Sedalin and Shoeing Issues

M

mcnaughty

Well-Known Member
Joined
28 August 2009
Messages
2,296
Visit site
Has anyone here used Sedalin for an horse that has shoeing issues? I had the farrier out today to trim her feet and she was not impressed! She is in foal at the moment so is barefoot and I know I cannot use drugs until foal is weaned.

I knew she had some problems before when I was riding her up to March, bought her in September. She is very hammer shy, pulling feet away and swinging her back end around and snatching hinds away. She had to go barefoot behind from September through to March due to this.

I would like to try to sort this out without the use of drugs as I don't believe it is a long term cure but she is a big strong 9yo that knows she is big and strong!

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated!

Farrier just said to lay into her and use a chifney but feel this might be counter productive! However, I do believe she needs to know who is boss....
 
I am a world expert in this topic - at least since last september anyway!! I bought my clydesdale mare and fell in love at first sight so didnt bother to check she picked her feet up, as she was front shod I thought she must be fine. HOW wrong could I be....basically you couldnt even touch her legs below the knee!! So, I groomed each day further and further down, and got IV sedation as the shoes had to come off. She was front shod, but doped to the eyeballs. Next time she had a whole tube of sedalin, and this just takes the edge off believe it or not. But not once has my farrier ever hit her. He holds her leg so she knows he means it, but through love, determination and regulat leg grooming and hitting the hoof with the pick, the farrier has now said that after one more tube of sedalin she can go it alone (phew says my bank account). My farrier also said that my mare needed to learn what was expected and if you IV sedate them, they cant learn anything as they aint there!!
Give sedalin a go when you can, I believe it has saved a)my farriers back, b) stress to my mare, and c) stress to me!! let us know how you get on xx
 
One of my Clydesdales also needed sedation to have her feet trimmed. She was fine about having hooves picked out by us but really didn't appreciate the farrier touching her! In fact we had to have her pts after 4 yrs with us and do wonder if she had an underlying condition that made it uncomfortable to pick her hinds up for any length of time/higher than for normal hoof-picking.
We had to have the vet and IV sedation the first few times but we did progress to Sedalin and reduced the dose gradually. We found that if she had got anxious about anything before the farrier started on her feet, she could just shrug the sedalin off. Our farrier isn't the most even-tempered man you've ever met but he never lost his temper with her, he knew as well as we did that there was another problem besides just naughtiness. He had said that he could forsee that we would be able to do her feet without sedation, unfortunately we never got that far.
I do wonder why the breeders of these big horses don't make sure that they are used to hoof-picking/farrier visits from a very early age. The breeder of our Appaloosa told us that they handle their foals, including their feet from day1, so that they don't think that there is anything unusual about it.
 
I've had two horses i've had to sedate to shoe

The first one we had to get the vet out (hoping that farrier and vet were punctual!) as he was dangerous - he used to put his front legs over the farrier's shoulders.

His difficulties were genuine terror - being forcibly shod in the past as a young colt with a bad back - he used to flip as soon as he heard the hammer on his shoe

We graduated over time from vet sedation to tablets - a mixture of ACP and Temazepam - and then he got so chilled we could leave him standing with a hay net. Took about 6-8 months - which was only 5-6 shoeings :)

The other was also due to hind limb injury where he thought he couldn't stand on one hindleg. He had a tube of sedalin and a VERY patient farrier. Now he's fine - took about 6 months again - he still has his stroppy moments but all I do now is a skin twitch and e shuts up instantly!
 
I used sedalin on my mare last week. She is a big strong 7 yr old but her problems were also from fear, at least originally. Now I wonder if it's a bit of naughtiness but daren't be too firm as she does have some issues related to fear.

She certainly didn't seem very sedate when farrier first turned up but with a LOT of treats we did manage to get her shod, including back feet for the first time. She actually went totally sleepy after the farrier had left so I think I will give her the sedalin earlier next time. This time it was about 40 mins before he arrived. It's definitely worth a shot and I will be using it again. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top