Pony very lame after taking shoes off :(

Hoof_Prints

Hoof_Prints

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Hello, wonder if anyone could offer some advice or similar experiences. I have two horses that I have taken barefoot, shoes off and got on with it- the odd "ouch" step on a rock, but otherwise totally sound and out hacking the next day. My farrier came to do my new Connie's shoes, and said to leave them off and let his hoof shape sort out a bit as his shoes had been too small, and also wasn't very keen on trying him with the smoke as he was a bit nervy at the farrier. I got on him later in the day and he started off fine, then after 20 minutes he went a bit wobbly- then really started limping. This was just light schooling on sand and popping a small grid, I took him straight in and he's had 3 days off, he's still really limping on his left fore but there's no heat in the leg and no swelling. I am assuming it's having the shoes off as it happened straight after, but not sure what to do ! and confused as to why it is only one leg. Should I get shoes back on asap? He only had fronts on anyway and has extremely strong hooves, but I hate to think he is in pain.
Thanks for reading
 
he may have infection in his foot, it happens quite a bit in the wet weather. has your farrier had a look? if not i would get him back to check the foot and if no joy call the vet ...
 
He only had them off 4 days ago so I left it to see what happened, calling the farrier out asap to take a look. I did think abscess , but it just seemed odd that it happened immediately after removing shoes. Could be a total coincidence of course!
 
Few questions..

Did the farrier touch his feet or just remove shoes?
What's the diet?
Is there any heat/pulse?

In all honesty my gut feel from your post is you did too much, too soon for your horse. Some horses need time to adjust and it sounds like yours is one of those.
 
The farrier had a look at his hooves then just removed shoes, gave a quick rasp too. He is out for most of the day on quite a lot of grass but that's never caused a problem before, comes in for about 6 hours a day to work and has a haynet. Feed is one scoop happy hoof, one scoop alfa a molasses free and one mug of staypower cubes daily. No heat or pulse at all. That could be the case, I've been very lucky with my other horses as they carried on without any issues straight away once shoes were removed, and I considered light work in the school to be quite gentle on him- but obviously something has gone wrong :/ He's having the same amount of turnout at the moment. I wanted shoes left on him to be honest, at least for a little while longer but I went by my farrier's advice
 
Sorry to hijack, leg_end I think I have PMd you but the message doesn't come up in my sent items, wierd! If you had a min to read through would be grateful, if not coz I think it was an essay no worries :-)
 
checked on him today and he's almost sound in walk, limping badly in trot. still no heat or swelling in the legs, marginally (hardly noticeable) more heat in the hoof near the coronet band, but not sure if I was imagining it. Can't see how he'd have stood on anything sharp as he went from being sounds, shoes off, stabled for a few hours then up the sand school (still sound) then lame as he worked in. Farrier coming out tomorrow anyway so hopefully he can shed some light, or the vet will if it comes to that.
 
Leg_end said:
Few questions..

Did the farrier touch his feet or just remove shoes?
What's the diet?
Is there any heat/pulse?

In all honesty my gut feel from your post is you did too much, too soon for your horse. Some horses need time to adjust and it sounds like yours is one of those.
Click to expand...

Honestly my gut feeling is you didn't, most horses kept on a sensible diet could easily cope with 20 mins on other surfaces, let alone an essentially soft school environment. If he was sound and on a good diet (I assume he was since as you say you've taken two bf before so you should be aware of such things). There is no reason why you should have forseen that 20 mins work would have affected him, personally the second he seemed to start to falter, I would have stopped, but no in essence, expecting 20 mins work is not expecting too much, unless thee are some real visible issues with the hoof, and in which case you and/ or your farrier would have discussed these. I think you may well be looking at a simple case of coincidence here, or one of those Sod's law cases where the horse has trodden on a bleeding big stone. I wouldn't immediately think it was the removal of the shoes if it was one leg/hoof, it is possible that that is the cause but I think more probable the cause is something else.
 
Hoof_Prints said:
He is out for most of the day on quite a lot of grass but that's never caused a problem before
Click to expand...

This could well be your problem, our grass hasn't really stopped growing this year. I would be suspecting the start of laminitis which had been masked by the shoes (or as you say "never caused a problem before"). The beauty of having horses barefoot is that this can be picked up at a relatively early stage and acted upon. At the very least I would be putting a grazing muzzle on him to stop him eating too much grass.
 
dalidaydream said:
This could well be your problem, our grass hasn't really stopped growing this year. I would be suspecting the start of laminitis which had been masked by the shoes (or as you say "never caused a problem before"). The beauty of having horses barefoot is that this can be picked up at a relatively early stage and acted upon. At the very least I would be putting a grazing muzzle on him to stop him eating too much grass.
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That's a good point. Unfortunately the farrier couldn't make it out today but will be out tomorrow, he had a muzzle when he first came and is a good weight so it certainly wont hurt him to have it back on. I will try that and see what happens, it will keep his weight down while he's on rest if nothing else !

He seems slightly better today, still no heat or swelling though, I just cant think of anywhere he could have trod on a stone and bruised himself, it is very strange. Thanks for the replies
 
It may just be that as the pony has just come out if shoes his frog may be slightly lower to the ground than it should be and is pressing up into his hoof ,if so a layer of it will peel off in a couple of days putting it back level with the hoof and ground. Hopefully as he is not getting worse that is a good sign.
 
flaxen tail said:
It may just be that as the pony has just come out if shoes his frog may be slightly lower to the ground than it should be and is pressing up into his hoof ,if so a layer of it will peel off in a couple of days putting it back level with the hoof and ground. Hopefully as he is not getting worse that is a good sign.
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Trotted him up today and massive improvement, definitely not an abscess ! or he'd be hopping by now. Looked at his feet and he does have low frogs, maybe it was just the repeated concussion on the sand. Got a longer wait for the farrier as now he can't come out until Friday but he should be trotting up even sounder by then! Will be nice if he can cope without shoes as he is one of those ponies with feet made of really tough stuff. I do hope he can be worked soon, he's getting very bored !
 
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