Hoof Question

[emjaylo]

Hi All,
Could anyone tell me what these bars on that have appeared on my horses hood?
He’s never had them before, they’re only on one foot. They don’t seem to be causing any issues but wanted to check it’s nothing to worry about.

 

[PurBee]

They are called ‘bars’ and are meant to be there, so if he never had these before that you could visually see, they could have been trimmed very low by your farrier and now theyve grown to a height youre seeing them protruding.

They are an extension of the hoof wall, from the rear of the heel, which makes a sharp turn inward, and are made of hoof wall material. They have a white line like the rest of the hoof wall.

Have you recently gone barefoot or has your farrier cleaned out a lot of sole material?

Sometimes bars can become an over grown mass that lay over into the sole and can look like sole, so if you had that and a farrier recently did a thorough sole and wall trim, the bars are now growing upwards and supporting the hoof better, as they should.

 

[emjaylo]

Thank you that’s what I first thought but they didn’t quite look the same as the photos when I googled them, they didn’t look like they were at the correct angle. He’s always been barefoot and has never needed shoes, I’ll speak to the farrier on it next time as I can’t see them on his other feet.

 

[PurBee]

Those bars look okay. Many times they can grow and develop distorted, so thats why you see pics with bars of various lengths, shapes, angles and size.
Great idea to ask your farrier next time to show you the bars on all 4 feet.