Not trimming foal feet - an update

[Maesfen]

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I might well myself have left your youngster alone, but I think it is a very dangerous thing to suggest on a forum that people with limb or foot deformities in young horses should ask do the same.

THIS!!

It's not a long step from some big studs producing colts for grading at three so they have to be ridden; people who normally don't have anything to do with youngsters see this and think it's fine for their youngsters too and then wonder why they've broken down at a young age. FGS people, get good qualified advice and don't tinker with your precious youngster's future, don't go on one person's experience.

 

[soloequestrian]

Damn this forum, I can't resist.... back into the fray.
I haven't said anything about recommending this course of action! I posted because I think it's interesting and I thought others would too - I like the discussion. I have spent huge amounts of time thinking about her feet and what to do with them and I have discussed this in other places (thank you to those of you who have contributed to those discussions). I don't know why I come across as being closed-minded about this - I have considered courses of action and haven't ever said what anyone else is doing is wrong. Part of the reason I've done very little is because I have read about very few actual possible interventions - there is trimming and then there seem to be some connective tissue relaxing injections, which sound very dodgy, but very little else.
I appreciate the point of view that at this age the leg is malleable and will change to conform with the foot, but I'm not so sure I agree with it anymore. Having seen and read about how quickly feet can change, I can't see anything less than daily attention having much effect. I'm far more worried about affecting the leg joints by changing their base of support. If a young animal were being compromised by it's conformation, I can see that there would be much more reason to try to intervene - any possibility of damage as a result of the intervention would be outweighed by the possible improvements. I can also see that there is bound to be a very gray area in terms of what is considered 'being compromised'. In my case though, the animal is very happy and the condition is improving on its own.
I'm actually quite shocked by the level of antipathy coming through in posts, and the unwillingness to discuss rather than diss. It takes me back to the reaction that happened when trying to discuss barefoot a few years ago now, which has thankfully disappeared. Why is this any different? I'm just suggesting a slightly different pathway, not trying to persuade people to join my new cult.

 

[Fides]

The animosity came when you accused other people of not caring about their horses - that is always going to get a negative response.

Fwiw the hooves are far from perfect and at the wrong angle putting strain on the leg

 

[soloequestrian]

The animosity came when you accused other people of not caring about their horses - that is always going to get a negative response.

Fwiw the hooves are far from perfect and at the wrong angle putting strain on the leg

If you could point me to where I've done that it would be very helpful.
I'm not sure how you can make that comment. You can see one picture of one hoof, with part of another visible. Most people wouldn't feel confident to comment from that quantity of information and I can assure you that in this case you are entirely wrong about angle. I haven't claimed anywhere that the hooves are perfect.

 

[cptrayes]

I'm just suggesting a slightly different pathway, not trying to persuade people to join my new cult.

I'm sorry SE, but whether you mean it to or not your posts are coming across as recommending people with foals with odd feet due to angular limb deformity to do nothing about it, not even consult an expert in the field. I personally think that is not sound advice, so if you don't mean what I am reading then perhaps you can say that plainly?

You have no idea why your filly grew a club foot, and therefore no idea why she corrected it. My own guess would be that for some reason she chose to bear less weight on that foot for an amount of time. And that whatever caused her to do that recovered or went away, and the foot then grew a wider base due to taking its fair share of the weight.

That scenario would not be a good basis for advocating avoiding trimming all young stock, imo.

 

[soloequestrian]

I'm not meaning that at all - I'm just trying to share this revelation and feel like I'm getting shot down for it. I've never suggested that not trimming all youngstock is a good idea - I've said that it seems to be possible and in this case, against all my expectations, the foot with issues has improved. Why on earth should I not share that information? If everyone who now talks freely about barefooted horses and self trimming had felt that their posts might be misinterpreted and therefore kept their findings to themselves, I would be in a very different position with my horses feet than I am today. I'm grateful to those who swam against the tide (cptrayes being one of the most vociferous if I recall) and gave me that information to use as I wished. I'm trying to do the same in return.

 

[cptrayes]

I'm not meaning that at all - I'm just trying to share this revelation and feel like I'm getting shot down for it. I've never suggested that not trimming all youngstock is a good idea - I've said that it seems to be possible and in this case, against all my expectations, the foot with issues has improved. Why on earth should I not share that information? If everyone who now talks freely about barefooted horses and self trimming had felt that their posts might be misinterpreted and therefore kept their findings to themselves, I would be in a very different position with my horses feet than I am today. I'm grateful to those who swam against the tide (cptrayes being one of the most vociferous if I recall) and gave me that information to use as I wished. I'm trying to do the same in return.

SE thank you for that clarification. I think, though, that you may need to question why so many of us read your earlier posts as positively encouraging people not to seek advice for foals with odd feet?

