Should All Horses' Hooves be X-Rayed Before Trimmed and / or Shod?

MrsMozart

MrsMozart

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I ask because a friend had her horse's hooves x-rayed last week, due to lameness and a shoeing, etc. question (see this one for the back story http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=561723).

Anyhoo, everyone was surprised by how much toe the horse had compared to what he needed, i.e. there was too much there.

This horse has had the best local farriers all his life (he's fourteen now and friend has had him since he was weaned).

I'm going to have my horses' hooves x-rayed, find out what's going on in there. Share them with my farrier and see what he thinks.
 
Not practical, but I did consider having Henry's x-rayed just to prove to the farrier just how stupidly long they were getting. Vet commenting on them just not enough, apparently, nor is tripping onto his knees twice in a summer. Lovely guy, but deaf when it comes to 'the hooves are too long' speech. Have had to pick up my trimming tools again and will work on my wonky arm...
 
No - I've only ever had a horse's feet x-rayed when it was lame. Can't see why you would otherwise, unless you've spent a small fortune on the horse in which case your insurer will probably ask for them anyway. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. My big (old) horse has had a few sets of x-rays taken because he has ongoing lameness issues but I won't be getting the 6yo's feet x-rayed unless/until he has problems...
 
Fransurrey said:
Not practical, but I did consider having Henry's x-rayed just to prove to the farrier just how stupidly long they were getting. Vet commenting on them just not enough, apparently, nor is tripping onto his knees twice in a summer. Lovely guy, but deaf when it comes to 'the hooves are too long' speech. Have had to pick up my trimming tools again and will work on my wonky arm...
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Ouch. Hope farrier starts to listen, or you find someone who will :)

chestnut cob said:
No - I've only ever had a horse's feet x-rayed when it was lame. Can't see why you would otherwise, unless you've spent a small fortune on the horse in which case your insurer will probably ask for them anyway...
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I'm going to just to see what shape and size each hoof is :D. It will certainly be interesting to see if they conform to what one would expect given their builds and heights, or if like my friend's horse, they should be shorter (or longer I suppose).

I admit to having a scarily limited knowledge of hooves, so it's a good a place as any to start learning :D
 
I think it opens a whole can of worms you might want to keep closed! It's a non-routine vet visit, so you have to inform the insurance even if you don't claim, otherwise all future claims for anything (hoof related or not) might be invalid. What if it shows up something which is currently sub-clinical (i.e. not affecting the performance of the horse) but is definitely something insurance would regard as a condition? Then you face the prospect of having 12 months in which you either treat something which isn't currently a problem (not terribly ethical IMO) or having an insurance exclusion meaning you have to pay out yourself if/when it does become a problem.

Added to which, x-rays are still exposing the body to radiation, however 'safe' we think they are.

I could understand it with a top competition horse, where you're unlikely to have vets fees insurance and you need to constantly monitor them - but then team/performance squad level horses get this kind of stuff done routinely as part of the support they get through the national federations, so not as much of an issue with cost!

I think it's a bit mad unless you have or suspect a problem personally....
 
Its an interesting idea and certainly whenever there are soundness or performance questions one of the first things to do, it is not overly expensive to get basic views and would really help reduce any imbalance before it becomes too much of an issue with the horse compensating and causing problems somewhere else.
A horse in my yard was x-rayed about 6 weeks ago, he has been sound since he arrived 18 months ago but always grew very long toes despite my farrier keeping them well back and being shod every 4- 5 weeks. He was just not being quite as honest at times jumping, rider was getting the blame, changed saddle, had physio etc, once everything was ruled out the feet were the obvious place to look at.
The vet saw him and felt he was sound but x-rayed to rule out any issues and was amazed at what they showed, he has some counter rotation, enough that he should be lame and not performing at all, yet this horse has been flying xc, he loves firm ground and only stopped on the odd occasion when not placed right at his SJs.

