Hoof pics - please be kind!

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Matafleur

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Ok, so I am being very brave and posting pictures of my horse's front feet (I haven't bothered doing the backs as I'm actually fairly pleased with them).

For history as far as I know it: I have had him about 2 weeks now, he is a 3 yr old ISH from Ireland, been turned out in a field his whole life. He had shoes whacked on the front when he was brought in to be sold, probably had them on about 5/6 weeks before I had them removed when he'd been here a week. I let the farrier just trim what he wanted this time as there was a lot of thrush and he'd been badly shod and trimmed before. Feet looked better afterwards.

He is still turned out most of the time here but comes in every day for a few hours to have his feet picked/cleaned (I'm using sole cleanse) and to eat a bit of feed and stand in the dry. The last few days I've been able to start taking him on short walks on our hard track/tarmac drive, I'm hoping to start building this up to walking further up the road. The back feet have really improved but the fronts less so, especially the right fore which has a bit of a turn. The frog and heels look very bad on this one.

I'm not certain that I want to go barefoot yet but I wouldn't be shoeing for some time anyway so thought I'd try and get his feet as healthy as possible and see where we go from there. Enough waffle:

Frontview.jpg


Leftfore4.jpg


Leftfore3.jpg


Leftfore1.jpg


Leftfore2.jpg


Rightfore1.jpg


Rightfore5.jpg


Rightfore4.jpg


I know they look pretty bad, but we are working on it! I guess I'm wondering what else I can do to improve them?
 
Is he sound in front? Because those feet are completely different from each other .

The black left foot is a typical young foot that's done no work. My 3yr olds feet looked like that until recently. Plenty of hard ground (road work) will beef up the heels. The soles a bit flat which will be diet related.

The stripy right foot has a long underun heel, contracted heel bulbs and a frankly useless frog. It looks like a foot thats worn shoes for a while.. The concavity is better though. With gradual shortening if the heels and getting the frog comfy and workings properly, they'll spread and decontract.
 
Is he on mineral supplements and micronised linseed and no molasses [use quick beet not s / b nuts] I would put him on Pro Hoof from pro earth for six weeks, see how it goes.
Have you looked a the Rockley Farm pics, you can see a very extreme example of a hoof which has grown to compensate for a conformation defect, it may be similar to yours.
I would ask the farrier to come back and check these fronts pretty soon., I would try building up the walking as much as you can, a tarmac road is perfect.
http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/puzzling-hoof.html
PS you are barefoot already, best not to shoe if you are considering never applying crampons as they will "go backwards"
 
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Kallibear said:
Is he sound in front?
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Amazingly, yes, very. Moves very well (and very straight, interestingly given that foot/leg) and had a completely clear 5 stage about 4 weeks ago now. He is a bit tentative over stony ground though but I didn't think that was a great worry at this stage?

The frogs on the back feet look much better, much bigger and a very shallow and open central sulcus. The fronts just haven't changed in the same way although I appreciate it's early days. I wonder if he still has a bit of thrush in the right foot, I am scrubbing in the sole cleanse every day.

He is fed a tiny bit of fast fibre, half a cup of linseed, and I am introducing pro-balance slowly as he is not eating up all that well - doesn't really love the ff! Unfortunately our grazing is very good and he is possibly a bit overweight.

Farrier will be back early January. His stance did improve after the farrier but I would say is slightly worse now than it was a few days after trim.
 
Matafleur said:
Amazingly, yes, very. Moves very well (and very straight, interestingly given that foot/leg) and had a completely clear 5 stage about 4 weeks ago now. He is a bit tentative over stony ground though but I didn't think that was a great worry at this stage?

The frogs on the back feet look much better, much bigger and a very shallow and open central sulcus. The fronts just haven't changed in the same way although I appreciate it's early days. I wonder if he still has a bit of thrush in the right foot, I am scrubbing in the sole cleanse every day.

He is fed a tiny bit of fast fibre, half a cup of linseed, and I am introducing pro-balance slowly as he is not eating up all that well - doesn't really love the ff! Unfortunately our grazing is very good and he is possibly a bit overweight.