I'm a barefoot fanatic, as you point out. I'll never shoe a horse again except for a medical issue like a fractured pedal bone. And yet I felt you were going too far. Wrongly, as you have now qualified. But I don't think it's quite fair to blame that on the many people who interpreted your posts the same way.

 

[soloequestrian]

I've just read through again and I still don't understand why this apparent misunderstanding occurred.....
I'm still interested in the debate about interventions to correct limb conformations that aren't perfect - I think that was the point when people started to get cross. I can't see what the problem is with debating, I thought that was part of the reason for this forum's existence.

 

[cptrayes]

I think part of the problem is that you didn't consult an expert, and therefore you have no way of knowing whether an expert would have recommended doing anything or not. And you don't know why it happened or, therefore, why it resolved itself.

If you had asked an expert and chosen not to act when they said you should, then this would have had much more impact. But as far as I am aware, an expert could not have done much with an otherwise balanced but contacted foot anyway.

I love discussion too, and would never shoot down a good barefoot discussion. In spite of that and of being a barefoot advocate, I misread your posts and I'm not alone in that. I was misunderstood too in the early days because of my sheer excitement at what I was seeing. I think the same has happened to you, but you do raise interesting questions, thank you.

 

[NZJenny]

I've just read through again and I still don't understand why this apparent misunderstanding occurred.....

FWIW - neither did I.

 

[MrsNorris]

Me neither, I didn't see anything inflammatory about it at all, just an interesting occurrence warranting further discussion.....

 

[cptrayes]

Nobody used the word inflammatory except soloequestrian herself. I do not see anything inflamed in the thread at all.

I've reread it too, and she has the same problem that I had in the early days of barefoot. On a forum like this, there are many less experienced people who will read a thread saying 'I think it may be that foals are getting better feet and straight legs in spite of being trimmed and it would have happened anyway without the timming' and take it as a reason to leave their foals without foot care when they need it.

My own posts were simply to balance the thread for those readers, and encourage them to seek a professional opinion if they have a foal with a bent leg or an odd foot before the growth plates seal and it is too late to do anything about it.

 

[Maesfen]

Well said CPT ^^^^^

 

[soloequestrian]

Thanks NZJ and hollybear, I was beginning to think I had lost my understanding of English.
The bits where people are telling me I'm being insulting, wrong and telling them that they aren't caring for their horses seem fairly inflamed to me.
Cpt - I don't think it's a case of 'less experience', I think it is people who have done a particular thing for a long period of time and therefore believe that theirs is the only way - for some reason the suggestion of an alternative way seems to result in some sort of protective mechanism kicking in, in the same way as discussion of any deeply held belief does. Perhaps that is insulting, but as I seem to have managed that inadvertently anyway I'm getting past caring. I remember thinking the same about your early posts on barefoot, especially when you were looking for a project horse - people had you branded as the devil incarnate for making perfectly reasonable suggestions.
Anyway, all of this has made me think more about why I've done very little. I'm clearer in hindsight - I was worried about her foot, I did lots of reading and asking people and came up with possible courses of action. I did try to consult with the experts that I know and trust and for various reasons by the time I could get anyone to come and see her, her foot had started to improve by itself anyway. I'm very wary of consulting with experts that I haven't met before, having had some bad experiences in the past. In terms of the time delay, I asked whether I could live with a horse with an upright foot (the outcome that seemed probable if I did nothing) and the answer was yes - the balance of anecdotal evidence that I read suggested that upright feet cause very few problems and this has always been my understanding too - a broken back hp axis is far more likely to cause problems. So the decision to do nothing really came about accidentally, although it obviously might also have been the path that my trimmer recommended.
With hindsight I'm now starting to wonder, as my questions above, whether the common interventions do actually have any effect, or if youngstock in suitable environments are able to sort out issues (mild ones at least). I don't know what caused the initial problem but my suspicion is stabling - she was in 24/7 when I bought her and I presume she had been for a few months. I don't know much about the stud industry, but I have heard that this is normal for many youngsters - constant stabling over the winter months - and wonder if that is where many issues begin. I don't know the answers to any of this, hence my interest in discussion!

 

[cptrayes]

SE you have many types of people reading, and not all of them are posting.

There will be novice, lazy, or skint people who will use what we write to avoid doing anything. These people aren't posting, and my comments were aimed at them.

There will be people with experience who have seen both sides in practice and honestly feel that you are wrong about bent legs coming straight by themselves.

There will be pig headed people who will disagree with you because they don't want to believe you no matter how much evidence you produce.

And if you are anything like me there will be people who've been annoyed about something completely unconnected that you've said to them in the past and will disagree with you just because you are you

I thought the discussion was interesting and worth having, but you are always going to get the kind of reaction you have on a forum as diverse as this one.

