Tell me about sheared heels please....

jenbleep

jenbleep

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Evening all :)

I need to do some research on sheared heels - can anyone tell me about your experiences?

Main thing I'd like to know is maintenance and if the horse can be used for low level competition with sheared heels.

Horse in question had just come back from loan with them :(
 
jenbleep said:
Evening all :)

I need to do some research on sheared heels - can anyone tell me about your experiences?

Main thing I'd like to know is maintenance and if the horse can be used for low level competition with sheared heels.

Horse in question had just come back from loan with them :(
Click to expand...

Hmm...well...you need time and a good farrier.
Depending on the severity....a good farrier....and time out in the field.....and start gentle hacking when the heels show signs of returning.

Best of luck:)
Brundy
 
I was talking to my farrier about them last time he came to trim my lot - well I was listening and he was explaining how they occur etc...

He said that you need to get the heel to de-contract and that removing the shoes was the most effective way to achieve that.

Is your horse sound? Personally, I would forget competing for now and focus on improving the hooves.
 
I don't understand Bryndu's response to you because in my experience sheared heels are higher and more contracted than average, not "disappeared". A friend of mine has now fought for 15 years with her farrier's help and only managed to cure them partially. The only way I know to cure them properly is to remove the shoes and let the heels spread to where they are supposed to be, which gradually brings the central sulcus up and out. I hve resolved two sets of shears this way. Sudocrem can be very helpful, held on a plug of make-up remover disk if the shear is tight enough to hold it.

In my experience, they do not generally lame the horse unless it is working on a gritty surface which gets up inside the shear.
 
My lad had quite badly sheared heels when I bought him- I went on the advice of my vet and farrier and had bar shoes put on him- they helped, but frankly only very minimally- four rounds of bar shoes at £125 a go every four weeks, and I decided to listen to the advice here instead ;)

Having had him on a good 'barefoot diet' for a couple of months, I whipped his shoes off on Nov 28th last year, by Christmas you wouldn't know he'd ever had a shear... healed that quickly.

Sadly he wasn't able to sustain being barefoot on our terrain/with the facilities we have, but he's now in 'normal' shoes, holding them for 6 weeks and still no shear.
 
Faracat said:
I was talking to my farrier about them last time he came to trim my lot - well I was listening and he was explaining how they occur etc...

He said that you need to get the heel to de-contract and that removing the shoes was the most effective way to achieve that.

Is your horse sound? Personally, I would forget competing for now and focus on improving the hooves.
Click to expand...

Thanks - he is not lame, and is not in competition at the moment, I was just thinking of the future.

I've not experienced sheared heels before, but someone said it was a mix of poor shoeing and bad hoof maintenance...we will speak to the farrier.
 
Liath said:
My lad had quite badly sheared heels when I bought him- I went on the advice of my vet and farrier and had bar shoes put on him- they helped, but frankly only very minimally- four rounds of bar shoes at £125 a go every four weeks, and I decided to listen to the advice here instead ;)

Having had him on a good 'barefoot diet' for a couple of months, I whipped his shoes off on Nov 28th last year, by Christmas you wouldn't know he'd ever had a shear... healed that quickly.

Sadly he wasn't able to sustain being barefoot on our terrain/with the facilities we have, but he's now in 'normal' shoes, holding them for 6 weeks and still no shear.
Click to expand...

Wow, this sounds positive...well done! Yes bar shoes are pretty expensive aren't they?!

I don't know anything about going barefoot, but will look into it as a possible option.
 
When I bought my gelding 8 years ago he came from the dealers with 4 odd shoes on. After his first couple of shoeings in traditional shoes his heels started to shear. He was put in bar shoes for about 6 months and I had to regularly disinfect to prevent thrush which was a PITA.

Since then he has been in natural balance shoes and not had a problem with sheared heels since. Although he was also diagnosed with Chronic SI strain not long after that and so probably all connected in some way. Despite all of the above we have had 8 years of fun and RC level comps and touch wood still fine :)
 
My horse has sheared heels and I have a fantastic farrier who shoes him with natural balance. He is an allrounder and competes regularly - the only problems we encounter are if we are hacking on really stoney ground, he will be a bit footy. Due to the shear being less now to the shoeing, sand and grit is no longer a major issue as I had to 'plug' the shear with toothpaste or sudocream with cotton wool! Got rid of all the deep sulcus thrush though!
 
There's loads on google. Some slight, some really, really bad.

Here's an average one.
P1100575.jpg


Compare to this.
front-left-hoof-heels.gif


Can you see how the sheared heel has a groove in between the heel bulbs? Google also found this, which show how deep the sheer can be.
0006.JPG
 
Faracat said:
There's loads on google. Some slight, some really, really bad.

Here's an average one.
P1100575.jpg


Compare to this.
front-left-hoof-heels.gif


Can you see how the sheared heel has a groove in between the heel bulbs? Google also found this, which show how deep the sheer can be.
0006.JPG
Click to expand...

The bottom photo is mine :D, you must have found my old closed blog. I was just about to post it myself, thanks for saving me the trouble :) The horse was barefoot and with the sudocrem plug treatment that was cured in three months. The horse was never lame on it.
 
Thanks for all your replies everyone. I can calm down now, it's not the end for him but it needs to be managed carefully! Normal farrier is off sick at the moment but we will talk to him, as obviously he knows horse's feet.

Horse will be used for riding club level competition - jumping up to 1m, dressage, sponsored (sp) rides etc (eventually).

Thanks all :)
 
A lot of the time there is an imbalance in the hoof that causes it, causing independent movement between the heels. I have had a few cases where excessive use of a walker has made it difficult to treat.
 
What would you say is the best cause of treatment? Cornucrescine, stockholm tar, sudocream? And what to cleanse? Hibiscrub?

So many options!
 
as already mentioned, get your farrier involved as if the feet are not balanced, it will be almost impossible to get better

I used some Red Horse products on my new horse last year after seeing recommended on here ... was amazed how good it was ... I think I got the wash to clean out .. and then the paste stuff .. sorry, can't remember the name of it .. was like cotton wool impregnated with cream/biohoney so you could pack the cracks (after cleaning thoroughly obviously) .. I have treated thrush and sheared heels before successfully, but never as quickly as with the Red Horse stuff.
If I remember, was not that cheap, but I would definately recommend
 
My horse has sheared heels on one foot only- he had his shoes off for 6 weeks over christmas when he had a holiday and it actually got worse. Ive managed it by keeping them really clean, and syringing detol neat into the shear to kill thrush infection then drying it out by packing it with wound powder. He is always sound and so long as my farrier is careful to shoe him wide enough at the heel it is slowly growing out. (Farrier also cuts dead frog away with paring knife from the middle of the shear so it cant close on the top and thrush set in again)
 
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