How to correct sheared heels without shoes

[CanteringCarrot]

Got into a discussion the other day, and I'm still not sure how one would correct sheared heels unshod?

If the inside wall length is longer, but both walls make even contact to the ground, would you still just trim the inside wall a bit shorter to try to get the equal wall length and encourage the coronary band to relax? Or?

Sometimes I get into random discussions about various issues, and I haven't been able to find much info outside of the typical shod floating the heel approach.

 

[Highmileagecob]

Have a look at Pete Ramey's Hoof Rehab site. The basic principle is to get the frog working properly, which will then start to load the heels, which will build up the heel bulb's shock absorbing properties and lead to correct placing of the foot. As the foot is used better, the toe needs to be kept reasonably short and the frog will start to reposition itself to a more correct position. According to Dr Robert Bowker, the heels should act as shock absorbers and allow the frog to kiss the ground as the horse moves. If you want to check how a good barefoot trim should look, there is a video online produced by the Cavallo hoof boot people, Cavallo Barefoot Trim. A farrier takes you step by step through a trim and points out why this should be trimmed and why that should not. If the sheared heel is very obvious, and causing toe walking, then probably a pair of boots with good frog support is a wise move.

 

[Goldenstar]

Before you do anything get the horse scanned for PSD.

 

[CanteringCarrot]

Before you do anything get the horse scanned for PSD.

"The horse" doesn't have anything. This was a tangent from another discussion. All theoretical/hypothetical, to be clear.

Interesting thought to scan for PSD. Why would you go there first?

 

[ycbm]

Let the heels balance themselves, preferably barefoot, and treat the central sulcus daily for thrush. I've resolved one with sudocrem, a friend was told to use copper sulphate on hers by her farrier. Both worked.
.

 

[PurBee]

From my current understanding when 1 wall is significantly longer than the other, that longer wall gets trimmed, and the sole/frog adjusts to the ‘correct’ level.
One of mine has a proneness to this on the rear feet, it took ages to understand what the whole foot is doing to compensate for its toed-in or toed-out pathology, due to 1 wall longer than the other - generally the quarters are under strain, often crack, so need to be very relieved…if not the toe wall becomes very strained and ultimately will either bull-nose or crack, depending on how severe it is and what the pedal bone angle is doing.
I spent a long time observing/learning about hooves due to this pathology.
The longer wall will be flaring like mad, have a stretched white line, despite from above it ‘looking even’.

Toed-in, toed-out conformation extends from having 1 wall longer than the other. A mantra i learnt early on was ‘toe out, outer wall too long, toe-in, inner wall too long.

This pathology can be caught early before the toes turn, and bones shift. Yet it doesnt take long for this to develop if a standard trim is applied and horse lower leg compensates for wonkiness.

I’ve found the heels love to curve under, and forward, which tends to then cause a 1 wall longer than another development. Getting the heels/frogs good/even/functioning, keeping toe short and quarters relieved to stop the strain, helps the foot come back into balance. Its a bit by bit approach. Cant be sorted in 1 trim.

The best advice i found that worked, was by an well known american farriery club, a video i saw - sorry cant remember right now who - they said the heels, though usually low still need a trim to keep the growth of the tubules straight, and not bent under. The toes need to be kept short, quarters relieved, long wall not allowed to progress, so very regular trims, to get the hoof growing in the right direction. The bones /ligaments all slowly become right - its sometimes called conformational because the pathology has been long-standing, but after a significant effort to slowly bring these feet growing evenly, its then an established growth, ones the fetlock movement aligns better. Which cant be achieved in 1 trim.

 

[ycbm]

This was mine, a new project horse purchase. The two heel bulbs were completely disconnected. This stemmed, I believe, from a very weak back worked too much too young.

 

[Surbie]

This was mine, a new project horse purchase. The two heel bulbs were completely disconnected. This stemmed, I believe, from a very weak back worked too much too young.

View attachment 96573

Wow! How long did that take to resolve?

 

[ycbm]

About 3 months to be clear it was going to join up to the bottom. The crevice is so tight in sheared heels it's a god given breeding ground for thrush, so you have to put right the imbalance of the foot that made it happen and aggressively prevent the thrush for it to resolve.

You know you're getting there when whatever you plug it with every day to keep the dirt out starts to fall out.
.

 

[CanteringCarrot]

This was mine, a new project horse purchase. The two heel bulbs were completely disconnected. This stemmed, I believe, from a very weak back worked too much too young.

View attachment 96573

Oh wow, that's interesting!

 

[CanteringCarrot]

From my current understanding when 1 wall is significantly longer than the other, that longer wall gets trimmed, and the sole/frog adjusts to the ‘correct’ level.
One of mine has a proneness to this on the rear feet, it took ages to understand what the whole foot is doing to compensate for its toed-in or toed-out pathology, due to 1 wall longer than the other - generally the quarters are under strain, often crack, so need to be very relieved…if not the toe wall becomes very strained and ultimately will either bull-nose or crack, depending on how severe it is and what the pedal bone angle is doing.
I spent a long time observing/learning about hooves due to this pathology.
The longer wall will be flaring like mad, have a stretched white line, despite from above it ‘looking even’.

