Wonky shoe pictures for those who asked... follow on from foot balance!

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KatB

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For those who are interested! Sorry, not the best pictures, but you get the idea...!

The left foot is pretty straight, the right is the very wonky one ;) There is a lot of shoe on the inside of the right foot to encourage the foot to fill it a bit. As you can see, without lifting the foot, the shoeing isn't that obvious! Apologies for the lifted foot pic being full of sand, but you get the idea of the extent of the wonkiness...

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Thanks for posting pics, very interesting :). Has the vet/farrier explained how the shoeing will correct the issue? (Sorry if you've already answered that question!) I'm guessing that when x-rayed post shoeing the pedal bone is now straight (relative to leg and ground, rather than hoof capsule)? Does she land and load evenly now?
Sorry for the million questions :o it's interesting stuff!
 
Why have you changed the management? Sorry must have missed other posts, were you having problems?

Mines hind foot/Pastern conformation has always been a bit wonky, and a recent physio visit suggested that I put wide shoes on behind as she thought the shoes might be pinching his heels, and perhaps not helping with his previous psd and tendon puffiness/filling. So I've taken the shoes off for six weeks to see what happens.

This is something that countless vet visits, previous physios and regular farriers haven't picked up on!
 
Two stroke, shoeing this way is to get her loading evenly. There wasn't a massive pedal bone imbalance, but because she was loading unevenly she was causing wear and tear on joints and soft tissue in her foot. Shoeing like this has made her limb straighter so hopefully will encourage straighter foot growth again over time, as she used to be a lot straighter, so its been a very slight and subtle change, which even with x rays wasn't at all obvious!

Stencilface, as above really! This year had a fair bit of inconsistency in way of going, and after a lot of diagnostics, it looks like ir is just down to imbalances whih need correcting through support, and not through trimming
 
Very interesting. Sounds very like my boy. I had nearly a year of medicating and egg bars, graduated egg bars, with no real success. Had an MRI at the RVC which confirmed it was 'just' foot balance, nothing else going on. Sat down with their top vets who recommended back to normal shoes, as the egg bars were doing him no favours, they spoke to the farrier how it was best to trim his feet and hey presto one sound horse :) and has been for 9 months now.

Hope this works for yours as it sounds like you're on the right tracks.
 
Wench, nope, MRI and then Martin Deakin shod her and pointed put its not a trimming issue but a loading problem, hence the wonky shoe!
 
Is this all round, fronts, backs or just one? I am now looking at whether this might be why I've had psd, and why he's always been 'lazy' behind. Still I'm into two weeks hacking (admittedly 30min walk trot hacks on good surfaces - still doing tendon fittening work too!) and he doesn't seem to care that he no longer has back shoes on!
 
Very interesting, I've got two with foot balance problems, Millie, who is just coming right and starts walking work Sunday and Zara who is very wrong at the moment, we are struggling with her as she also has changes in her coffin joint (age), the foot balance is not helping her or should I say lack of, but interesting what you are saying about x-ray and MRI....
 
Stencilface, it's just in front. She has one very wonky shoe, and one slightly less wonky in front, and no shoes behind currently... she will have back shoes back on on the next shoeing...

Heidi, who is your farrier? PM me if you want? Any concerns, I would get down to Martin to have a look.... just for a fresh set of eyes more than anything, but he is a very very interesting man to listen to :)
 
I commented on the other thread along these lines, but (at the risk of being shot down in flames) I'll do it again.....

Why are so many horses suffering from foot balance issues? (Please can we leave barefoot out of this and just accept that some horses need to wear shoes some of the time).

Why are so many farriers getting away with doing a poor job, with owners needing to be extra-vigilant (and quite knowledgeable) to point out any issues?

Why can't we 'trust' a professional to turn up and do a decent job? I've had my own issues with poor farriery (& it's cost me a fortune in vet bills, missed comps etc). If I had an extension built on my house and it wasn't fit-for-purpose I'd have some come-back with the builder; why can't we do that with farriers?

I know it's a complete mine-field and vets would be very reluctant to say definitively (maybe they can't!) that issues are caused directly by poor shoeing, but surely as horse-owners we should be confident that a registered farrier is competent?

I'm beginning to wonder whether we'd all be better off taking our horses to a 'local' facility where the farriers are guaranteed, perhaps with x-ray facilities on site and a vet who visits to review? If you all think it's a good idea - it was mine, you saw it here first and I will patent the idea if I have to! ;)

I should add that I now have an excellent farrier - but it's taken a while. I'm not out to beat up the profession - they work very hard and earn every penny in my opinion, but only the good ones..........
 
Alfami, I do completely agree with you. I see SO many horses with horrendous feet, with supposedly "good" farriers. what scares me the most is speaking to the few good farriers there are out there, the way new farriers are being trained is generally not great, and time after time I see newly qualified farriers shoeing horses with long toes and no interest in seeing horses moving etc, and no idea what to do with the movement if they did see it!!!