 

[soloequestrian]

Yes, I suppose I just forget that not everyone thinks like I do.
There hasn't really been much discussion yet! I'm still not even sure what techniques people routinely use to try to help problems.

 

[cptrayes]

I'm very interested in why your filly had only one foot affected.

I am with you on club feet, by the way. I hear trimmers say loads of stuff about how their trim sorted it out, but I'm very sceptical that any trim can sort out a tin can foot, and wonder if the horse did what yours did, put it right for itself over time.

 

[Fides]

Yes, I suppose I just forget that not everyone thinks like I do.
There hasn't really been much discussion yet! I'm still not even sure what techniques people routinely use to try to help problems.

Techniques I have used are ones recommended by an expert. I would never deem myself better than an expert in the field in anything. Until an expert tells me otherwise I can only feel that you are very foolish and a little bit lucky. And again - the leg conformation is still not what it should be and should, at a yearling have already been remedied. As the bones have now fused there is nothing that can be done anyway. You say we are judging from two pictures, well this is all you have provided. Provide a pic of the horse stood square showing clean, straight limbs and I might be convinced. Until then - the pictures show that you have done less than you could have done and you will probably end up with an unsound ridden horse.

 

[soloequestrian]

Sorry Fides, I'm ignoring you now. All you're doing is slagging me off, not contributing anything interesting. I'm not asking for your opinion on the legs and feet, the pictures are just to show the change that has occurred.

Cpt - I don't know why just the one foot - there is no evidence of any sort of injury or odd movement. My only thought is that horses, like humans, have a favoured way of standing and that perhaps just because of that she ended up with odd feet (because she was standing still for long periods of time). The other thing I suppose is the slight twist in that leg but I obviously don't know if that came before or after the upright foot. I think the twist is looking better too, but it's very difficult to be objective about and it may just be because her whole frame is widening and she is gradually becoming less toe-out in both forelegs (which I understand is normal and expected with youngstock - if they are straight when they are babies, the broadening is likely to make them toe-in as they grow). It's a very mild twist.

 

[Goldenstar]

On trimming foals when I was doing my welfare thing I used to see lots of " low end " horses and they had all sorts of deviations and bad feet .
I would bet the house they got minimal foot care leaving nature to takes it's course did not work well for them .

 

[soloequestrian]

On trimming foals when I was doing my welfare thing I used to see lots of " low end " horses and they had all sorts of deviations and bad feet .
I would bet the house they got minimal foot care leaving nature to takes it's course did not work well for them .

But presumably the same would happen to adult horses in similar situations - neglected horses often seem to have terrible feet. Horses that are appropriately cared for are able to maintain self trimming feet - I have two adults who barely need touching no matter what level of work they are in. I think I'm seeing the same with the foal - she has a good diet and environment and her feet need little attention.

 

[Fides]

Sorry Fides, I'm ignoring you now. All you're doing is slagging me off, not contributing anything interesting. I'm not asking for your opinion on the legs and feet, the pictures are just to show the change that has occurred.

I'm not slagging you off, I'm giving you suggestions of how to dig yourself out of the hole you seem to have dug for yourself. No one on here agrees with you-maybe post more pictures showing good results and good conformation and we will be convinced.

I change my mind when shown a reason to - I am now a barefoot advocate whereas I used to be strongly for shoeing. What I won't do however, is just take someone's word for it? Why should I when the only pictures provided contradict what is being said?

Just because I disagree with what you have done (quite strongly) doesn't mean I am 'slagging you off', it simply means you have not made your point adequately. Make your point better and I might be 'for' you. A start would be to post pictures of the horse standing square from side and front.

 

[ester]

SE are there more pictures of the whole foal? I just think one foot in isolation doesn't make discussion of the issue very easy. I don't really have an opinion either way but the chances of me ending up with a foal/youngster are very slim- nil!

 

[Fides]

But presumably the same would happen to adult horses in similar situations

- poor hoof shape will affect adult horses but it will not cause limb deformities. Foal limbs are still 'malleable' so a lot of damage can be done. Conversely proper treatment can correct limb deformities.

 

[Goldenstar]

But presumably the same would happen to adult horses in similar situations - neglected horses often seem to have terrible feet. Horses that are appropriately cared for are able to maintain self trimming feet - I have two adults who barely need touching no matter what level of work they are in. I think I'm seeing the same with the foal - she has a good diet and environment and her feet need little attention.

Say a foal is growing a bit quick , the mares doing it too well and the ground is hard and it's running around a bit too much you and you see the first sign of it knuckling forward you have to intervene and do the appropriate thing pdq you can't just wait and see or else you an impaired individual on your hands .
I had a few foals who needed plastic shoes for a while all grew to up and you would never have known there was ever an issue foals are growing just too fast to wait and see you have to to intervene and be vigilant .
You have to know what's normal whats not you need to look at them and monitor them closely.

