badly made) haylage? It's scary as haylage is more like silage here and trying to introduce haylage made on an old meadow was what triggered one of my ponys' attacks.

Silage and too wet haylage are at risk of toxins forming from nasty anaerobic bacteria. Proper haylage has quite a lower moisture content to silage but mustn't be too dry either.
It is actually easy to test moisture content before baling using a microwave oven and some scales! There isn't really an excuse not to make it properly. (Eta... except weather! lol) We owners have to be on guard for our horses and sadly some of us learn by bad experiences for our horses. :(

Microwave instructions on here but there are loads on the internet. http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/442/442-106/442-106.html
 
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Was it poison from toxins formed by bacteria in too wet (badly made) haylage? It's scary as haylage is more like silage here and trying to introduce haylage made on an old meadow was what triggered one of my ponys' attacks.

Silage and too wet haylage are at risk of toxins forming from nasty anaerobic bacteria. Proper haylage has quite a lower moisture content to silage but mustn't be too dry either.
It is actually easy to test moisture content before baling using a microwave oven and some scales! There isn't really an excuse not to make it properly. (Eta... except weather! lol) We owners have to be on guard for our horses and sadly some of us learn by bad experiences for our horses. :(

Microwave instructions on here but there are loads on the internet. http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/442/442-106/442-106.html

Wish I knew,hindsight,the only exact science! She was re xrayed today because things had been looking very good,and turning her out in a tiny bare paddock was on the cards for next week.Then last night she did not back up as quick as I went into her,led her out and found her extremely sore.The xrays show that the pedal bone has not rotated any more (Phew!!) but on both fronts there is an area showing a sac of fluid build up just on the end of the pedal bone.This can be released by the farrier,so once that is done we can look to finally healing I hope.She also had the free Cushings test,we call her HairyMhairi,but I never thought she was any more than a hairey irish cob,just hard work on the clippers.Either way,she has a brilliant vet and farrier,so with luck she should come through.She is not a fat sort of mare,in fact sometimes she is hard to keep as I would want her,so maybe cushings is a possibility.It has been a nerve racking time,not one I would wish on anyone
 
Hi. So sorry to hear of all the heartache and worry you have had with your mare. We went through a terrible time with an old mare of ours about four years ago. She suffered from laminitis which was not at first diagnosed by the vet, (although we did query whether it could be lammi, but the vet said no because the lameness was only in one leg! we found out too late that this is total rubbish and a horse can have lammi in one or more feet, back or front!).

We were advised by the vet to walk her in hand and graze her in hand, the outcome was both front pedal bones rotated and sunk! She had developed founder - had we not walked and grazed her she probably would not have got so bad. I will always consider laminitis now, whenever a horse of mine is lame. No walking out or grazing, and if there is no improvement in a week, XRAYS in order to eliminate Laminitis.

From the date our mare was finally diagnosed on we listened to our farrier, who after all is the expert in the management of a horses feet. We did not have heart bar shoes because we did not want nails used, but we opted for 'imprint shoes' which were expensive but helped enormously with comfort for our mare. After nine months in the box and marvellous care from the farrier, (and with some peripheral support from the vet in terms of painkiilers,etc) our mare was bought back to full soundness! She even went on to win a dressage test that year. Sadly two years later she developed arthritis in her hindlegs and then the lammi came back. We decided that we could not put her through all that suffering again and took the decision to have her put to sleep.

That farrier gave our beloved mare another two years of painfree life. When it comes to horses feet I will go with what my farrier advises every time.

Wishing you all the best with your mare, you are obviously a very caring owner!
 
Thankyou PATP,I feel a lot happier after todays` xrays,she has not rotated..last night both I and Sue who helps out and rides her were worried sick.In fact it was more a case of ..well,is she going up to the kennels,but now we both feel so relieved that it seems sortable.
I know laminitus is unpredictable,I can only remember seeing it as a child in fat little welshies,and it was vile.this was so sudden though,my farrier is convinced because of this it is a reaction to hayledge toxins.Mhairi is not a fat type,in fact a week before her teeth were done as she was showing a couple of ribs..only a bit mind,but enough to check things out about.She is supposed to last me out,this one,and I really do hope she does.Finding saintly safe but willing mares is not the easiest sort to find,frankly I do not want to have to look again.
 
My Mare came down with laminitis at the start of last summer. She had Hbs fitted in August, had them removed in December and now has normal shoes and up until now is fully sound and in hard work.

I guess its just whatever works for you. Go with your gut instict, thats what I did and luckily it worked :)
i was petrified about trying them after everything id heard, but i guess its like when your looking at holidays and you read bad reviews, all everyone ever seems to report back are when something bad happens and we never get to hear the good things.
 
My Mare came down with laminitis at the start of last summer. She had Hbs fitted in August, had them removed in December and now has normal shoes and up until now is fully sound and in hard work.

I guess its just whatever works for you. Go with your gut instict, thats what I did and luckily it worked :)
i was petrified about trying them after everything id heard, but i guess its like when your looking at holidays and you read bad reviews, all everyone ever seems to report back are when something bad happens and we never get to hear the good things.

So pleased for you, I pray our end result will be as good.just have to trust my super vet and farrier,they know loads more than I do.:o
 
My old mare wears one heartbar shoe on the front, the other hooves are normally shod. The reason for this is she was on boxrest last year for a fractured splint and the loaded foot which she was stood on, dropped. Her heels have dropped too, one through age and two, she was left in a field for fifteen years not doing a lot (feet cared for when necessary.)

She is much much more comfortable on the turn with hb on. I do find her more stumbly though but shes very unfit and just started very light work. I am hoping that she won't need it forever, but time will tell. It certainly allows me to get her out and about and see a bit of the world which she loves. :)
 
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