Toed-in, toed-out conformation extends from having 1 wall longer than the other. A mantra i learnt early on was ‘toe out, outer wall too long, toe-in, inner wall too long.

This pathology can be caught early before the toes turn, and bones shift. Yet it doesnt take long for this to develop if a standard trim is applied and horse lower leg compensates for wonkiness.

I’ve found the heels love to curve under, and forward, which tends to then cause a 1 wall longer than another development. Getting the heels/frogs good/even/functioning, keeping toe short and quarters relieved to stop the strain, helps the foot come back into balance. Its a bit by bit approach. Cant be sorted in 1 trim.

The best advice i found that worked, was by an well known american farriery club, a video i saw - sorry cant remember right now who - they said the heels, though usually low still need a trim to keep the growth of the tubules straight, and not bent under. The toes need to be kept short, quarters relieved, long wall not allowed to progress, so very regular trims, to get the hoof growing in the right direction. The bones /ligaments all slowly become right - its sometimes called conformational because the pathology has been long-standing, but after a significant effort to slowly bring these feet growing evenly, its then an established growth, ones the fetlock movement aligns better. Which cant be achieved in 1 trim.

The Pete Ramey stuff I read was interesting. It talked more about trimming to the moving horse vs the standing horse, which is what I think many do. So it's important to look at alignment when the horse moves, basically.

On a related note mine used to have bad quarter cracks but they grew right out when we switched to him being unshod and never came back. The problems were obvious but finding a farrier who actually fixed them was a whole 'nother battle.

I do think small frequent trimmings seem to work well for corrections.

 

[PurBee]

The Pete Ramey stuff I read was interesting. It talked more about trimming to the moving horse vs the standing horse, which is what I think many do. So it's important to look at alignment when the horse moves, basically.

On a related note mine used to have bad quarter cracks but they grew right out when we switched to him being unshod and never came back. The problems were obvious but finding a farrier who actually fixed them was a whole 'nother battle.

I do think small frequent trimmings seem to work well for corrections.

I am very grateful for pete’s site - his articles were pivotal to my learning, aswell as others - yet he explained the process, and the why’s very clearly with pictures to illustrate, so his articles are great for learning.

Our farrier would just do a grass trim, basic shave of rasp, and gone within half hour - while problems slowly developed. Tried someone else in my remote location, same deal….so took it upon myself to learn inside out about the foot. Theyre fascinating ingenious design of nature!

I turn out my horses loose along a track so can view from front/side and behind them as they walk out to check their mechanics/my trim. Youre so right…if i trim ‘correct’ to standing stance, its entirely possible to see them at walk look unbalanced! Seems irrational that can happen but it can, especially if conformation shifted to compensate for wonky feet. You correct wonkiness but the gait doesnt adjust straight away, so we need to keep observing…then adjust trim if necessary.

I tried a stint of self-trimming on my 2, as i have 200+ metres of hardcore paths, varying footing. I wanted to see if their hooves would maintain balance with no regular trims. At one point im salivating to get my rasp on the flares/uneven growth…and theyd come in with that flare broke off, all ragged yet still self-correcting. I allowed mud to stay packed into their feet and that would flick out on its own to be repacked. It was very interesting and benefitted my mares fronts the most, especially her soles, shape - she tended to never grow nor shed soles - but the few months of ‘purposeful neglect’ and ‘mud packs’ brought them back to life, better shape and she’s now handling much stonier ground better. I had been trying every which way to understand and improve her soles!

When to do something to correct, or allow self-correcting, is the difficult choice to make sometimes. We erroneously believe doing nothing wont help, but in some cases, it really can. I was shocked by the results of my own mini experiment! But im not expecting mine to compete etc, so in most cases balance has to be enforced with trims/remedials as most dont have the chance to give the horse time-off from ridden work and see what ‘nature’ does to their hooves.

 

[Goldenstar]

"The horse" doesn't have anything. This was a tangent from another discussion. All theoretical/hypothetical, to be clear.

Interesting thought to scan for PSD. Why would you go there first?

Because it’s a massive indicator for PSD and I would not be spending time on a horse whose PSD had caused this my experience is you won’t get it right .

 

[CanteringCarrot]

Because it’s a massive indicator for PSD and I would not be spending time on a horse whose PSD had caused this my experience is you won’t get it right .

That's interesting, I've never heard of that before!

 

[ycbm]

That's interesting, I've never heard of that before!

Neither had I. I've only ever seen it in front feet GS, would you still think PSD?

 

[CanteringCarrot]

So what happens when or if the hooves don't fix themselves?

When my horse had his shoes pulled almost two years ago now, some changes were very fast and they sorted themselves out for the most part. A good trimmer helps, but he does have a bit of a different hood conformation due to his breeding (Spanish). So my expectations for his hooves are a bit different in some ways.

Anyway, I know that some believe that the horse grows the hoof that they need, but I'm not sure that this is always the case? Of course we can then interfere with good trimming, but I'm not sure that we can always switch to unshod and expect it to sort out ?