 

[Apercrumbie]

I would be very interested to see pictures of the whole foal. I have almost no experience with youngstock so I won't contribute to the debate, but as you said OP, we can't truly judge just from one hoof.

 

[cptrayes]

Cpt - I don't know why just the one foot - there is no evidence of any sort of injury or odd movement. My only thought is that horses, like humans, have a favoured way of standing and that perhaps just because of that she ended up with odd feet (because she was standing still for long periods of time). The other thing I suppose is the slight twist in that leg but I obviously don't know if that came before or after the upright foot. I think the twist is looking better too, but it's very difficult to be objective about and it may just be because her whole frame is widening and she is gradually becoming less toe-out in both forelegs (which I understand is normal and expected with youngstock - if they are straight when they are babies, the broadening is likely to make them toe-in as they grow). It's a very mild twist.

I have an interesting situation with one of my two four year olds right now. He is very one sided to school, can only trot a circle right with his head stuck out to the left, and both the feet on the right hand side are longer than the ones on the left. I am not trimming to correct this, as it is clearly an imbalance in his body causing it. I will work first on straightening his body, which I then expect to reflect in his feet.

I'm sure there are people who think that it will perpetuate his body imbalance to leave his feet like they are. My answer to that is that it will risk strain to his body if I remove it, and that my experience is that provided I work him enough on abrasive surfaces, he will correct the feet by tiny degrees as his body straightens out.

If he was a foal, though, I think I would probably be putting them right immediately. Having said that, your foal had a completely different issue which I personally doubt could have been trimmed into submission

 

[soloequestrian]

SE are there more pictures of the whole foal? I just think one foot in isolation doesn't make discussion of the issue very easy. I don't really have an opinion either way but the chances of me ending up with a foal/youngster are very slim- nil!

I've got some that might be useful, but as you put the last lot up I still don't know how to do it! She is difficult to photograph 'formally' - I'm almost always on my own and she just walks towards me!

 

[Maesfen]

- poor hoof shape will affect adult horses but it will not cause limb deformities. Foal limbs are still 'malleable' so a lot of damage can be done. Conversely proper treatment can correct limb deformities.

Say a foal is growing a bit quick , the mares doing it too well and the ground is hard and it's running around a bit too much you and you see the first sign of it knuckling forward you have to intervene and do the appropriate thing pdq you can't just wait and see or else you an impaired individual on your hands .
I had a few foals who needed plastic shoes for a while all grew to up and you would never have known there was ever an issue foals are growing just too fast to wait and see you have to to intervene and be vigilant .
You have to know what's normal whats not you need to look at them and monitor them closely.

Both of these posts are spot on; it is so important to act very quickly where foals are concerned.

I have an interesting situation with one of my two four year olds right now. He is very one sided to school, can only trot a circle right with his head stuck out to the left, and both the feet on the right hand side are longer than the ones on the left. I am not trimming to correct this, as it is clearly an imbalance in his body causing it. I will work first on straightening his body, which I then expect to reflect in his feet.

I'm sure there are people who think that it will perpetuate his body imbalance to leave his feet like they are. My answer to that is that it will risk strain to his body if I remove it, and that my experience is that provided I work him enough on abrasive surfaces, he will correct the feet by tiny degrees as his body straightens out.

If he was a foal, though, I think I would probably be putting them right immediately. Having said that, your foal had a completely different issue which I personally doubt could have been trimmed into submission

CPT, I can see where you are coming from as he is an older horse.
Interestingly, an eventer was picked for the team and as such had inspections by both team vet and farrier who wanted her to change the way the horse was trimmed and shod. Her own farrier (both a World and national Champion and very well regarded in the remedial world) went ballistic and told them point blank that if they tried to alter the angles any more at that age, they had a good chance of breaking him altogether. He had been shoeing him for years since he had arrived as a youngster to her yard with all the ability in the world but the most dreadful neglected feet and odd angles which the horse had somehow adapted to and he had improved them greatly but couldn't go any further with them because it would put far too much pressure on his limbs so it was a case of steady maintenance to keep them aligned. They ignored him; the horse broke.

 

[cptrayes]

Yes that's my fear Maesfen. I won't allow it to go on and on like this, but I have only had him six weeks, he has only been broken nine weeks and only started hacking in the last two weeks. His feet and his body are changing slowly, and while the changes continue I will watch and wait.

He's very interesting. I have never seen two longer feet on one side before. It's not unusual on one foot, I've seen it on a diagonal pair, but never on the same side. It's not his only peculiarity, bless him!