Need advice as recently barefoot horse suddenly gone lame.

Nickles1973

Nickles1973

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Quick recap. Early this year my horse was lame on his near side front hoof and vet diagnosed chronic bruising and a pedal bone imbalance. (Later disclosed the imbalance to be 2mm!?!) He prescribed straight bar shoes which did make him sound but his hooves became weaker and weaker and this caused me to look to a new farrier for help. Between us we decided to try him out of shoes and after much investigation and some great support from HHO'ers he had up till now seemed to be going really well.
He is having regular vet visits and ongoing treatments for hind leg and S/I issues and today the vet was on the yard to shockwave his back. She wanted him trotted up and lunged again to assess how he is doing and unfortunately he was lame in front on the same hoof as before. The vet didn't totally support my decision to take his shoes off as they are very traditional in their views. However I have managed to keep them onside by telling them that I am not on a crusade to keep him bare no matter what, more that I want to give him better hooves that would be sound either in or out of shoes. This did meet with their approval.
The thing is his near side front is a problem hoof. He has a slighly wonky leg above it and he does place most of the weight down the inside onto the heel. This has caused the inside of his hoof to appear to be crushed. There are ridges in the horn on the inside which demonstrates how compressed it is and the wall has broken off so he is now bareing weight on the inside sole.
The vet wants shoes back on :(
I feel really confused. I do believe that keeping him barefoot will eventually bring the results I hope for but I really hate to see my horse lame again.

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Hopefully the photo is above. (Photobucket has gone all high tech on me) You can see what I mean about the rippling on the inside hoof wall.
Think I just need renewed belief that I am doing the right thing by my boy.
 
Diet is pretty much as close to perfect barefoot as possible. In fact since he started coming in over night it has most likely got better not worse due to less time grazing.
 
Slighty better quality growth comming from the top but the shape of the coronet doesn't look like the hoof is well balanced. Toes look quite long. How long has he been trimmed for and how long has he been on Bf diet?

Is it an abcess? If there are issues and they are starting to resolve the crap has to get out of the foot.
 
Do you have any boots and pads? He might need a bit more support.

For anything else ask either Oberon or Cyprates. They are the best ones to help out.
 
Hasn't been trimmed as such since shoes came off more just tidied up as tbh farrier didn't think there was much to trim. I have been treating him once or twice a week with blue antibiotic spray (from the vet) to keep on top of any possible thrush but farrier is coming tomorrow so I'll get him to check for that.
As I said before his leg is slightly wonky and that does accentuate the balance issues in his hoof but my farrier is loath to mess with his hooves too much as he feels that my making a perfect looking hoof he will be putting stress further up his leg.
 
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This is the most recent solar picture I have. It was taken on the 9th October. I will take another tomorrow as the inside wall (shown at the top of the above photo) has broken quite a bit since then.
 
The ripples have been added too since the shoes came off. The front's were replaced by vettec superfast shoes approximatley 14 weeks ago and then they came off with the backs about 8 weeks ago. My farrier made the permanent mark in the front of his hoof 1 inch from the top of the coronary band about 12 weeks ago so that we could measure growth more precisely. It is now a little over 2 inches from the top so over an inch of new growth since shoe removal. Hence I know the ripples are not old, they are continuing to grow.
 
Sounds like you have a good farrier if he's already said he doesn't want to trim to try to make the foot look perfect when the limb above isn't. How much work has he been doing? My lad self trims to keep his feet as he wants them but I'd imagine hacking out 4 days a week on tarmac would be difficult with other issues. Could you walk him in hand for road exercise to help him get his hooves as he needs them? I know you've said they're not needing much trimmed off but if you're feeding the right things he'll grow as much hoof as he needs.

I hope you manage to find out what's happening and why.
 
Tbh for the next 6 weeks I shall be limited to hacking on the roads anyway, but obviously only if he is comfortable enough to do it. I cannot walk him in hand on the road. He's 16.3 and I am a lightweight 5'4" and with the amount of heavy traffic and farm vehicles (never mind idiot boy racers) it just isn't safe to do so. (under saddle he is virtually bombproof, something about being led disengages his brain)
 
You can see from the sole shot that the foot isn't loading evenly (which we already know from what you've said ;)). Do you have any caudal shots (pics taken of the back of the foot whilst its on the ground, preferably)? Tbh, I wouldn't really expect any long term improvement in soundness until the foot starts loading better, improving foot balance as a result. Taking the shoes off is just the first step; it takes time to build a stronger hoof.
 
Back of that hoof is stil very weak.

How much exercise/stimulation is it getting? And on what surfaces?

8 weeks can be enough for dramatic changes in a hoof that is getting lots of work and stimulation... but equally, it's a very short time if the horse isn't getting the opportunity to improve the foot.

Diet is obviously important, but the sole shot to me looks like a hoof that's not getting enough work to allow it to change. As such, I wouldn't be surprised that the horse was still lame - if not able to develop the caudal hoof, improvement in soundness will be slow. That doesn't mean it isn't changing for the better, just that changes are slower than they could be. It may also help to have physio work on body issues that may be contributing to uneven loading of the hoof.

Having said that, it does look very like a hoof that's in the process of improving, although diet may need fine tuning to eliminate those hoof ripples.

Thrush - there is a bit of black on the the frog, but not so much that I'd be worried.

ETA I hand walk my 17hh monster a lot - but I am lucky enough to have had the time to train him to walk nicely to heel like a giant dog ;-). It does make a huge different to hoof funtion when he can't be ridden (SI problems on and off mean we have times when riding is out).
 