Farrier will be back early January. His stance did improve after the farrier but I would say is slightly worse now than it was a few days after trim.
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I think FF is not very appetising, I found Dengie non molassed lo alfa to be very tasty, it has some spicy bits and some chopped oat straw, I like as it introduces another fibre source and you can feed as much or as little as you like.
 
Try speedi beet instead of fast fibre if you contact the makers they will send you a sample to try. As for his hooves if he's sound doesn't matter if they're not pretty as long as they work for him.
 
What a difference between the 2 hooves!!

In terms of the getting the supplements down him, with nugz I leave his feed in overnight. But then I am lucky in that he likes FF, just not with pony poison in it :D He feigns starvation and then decides that as it is food, he will eat it and then it isn't an issue. Does normally take a couple of days of doing this though.

Highly recommend the Rockley website :)
 
One foot is a great start. The other has some issues but don't rush to try to make the feet the same, they will probably even up to some extent as the body comes straighter with schooling.

You could also do with trying to increase his work on rough surfaces to a point where he needs no trimming, though this will take time. I am recommending this because he is toe out on both fronts and if he is trimmed to make his feet symmetrical then they will not match his conformation. If he rapidly puts back stuff that's been trimmed off, it's because he needs it.
 
Thank you for all the responses so far - very interesting.

I am trying to walk him further on the road, he is not broken yet and won't be until next year, he is still a little flighty occasionally so I am a bit cautious about where I take him.

I am not sure how he is landing at the moment but is it a problem for him to be walking on the road if he is toe first at the moment?

Interestingly I have some video that was taken the day after he was shod and he is standing almost totally square in front, just a fraction toe out. Is it possibly that he has some discomfort in the right fore that is affecting his stance (again, he is totally sound)? And does it look as if there may still be any infection in the frogs?

Sorry for all the questions, I do look at the Rockley site frequently too :-)
 
Matafleur said:
Thank you for all the responses so far - very interesting.

I am trying to walk him further on the road, he is not broken yet and won't be until next year, he is still a little flighty occasionally so I am a bit cautious about where I take him.

I am not sure how he is landing at the moment but is it a problem for him to be walking on the road if he is toe first at the moment?

Interestingly I have some video that was taken the day after he was shod and he is standing almost totally square in front, just a fraction toe out. Is it possibly that he has some discomfort in the right fore that is affecting his stance (again, he is totally sound)? And does it look as if there may still be any infection in the frogs?

Sorry for all the questions, I do look at the Rockley site frequently too :-)
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It's quite likely that your farrier was just skilled at hiding his toe out conformation.
It looks to me as if the twist is from the knee down, not in the foot. If he is shod to hide the twist then it could put pressure on joints that will cause him problems later in life. The safest bet will be to get him to self trim so you are sure he has the balance he needs, and then if you want to shoe, shoe to that balance and try to give him three months a year our of shoes to retain his foot quality.
 
cptrayes said:
It's quite likely that your farrier was just skilled at hiding his toe out conformation.
It looks to me as if the twist is from the knee down, not in the foot. If he is shod to hide the twist then it could put pressure on joints that will cause him problems later in life. The safest bet will be to get him to self trim so you are sure he has the balance he needs, and then if you want to shoe, shoe to that balance and try to give him three months a year our of shoes to retain his foot quality.
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Well this was actually after he had been shod by the seller, before he arrived with me. My poor farrier nearly died when he saw the state of the shoeing job, said he would have sacked his apprentice if he'd shod a horse that badly! The horse has only had one pair of shoes on ever, and only for about 5 weeks.

I do agree that the twist seems to be coming from higher up but I wondered (having read some of the Rockley blogs) if his stance may also be exacerbated by the poor hoof quality. But then I suppose the Rockley horses are usually lame when they arrive and therefore their stance improves as they get sounder?

On the upside, he seems to have decided I'm not trying to poison him with the fast fibre so hopefully I can start to increase the pro balance to a full dose.
 
Lots of horses straighten with work on bare feet. I have a friend with a horse whose shoulders are a bit of who also had a huge dish as a five year old. She has improved every year her shoes have been off and is now almost straight in her action. He feet are not a pair, but they match her shoulders which aren't a pair either.
 
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