Navicuar Feet again - better photos - to take shoes off or not...??

Thank you amandap - we have thought about it and after going back and forth we decided to send Kingsley to Rockley Farm so it's all done the best it can be. I will post updates and really really hope he can move sound afterwards...
 
Been following this post; fantastic news! I'd like to wish you all the best and will be following your story as I'm sure will lots of others :)
 
viola said:
Thank you amandap - we have thought about it and after going back and forth we decided to send Kingsley to Rockley Farm so it's all done the best it can be. I will post updates and really really hope he can move sound afterwards...
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ohhhhhhh, hello my horse is at Rockley, you would have met him Bailey W the big dun ! he is doing really well. He didn't have navicular but he had a collateral ligament damage 18 months ago and was on and off sound, so i thought i would give barefoot a go. Nic is great and if anyone can get him right she will.
Lx
 
Brilliant Viola - very happy for you. I think you've made the right move there.

Nic's a real find, excellent horsewoman and has done some amazing things for the horses sent to her for rehab.

I look forward to hearing of Kingsley's progress.
 
Frankie came back from Rockley about 10 weeks ago and he's going from strength to strength. It's beautiful down there and I did enjoyed riding there when I visited.
He'll get fantastic care, Nic looks after them like her own.

Good luck - I'll look out for his progress on the blog.
 
viola said:
Thank you amandap - we have thought about it and after going back and forth we decided to send Kingsley to Rockley Farm so it's all done the best it can be. I will post updates and really really hope he can move sound afterwards...
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Give yourself a big pat on the back, this is an excellent decision, I hope you come back to us to tell us how he's progressing in due course.
 
Thank you all, it's a very daunting decision but definitely made and it's really good to hear all the positive stories :)

He isn't there yet, we need to wait a week or so as he was shod recently. The aim is to go with him at the end of the month. We now need to organises transport, vet referral, physio's questionnaire etc.

There will certainly be plenty of updates and I hope I will be able to post equally positive news as you all posting.
 
criso said:
Frankie came back from Rockley about 10 weeks ago and he's going from strength to strength. It's beautiful down there and I did enjoyed riding there when I visited.
He'll get fantastic care, Nic looks after them like her own.

Good luck - I'll look out for his progress on the blog.
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Oh I think you must be the person Nic gave us the details of :)
 
viola said:
Sadly he has other problems than just feet but hopefully it will all improve to the level where he can lead a comfortable life.
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I take my hat off to you for this thinking Viola. I do think you may well be pleasantly surprised how much he changes as his feet improve.
 
I think you've made a great decision too, and I'm sure that once the initial nerves have died down over it all you'll feel much better for doing something pro active for him. I'm looking forwards to seeing how he progresses, let's hope he is another success story! Good luck!
 
i havnt read all of the replies but i agree with the farrier, you need another farrier. mine has just been diagnosed with navicular and he has aluminium straight bar shoes on, he has them set back slightly supporting the heel and a good breakover. hes improved a huge amount but is also on danilon as well. i looked into the barefoot option also but he is in walk work and has extremley poor feet and is absolutley hopping lame barefoot. i cant bear to watch him hopping around, hoof boots arnt an option as he will/has pulled them off and hes having lateral extensions behind due to also being diagnosed with bone spavins and kissing spines, if you wish to talk further and exchange photos then please feel free to pm me.
 
China the thing which is special about Rockley is that it has an environment where no horse needs to be sore and where they very quickly become comfortable, allowing them to work and then cure themselves. If your farrier fails to get your horse off Danilon do look again at barefoot, done professionally in a rehab yard if your horse's feet really are that bad. A barefoot spavined horse will, as I know from one of my own, grow its own lateral extensions and wedges.

Viola you are marvellous to spend money on his rehab like this when you don't have any expectation of doing more than to make him more comfortable. I hope, and look forward to hearing, that you are rewarded by improvement beyond your expectations, as many of us have been.
 
You may well find that getting the feet sorted out sorts other things out too

We found in one of my four barefoot boys that temperament improved enormously and general level of soundness improved, the effect of the spavins dissipated and he was altogether more comfortable. Much less spooky, itrritable and grumpy. Also when he was ridden, if you touched behind the saddle, he would buck - that's gone too.
 