 

[CanteringCarrot]

Neither had I. I've only ever seen it in front feet GS, would you still think PSD?

I had a horse that had very minor sheared heels on the hinds because he walked "diagonally" according to farrier. I think they meant that he tended to walk on the outsides of his hooves (hind and front). We never looked for PSD. The hoof issues were addressed, I sold him, and he went on eventing for many years. I was much younger at the time so don't recall so many details.

 

[ycbm]

So what happens when or if the hooves don't fix themselves?

When my horse had his shoes pulled almost two years ago now, some changes were very fast and they sorted themselves out for the most part. A good trimmer helps, but he does have a bit of a different hood conformation due to his breeding (Spanish). So my expectations for his hooves are a bit different in some ways.

Anyway, I know that some believe that the horse grows the hoof that they need, but I'm not sure that this is always the case? Of course we can then interfere with good trimming, but I'm not sure that we can always switch to unshod and expect it to sort out ?

Minefield!

There are lots more experienced people than me who can come in with the information about getting the body right so you don't create a self fuelling vicious circle.

But I've recently become very aware of how environment impacts. My Appaloosa x Standardbred always had very narrow frogs and a deep central sulcus, front toes with a point on the inside and lateral flares, particularly bad in one hind. I just thought it was him, he was rock crunching barefoot.

I moved him in April. His feet now look awesome. Frogs have widened, no depth to the sulcus, flare has all but gone, "cosmetic" cracks have grown out, frogs are wider, toes don't grow a corner. Only his environment has changed.

 

[Highmileagecob]

The biggest issue that comes across in almost all the barefoot threads, is that we wish the farrier profession would also read Pete Ramey's pages and start to work with us instead of being slightly sniffy about not shoeing. Yes, there are good barefoot farriers, but they are a rare beast, and I would really like to have a barefoot trimmer who has the knowledge and training of a farrier.

 

[CanteringCarrot]

Minefield!

There are lots more experienced people than me who can come in with the information about getting the body right so you don't create a self fuelling vicious circle.

But I've recently become very aware of how environment impacts. My Appaloosa x Standardbred always had very narrow frogs and a deep central sulcus, front toes with a point on the inside and lateral flares, particularly bad in one hind. I just thought it was him, he was rock crunching barefoot.

I moved him in April. His feet now look awesome. Frogs have widened, no depth to the sulcus, flare has all but gone, "cosmetic" cracks have grown out, frogs are wider, this don't grow a corner. Only his environment has changed.

Environment certainly has an impact. I also notice changes with the hooves during certain weather (drought, rainy, hot, cold) which I find interesting. Harder to notice on a shod horse.

Mine has a more narrow frog, especially on the fronts, but they have widened since being unshod. His central sulcus is more on the deep side bit it's solid in there. No thrush and can't fit anything in there (has happened in the past). I actually think that supplementing his diet with additional copper and zink really made a difference. No thrush or any pastern funk anymore. He didn't have a difficiency per say, but physically showed some signs of one.

I don't think his hooves will ever be very wide, or that his frog will ever be all that impressive, but I think he has the type of hooves that cope well with hard ground and rocky terrain due to being from Spain/Spanish. However, I am curious to see how or if they change when we move.

He gets good reviews from the physio and she was quite impressed with how good he felt last time. I think when switching to unshod body work is important. I mean, it is in general.

 

[Goldenstar]

Neither had I. I've only ever seen it in front feet GS, would you still think PSD?

Yes I would in the back feet I think psd is the major cause of sheared heels , in the front feet I would still do the same nerve block out one limb to see what happens and take it from there .
I have seen psd in front legs that ends very badly IME.

 

[Hollylee1989]

Sheared heel horse owner.. no psd but low ringbone. 9 weeks barefoot, touch wood so far so good!

 

[ycbm]

Yes I would in the back feet I think psd is the major cause of sheared heels , in the front feet I would still do the same nerve block out one limb to see what happens and take it from there .
I have seen psd in front legs that ends very badly IME.

Interesting. The one in my picture had been bucking off everyone who tried to ride him. I brought out a saddle just to see if it would fit, and as I walked up to him he groaned out loud. He had the weakest back I've ever seen and had been asked to do far too much too young.

I chucked him out on the hill until he strengthened up and after training I sold him in good faith to a child who was very successful on him eventing.

I hadn't connected sheared heels with leg soundness before but I will from now on.
.

 

[TPO]

Do sheared heels appear in "never been shod" hooves?

My go at it would be shoes off, diet amended if needed, aggressively treat for thrush and *COMFORTABLE * movement with boots and pads if needed.

No point loading weak heels/back of foot even if that's correct. So EP pads and probably cavallos to give the hoof room to expand or maybe those rehab cloud boots.

Would also be vigilant to keep up with physio/therapist (& saddle fitter if horse ok to be ridden) as how the horse moves will change as the hooves change and therefore body shape will alter

 

[ycbm]

The horse above had been barefoot for years. But he was being ridden by a heavy (tall) rider when his back was too long and too weak.
.