My farrier is generally very very good, and has a great interest in the horses. He was happy for me to get another "specialist" farriet to look at madam and will be discussing her with him to get new ideas and see what can be done to assist her. Looking at a lot of horses shoeing, I am lucky, but equally don't take it for granted!!
 
Yes I agree too alfami! There should be an easier way to hold them to account if things go wrong.

It is actually very hard to find a good farrier in my area at all, many of them only work during the day which kind of makes it impossible for those of us that work. The one I was using is highly qualified and great with hoof balance. Problem being he was in high demand and do used to send one of his staff to do mine most of the time who wasn't qualified and wasn't good with hoof balance, put the wrong size shoes on more than one occasion and wanted to refit old shoes that were too worn because he had forgotten the size he needed.

I don't use these farriers anymore as I wanted better consistency than that
 
Just a q katb, you sound like you are happy with your farrier but is it not his responsibility to ensure your mares foot is balanced? If something has gone wrong along the way should he not have picked up on it?
 
Wheels, yes and he was as far as he could see. It's only through x rays and mris that we diagnosed there was an imbalance, so my farrier was doing a good job with what he could see!
 
Alfami said:
Why are so many horses suffering from foot balance issues? (Please can we leave barefoot out of this and just accept that some horses need to wear shoes some of the time).

Why are so many farriers getting away with doing a poor job, with owners needing to be extra-vigilant (and quite knowledgeable) to point out any issues?

Why can't we 'trust' a professional to turn up and do a decent job? I've had my own issues with poor farriery (& it's cost me a fortune in vet bills, missed comps etc). If I had an extension built on my house and it wasn't fit-for-purpose I'd have some come-back with the builder; why can't we do that with farriers?
Click to expand...

This is something I am feeling at the moment as Buds has been lamed and has now got serious issues because of poor farriery. I have to say I feel very let down (as well as v guilty that I missed it) and I feel like there are very few people that I can trust to do a good job.

You can report any issues to the farriers registration council however they cannot compensate you so you would need to do a civil claim (and you have to do this first before you can go the trade route :rolleyes: ). I also have to admit feeling tremendously guilty about reporting a farrier - I feel like a total snitch and somehow it goes against the grain but what drove me was the thought of saying nothing and it happening to someone else.

Alfami said:
I know it's a complete mine-field and vets would be very reluctant to say definitively (maybe they can't!) that issues are caused directly by poor shoeing, but surely as horse-owners we should be confident that a registered farrier is competent?
Click to expand...

My vet wasn't reluctant at all to say it - but getting him to write it down is another matter ;)

What my vet said was that there are lots of good farriers out there who are considered good because they are - but only with horses who have typical feet and arent prone to issues. At the point that a horse starts to move away from normality the 'good' farriers continue as they either don't recognise there is a problem or they don't know how to fix it. Therefore, the key is to find an excellent farrier, who does what the good ones do but also has the ability to recognise and correct any small issues before they become bigs ones.
 
Thanks for pics, really interesting, although you're probably sick of having an horse with 'interesting feet' now :D

KatB said:
Wheels, yes and he was as far as he could see. It's only through x rays and mris that we diagnosed there was an imbalance, so my farrier was doing a good job with what he could see!
Click to expand...

I think this is a huge problem, even the best farrier can only deal with what he can see and essentially how good his 'eye' is. And no one takes xrays as standard when the horse is fine and happily working, only when they're having issues so rarely is there a benchmark to measure against. I'm not sure we're seeing more and more foot imbalances, I think diagnosing has improved, as have the number of tools available to deal with such things.
 
I agree with a lot of the above. And 1 year on we are still battleing with 1 of my horses. Having spent 6months barefoot in a field his feet look fab. Shoes on all good. 10days later we commence walk work. Day 3 he is lame. This is gutting. And to watch him and see he is uncomfortable in front i feel so guilty. Two farriers. Two vets gave him all clear. Yet he didnt last 3 days?!
To a large extent yes its all as said above with farriers- in my horses case not keeping the toe short enough, especially as feet grow so quick on him. New set every 3-4weeks in front.

But i dont think its all farrier / owner fault. My horse has good bloodlines his sire is well known. His sires offspring have done olympics etc. His dam side have competed top level. His dam though is an unknown. And he has crap feet. I think the breeding has a large chunk to play here. In breedung through the higher bloodlines. And people putting old faithful but crap mares in foal. Breeding down problems. This is what i tell myself anyway helps the guilt :-\
Excuse poor spelling /grammer. Stupid phone
 
Feet can be an absolute minefield, and I have found that often farriers' training seems to be too focused on putting a shoe on a foot, and not enough on what a healthy foot should look like before the shoe goes on. This isn't farrier bashing, btw - but I do think that they can only do the best they can with the training they're given, and imho farrier training needs an update.
 
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