So,my mare..long gone now..was very low milage..developed navicular at 17 years;she managed gentle hacks for a while on bute.Then retired barefoot,never came sound ..so can you explain in what way a) she got it in the first place? b) how she could have been helped?

Her farrier always did a good job..bit fussy about that..and she was never overworked,far from it.When unshod her feet would break up on the walls.She was a connie,poss some tb.
 
I don't know EAST KENT. I'm not a professional or very experienced with many horses but I'll try and explain my understanding of how navicular develops. This is my understanding and I'm sure there are many factors involved as well as my description.

Horses lower leg is a sort of pulley system, tendons being the ropes and muscles higher up the leg, as well as lever forces of alignment of bones and tendon attachment, enable the lower leg to move without muscles in the lower leg.
Very simplified the pulley system is set up for a heel first or almost flat landing on the ground, when the horse lands toe first most of the time this pulley arrangement is put under stress. Crucially in my understanding the DDFT (deep digital flexor tendon) rubs on the navicular bone in toe first landing in a way that strains the whole pulley system so forces the structure is not designed for are produced.
The DDFT begins to become inflammed and eventually the abnormal friction degrades the tendon and then the bone leading to navicualr bone involvement seen on Xray in advanced cases.

Of course horses hooves are designed to land and push off in all directions to move over rough ground but if there is pain in that back half of the foot from eg. thrush, weak structures etc. then the horse will avoid putting full load onto that part of the hoof to aviod discomfort and put the horse into primarily toe first landing mode. I believe experiments were conducted many years ago simulating heel first and then toe first landings and navicular damage could not be reproduced with heel first landing and it always began with inflammation of the tendon not in the bone itself.

This is my current understanding of how some believe navicular develops but tbh I have no real idea is this is 100% correct it just makes total sense to me.

A good reference is Pete Ramey's DVD series 'Under the horse' where he explains the pulley system with models making it easier to understand.

Diagram of hoof internal showing DDFT http://www.red-horse.biz/Hauptpunkte/tendon_injuries.html
 
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East Kent I think you might actually be asking "so why did my mare not come sound barefoot then?"

There are lots of answers to this:

Because it was before MRI and your mare never had navicular disease/syndrome at all, but something else (the state of the navicular bone on radiographs bears very little relationship to the lameness of the horse, but it's all they had back then).

Your mare had thrush from standing in a field all day, preventing her from being comfortable heel first landing, which is a pre-requisite for recovery.

Your mare needed to work to build strong enough heels to give her a heel first landing and she was not in work, "work" being defined initially as walking in hand, possibly booted and padded, for a horse as bad as she was.

Your mare had collateral ligament damage or impar ligament damage from incorrectly balanced feet and although shoeless, her feet were not balanced up, particularly because if she was not in work on abrasive surfaces she would not have been well placed to do that balancing for herself.

Because her diet was wrong and she was growing feet too weak to support her properly. This would be VERY common in a grass fed native pony doing no work to use up the calories, like a retired Connemara.

There are probably more answers to your question.

This statement:

"When unshod her feet would break up on the walls."

can often be translated as:

" when unshod her feet were left too long".

Barefoot working feet look, and are, VERY short. Most breaking off at ground level is due to too much length of wall. If her feet broke further up her foot then she had poor attachment higher up, symptomatic of an incorrect diet or of disease (often cushings in a horse of the age of yours).
 
CPT, Cush was trimmed every six weeks,her nav was x rayed and it was just like a bit of gorgonzola cheese;the result would have been chronic inflamation due to the tendon being irritated,at the end she was on four equipalazone per day..and still 30% or so lame. Nowadays I would have given your way a go in desparation,but you do smack a bit of the doggie homeopathic freaks I have run accross in life,while it may work for some ,it can be coincidence as well.:D
 
EAST KENT said:
Nowadays I would have given your way a go in desparation,but you do smack a bit of the doggie homeopathic freaks I have run accross in life,while it may work for some ,it can be coincidence as well.:D
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Lol! I certainly do not profess to be expert but I don't think I'm dodgy either! lol Apologies to all if I've made BF thinking dodgy!
Look up Dr Robert Bowker, Prof. Chris Pollitt, and Farriers turned BF Trimmers Jaime Jackson, Pete Ramey, Gene Ovenik, K. C. La Pierre etc. etc. etc. etc.