He is now in bar shoes, and in full work, DC at the first event since the new shoes went on and flew round a hunter trial yesterday. At the end of October he will have his shoes off, have a short holiday and then come back into work unshod so that the foot can grow more heel and help itself, vet was not over keen on barefoot, he wanted wedges on but farrier is more than happy and feels it is the way forward.
 
From the remedial farrier at a veterinary hospital when he was shoeing my horse.

He would only shoe to xrays that had just been done.

Feet can change very quickly and xrays go quickly out of date. Shoeing to an image would create a false sense of security and farrier could be more invasive only to find the angle had changed since the xrays were taken.
 
criso said:
From the remedial farrier at a veterinary hospital when he was shoeing my horse.

He would only shoe to xrays that had just been done.

Feet can change very quickly and xrays go quickly out of date. Shoeing to an image would create a false sense of security and farrier could be more invasive only to find the angle had changed since the xrays were taken.
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That would probably be what I would have concluded. Unless you were taking fresh films every shoeing you may as well not bother. An out of date image must be about as much help as no image at all, possibly worse.
 
I ride a wonky donkey that has always had terrible feet not helped by her poor conformation. We have to take her to Suffolk to get her shod as he is the only farrier that seems able to keep shoes on her! About a month ago she pulled a front shoe off, took a lot of hoof with it. Managed to get shoe back on with our local farrier but she was still sore (this horse has always been very sore when unshod). She then pulled it off again and was so lame we thought there might be another issue as this was on a leg that she had badly damaged as a youngster and the fetlock joint has always been very lumpy, plus she'd twisted the fetlock a few weeks before. So off to vets for x-ray. The joint was surprisingly good but what was shown up was that she only had about 3 millimetres of sole between the floor and the pedal bone (pedal bone had not rotated). due to this obviously she was experiencing severe brusing and it had also caused the corner of the pedal bone to wear. So, although we aren't out of trouble with her yet it was worth the x-ray as it showed exactly what was needed shoeing wise in order to support the outside of her hoof and obviously helped the farrier in his assessment as well.
 
With the last two horses I have bought I have xrayed the front feet straight after they passed the vet you know exactly where you are with the foot balance and they may be extremely useful in the future.
Costs less than £200 and is worth every penny.
 
MrsMozart said:
I'm going to just to see what shape and size each hoof is :D. It will certainly be interesting to see if they conform to what one would expect given their builds and heights, or if like my friend's horse, they should be shorter (or longer I suppose).

I admit to having a scarily limited knowledge of hooves, so it's a good a place as any to start learning :D
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But why do you need to know if the horse is sound and performing?

I echo everything SpottedCat says - can't put it any better. Leave it alone.

If you're that desperate to spend a few hundred quid then buy some nice new rugs or something!
 
chestnut cob said:
But why do you need to know if the horse is sound and performing?

I echo everything SpottedCat says - can't put it any better. Leave it alone.

If you're that desperate to spend a few hundred quid then buy some nice new rugs or something!
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I do it because the horse has just passed vetting at that point I know it's sound and can trot in a circle on the hard sound ,if further down the road I have a foot issue I know what we started with .
I also seem to buy most horses with frankly poorly shod feet and I can show the farrier the X-rays and say those feet are not balanced or lack heel support or whatever and there's no arguing with it .
As for the money on a rug I must have fifty So the horse can live without a new
one
Pitting in say the navicular bone are often blamed for lameness yet many sound horses have these changes . But if the horse was sound with these changes you know to look else where that just one reason but for me the main thing is the foot balance , I don't hesitate to re X-ray shod horses to keep the farriers up to the mark.
 
Shod, yes. We would get less "navicular", and ligament tendon damage inside the foot if this happened routinely, but it's too expensive.

But an unshod horse which is trimmed by reading the sole or by doing plenty of work on rough surfaces will automatically grow a foot to suit the bones inside and in the legs above. Some very weird feet can result, but the horses are often sound when they were lame in shoes.
 
I honestly see it as a good investment in my horses future I have done it to the last too and will contine in the future think I will do it to BF ones too .
 
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