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Nickles1973 said:
The ripples have been added too since the shoes came off. The front's were replaced by vettec superfast shoes approximatley 14 weeks ago and then they came off with the backs about 8 weeks ago. My farrier made the permanent mark in the front of his hoof 1 inch from the top of the coronary band about 12 weeks ago so that we could measure growth more precisely. It is now a little over 2 inches from the top so over an inch of new growth since shoe removal. Hence I know the ripples are not old, they are continuing to grow.
Click to expand...

1 inch in 3 months is very slow growth for a newly barefoot, working horse. I think you might need to look at mineral balancing to get that growth rate up. Which may also be why his foot is not strong enough to hold his weight without ridging.

Disclaimer - photos can be very misleading.

He looks like he is shedding a complete sole. Either a false sole or one which has been underrun by an abscess.

He has a very dodgy looking heel on the side that is ridged, with a hole in the bar which would lead me to suspect that he has an abscess in that heel.

Has he got sheared heels? Can you get a credit card right between his heels in that central sulcus? It looks like it. If so, his heels won't be properly sharing the load across the digital cushion and that won't help at all. To cure a sheared heel wedge a makeup removal disk soaked in sudocrem into the crack. Eventually the crack won't hold the disk, then just slather it with sudocrem and keep doing it until the bottom of the sulcus comes right up and just looks like a dip, not a line you can put your finger into .
 
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I think with the ongoing pathology and the fact that you have an excellent farrier - you need to consult him on the current issues.

That's not a cop out :D - but someone with a 'sensible head' ;) needs to observe the horse moving and loading in the flesh to get a grasp on what is happening with him - that should give you some support with the vet ;).

If your farrier is stumped - he could always brainstorm with someone experienced in barefoot rehab (Nic Barker/Robbie Richardson etc) professional to professional.......

The hooves look horrid :D. But they look better than they did before (to me ;)) and they're a work in process. Shoes would make everything look better externally and make the appearance of correctly loading.....but we all know that is a lie and you can't fake what is going in internally by making everything look pretty on the surface.

It's a case of seeing how he loads them now - and you need someone in the flesh to ascertain that.
 
Have you considered that he might just be brewing an abscess in that hoof? If that is his boogy foot it will take awhile to come right and abscessing can be part of that process.
 
Farrier is coming at 10am today so hopefully he will be able to shed some light on what is going on. Tbh I should be pleased with how he's been doing, as till now he hasn't been lame once. I think that's what is making it hard to not to feel so deflated now that he is.
The biggest stumbling block for us has been the fact that due to his other problems exercise has been mostly limited to work in the menage with the odd hack over grassy tracks.
I discussed this with the vet yesterday and we have decided to back right off the school work for at least 6 weeks but i can continue to hack him lightly a couple of times a week. If I can get his hoof sorted then hopefully I can do the prescribed roadwork necessary to sort his balance issues out.
I'll take some more pics today as the ones shown earlier on this thread are fairly out of date.
 
What about un-ridden school work? I think you need an on the ground opinion myself. Fingers crossed your farrier has some ideas. I agree it looks like old sole is peeling (? old subsolar abscess) and I would treat the central sulcus deep inside too. I would keep off any stoney surfaces unless the sole is protected.
Sorry not much help, x
 
Nickles1973 said:
Farrier is coming at 10am today so hopefully he will be able to shed some light on what is going on. Tbh I should be pleased with how he's been doing, as till now he hasn't been lame once. I think that's what is making it hard to not to feel so deflated now that he is.
Click to expand...

There seems to be some action going on above the coronet too - so I'm hopeful your farrier can get a better grasp of what's going on.

You often find that some horses with pathology take the odd backwards step. It isn't always plain sailing.

If you were in remedial shoes you would consider such an issue to be part of the degeneration and thus rest the horse until he looks happier and worry no more about it.

As it is, you have taken a leap of faith that taking shoes off and allowing the horse to be in charge of the 'remedial' work will bring better results. It's fair that you will be stressed out when it appears your faith is being tested ;).

Your vet isn't there for you to fall back on with your current rehab plan - so other than your farrier you are pretty much all alone.

Feeling worried and deflated is perfectly understandable :eek:.

But FWIW - I am in awe of the fact that you:

1) saw a problem with the hooves in the first place and didn't let anyone fob you off
2) researched all you could
3) overhauled his diet
4) found a new and brill farrier
5) moved heaven and earth to make your horse better

I don't really think George could ask more of you ;)
 
Farrier has been. When he last visited 4 weeks ago the false sole that is peeling away in the photo was more securely in place and as such he didn't want to touch it (as per the barefoot gospel) However, the hoof wall has chipped off quite badly since. (it was weak due to a 2 year old over-reach injury that was only just growing out) This has led to the sole being higher that his heel and the farrier thinks that this is why he is sore. He didn't want to go digging about for an abcess unless he becomes very much lamer as this would compromise his weak hoof further so we are treating it as though it is a bruise. He has though removed the false sole so that now his hoof is baring weight on the heel rather than the sole. Hopefully after a few days rest (and standing in the cold mud) it will all settle down.
Photo's taken this morning before farrier visit.
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I should also add that the photo's do seem to accentuate the bad rather than highlight the good and my farrier is still extremely pleased with the hoof we have now compared to the hoof we had in shoes. (Not shoes that he had any hand in incidently)
His hoof pastern axis is now pretty much spot on and the horrible bull nosing that showed so terribly in his hinds has all but gone already. So it's not all bad.
 
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