http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=2185
 
EAST KENT said:
CPT, Cush was trimmed every six weeks,her nav was x rayed and it was just like a bit of gorgonzola cheese;the result would have been chronic inflamation due to the tendon being irritated,at the end she was on four equipalazone per day..and still 30% or so lame. Nowadays I would have given your way a go in desparation,but you do smack a bit of the doggie homeopathic freaks I have run accross in life,while it may work for some ,it can be coincidence as well.:D
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THIS:

"the result would have been chronic inflamation due to the tendon being irritated,"

is the wrong way around. It has been demonstrated in more than one piece of research that it is the problem with the deep digital flexor tendon which causes that damage to the navicular bone and not the other way around. The damage to the deep digital flexor tendon is caused by a toe first landing and there are a multitude of reasons why your mare might still have had a toe first landing when shoeless.

You could have her trimmed as often as you like but if her feet were unhealthy due to her diet or an underlying metabolic condition you'd be p*ssing in the wind.

Do your research please before accusing me of being a "dodgy homeopathic freak". You asked a question, slyly and obliquely as it happens, rather than directly, and you do not seem to like the answer, so like so many people, attack me personally. Frankly, I'm getting pretty fed up with these personal attacks.

You know nothing about me, what I contribute to society, whether I help other horse owners, whether I am a nice person, and yet you feel completely free to insult me. I wonder if you would do that face to face? Or if I knew your name as you know mine? I don't post anonymously. I happen to think that anonymous posting of personal criticism is a cowardly thing to do.

To give you some insight into who I am, I do not believe in anything which cannot be demostrated scientifically, which includes homeopathy. I believe in barefoot because I have seen with my own eyes that done properly, it WORKS. What's more, it works in cases where every medical treatment known to man has failed. How much more proof do you need when some of the worst possible cases, recommended to be retired or put to sleep by vets, are being cured by complete amateurs like me?
 
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The research CPTrayes refers to is some of the better stuff on horses. Conducted by people who do not have a feed supplement to sell, which helps. And it is a long way from fluffy.

Fortunately hooves don't lie. They don't have an agenda or a budget and no desire to make enough money to buy a new porche. So they get better or they don't.

What is fortunate or maybe unfortunate depending on your point of view is that hooves are a reflection of our ability to manage our horses well. The unfortunate bit being that some people are very unhappy about the feedback they get and some equine professionals are unable to deal with it too.
 
Don`t think I did refer to you personally CPT as dodgey..just that if ANYONE,including trained qualified folk disagree with you you are "insulted". Get a life,discussion ,disagreement even is healthy. For Lord`s sake though don`t try politics ..you`d be terribly insulted then.:D
 
EAST KENT said:
Perhaps ,then,CPT could explain how a tendon (soft tissue) can cause damage to a piece of bone (hard tissue)??Can`t quite equate that one.:D
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I obviously didn't explain clearly in my earlier post. The bone is damaged due to friction which initially inflames the tendon then damage is caused to the tendon and then bone. Unnatural friction, stresses can have a dramatic effect on bone over time. Think of a rope rubbing on rock in the same position... soft rock especially soon gets worn. This unnatural 'rubbing' happens everytime the horse moves it's foot so the effect builds up over time.

Do try and get your hands on Pete Ramey's DVD series it will help you understand with models. Sorry if this is seen as advertizing, I include this for information and learning.

Andalucian said:
That sprung to my mind too. I have experience of this happening many times.
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Yes, my TB who had dreadfully damaged flat cracked feet has totally changed shape... her huge front end is now less and balanced with a good backend. Her general demenour and temperament has chilled too, she is like a different horse.
Mind you I know if my feet hurt I feel very crabby!!

Mta... Link to titles of some of Dr Robert Bowker's research papers published. http://pathobiology.msu.edu/people/bowker.html
 
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EAST KENT said:
Perhaps ,then,CPT could explain how a tendon (soft tissue) can cause damage to a piece of bone (hard tissue)??Can`t quite equate that one.:D
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Read this http://www.hoofrehab.com/NavicularSyndrome.htm

Research has also shown that bits damage the bone in the majority of horses' mouthes, even though there is gum tissue in between and we are all riding with light hands aren't we?
 
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