All my horses have had dark hooves, and suddenly I have one with two white hooves. He gets a lot of bruising in those feet (I’m assuming in the dark hooves too, but can’t see them). WHAT can I do to help him? He has shoes (no pads, nothing fancy). Before I got him, he lived in a bedded stall, and only worked in an arena - he was hand-led between stall and arena. Now he has turnout - our ground is hard. He plays hard. And I ride him around the property (walk only) besides riding in an arena.
He doesn’t seem sore, but I figure any bruising is - unpleasant.
Diet - he eats timothy hay, a ration balancer (Purina Enrich), 1/2 cup flax, and 10,000 mgs of MSM. He seems healthy and weight is good. He is fairly fit. I’ve had him here since the end of February - and he’s been “bruised” pretty much since then…
Most bruising is due to areas of too much hoof wall. They often come along with flares - long toes, or flared quarters.
For example - underrun heels are “too much hoof wall”. The create inappropriate pressure further up the hoof wall, towards the quarters. This pressure can cause bruising above that pressure, and/or flaring at the ground.
In other words, most of the time this is a farrier/trimmer issue.
I’ll try to get some pics in the next few days. Bruising is visible - he isn’t sore, but he has red streaks. Only shows on the “white” feet. It started after I brought him home - with original farrier’s shoe job (a well known farrier in that area), and has continued under my farrier’s work. So two different farriers involved.
Where do you see the red streaks? As JB points out and I also tried to say above, bruising like this can be from stress inside the foot due to a bad trim or bad foot angles, the sole and wall peeling away from each other. Not from rocks or hard ground. Especially not on a shod horse
I am guessing we will see some degree of under run heels in the photos.
Yes yes and yes… In my mare anyway. She developed a “bruise” on one hoof a few years back, farrier didn’t think it was anything, but eventually when the hoof was grown out enough, she became lame. The hoof with the bruise showed signs of laminitis on X-ray, though it was hard to tell exactly what was going on as she had no heat, no “pointing,” and was her usual happy, bouncy self.
Flares? check
Under-run heels? check
long toes? check
I got a new farrier… who trims and shoes her to keep her upright pasterns and hooves in alignment. I get asked a lot about her “high heels” because it’s not something you see often in a sporthorse barn, but honestly, it works!
Often a toe-first landing on hard ground will cause wall bruising. The concussive forces have to go somewhere and, since they’re not dissipated through the entire hoof due to the cast of the steel shoe, the laminae take the brunt of it and tear/bruise.
I see 2 things, both of which are the fault of the farrier(s):
#1 - the first picture shows a bullnosing profile - outward curve, convex. That is likely a direct result of long term #2 which is underrun heels showing pretty clearly in the 2nd pic.
It’s a little hard to tell, but it is possible the convex profile is a result of the farrier(s) really dubbing the toes and artificially creating that look. If so, it’s pretty high up, which is why I suspect it’s not due to the rasping of the outer wall.
IN the middle pic you can see how the coronet ban is curved, and how there’s more of an upward bulge back towards the heels - direct result of the underrun heels creating that inappropriate vertical pressure right under it.
IMHO, assuming what I see isn’t figments of the camera not quite perpendicular to the wall, this isn’t something you can tell a farrier to fix. They either can’t see what’s wrong and therefore don’t know how to fix it, or they don’t care and while they might be guilted into fixing it for a few trims, will result back to letting things go again.
What can happen with this type of foot is that the dorsal wall of the coffin bone presses into the dorsal hoof wall, which can even cause remodeling of the coffin bone.
IME, one doesn’t “fix” underrrun heels. One either somewhat successfully or somewhat unsuccessfully manages them. I won’t comment about the trim because I don’t have the hoof in my hand and I have no idea where this hoof is in the trim cycle.
What I will say is that it can be so that a farrier is skilled in dealing with underrrun heels but the forces coming down onto the hoof make it impossible to managet them any better. Conformation and/or pain higher up can do this.
I won’t reply on the shoe job because the experts did, but I had several horses with all white feet and never had a bruising issue. But, my go to for all barefoot horses getting sore is Durasole. This year it was much needed because we had a lot of rain and that keeps the feet softer, so they can get sore when the ground starts to harden up.
I don’t think that reddish tinge is bruising on the outside of the hoof, but would love t hear what JB and Chocomare have to say about that.
You can’t prevent heels from running forward, as that’s how they grow. So by the end of the cycle comes around, they will be underrun relative to their correct position.
But in the context of these underrun heels, you CAN fix this situation and prevent it from happening again. IMHO these show long-term chronic underrun heels - heels never fully brought back each time, and then running more forward from there as the cycle goes on. That’s what leads to the distorted coronet band.
The bruising is showing on the outside of the foot and, IMHO, the result of the inappropriate ground forces (excess hoof wall) causing the lamina to separate from the wall, resulting in bruising.
JB I think you and I disagree as to why these heels are underrun. I’ll agree that they’ve been mismanaged (probably), but I don’t agree that this will ever be the type of foot that has a greater tendency to simply grow “tall” instead of either crushing or flaring, and seems to self correct during a cycle if an error is made. It will get better, but they will never be as durable and sturdy as it can be.
I’ve only had this guy a few months now, so I’m hoping for some positive changes - maybe… My farrier has done him once now (last week) - the prior owner’s farrier did him once after I bought him. My farrier commented on his “odd foot shape”.
I also took him over to the farrier school when I first got him (since he promptly tore off a shoe, and my farrier was out of town) and asked there what they thought about his shoeing - the prior farrier had set the shoe back a bit, AND it was far too “tight” for my taste. They thought the set back shoe was for the balance of the hoof. Possible the “tight” shoeing was because he overreaches and pulls off shoes?
This horse is not sore - he is going well - in fact he’s going better in the past month then when I first got him. I’m just concerned at the bruising I see on his feet. I tried uploading some more pics from my phone, and phone to COTH are not communicating so well, so maybe I can shoot some pics w/ a camera at some point, on cement so you see a less distorted set of pictures…
Prior farrier is very well regarded in the region.
Underrun is underrun. The foot grows forward as it grows down. That’s how feet grow. Heels by default become underrun as a factor of growing. The shod foot can’t wear, so all growth does whatever the trim causes and allows, and whatever the foot (by way of the hoof conformation, the pastern conformation, how much movement the horse gets on what type of footing, and even the correctness with which he’s ridden) does on its own. The bare foot has some means of wearing things down with enough movement on abrasive enough footing, though that by no means makes it so that the foot never becomes unbalanced, that heels never crush, that toes never grow long or bars become overgrown/lay down.
The only difference then becomes whether the heels also crush (and to the degree they crush) or if they stay standing up.
Some feet are much more predisposed to always crushing, never a lick of standing up, and are a bigger management issue, because crushed heels that follow long toes (another inherent function of growth) mean the hoof-pastern angle breaks back, raising the risk of tendon and ligament injuries.
Others never crush, which is great, because even though the foot is deforming, the HPA remains more or less aligned.
Most are in the middle of that spectrum somewhere, neither crushing to the point of “no heels”, nor standing up all the way.
IMHO, the middle picture shows heels that are underrun and crushed to some degree, not totally standing up, but not splat either. Pretty common IME.
I just think they spend far too much time forward of where they should be.
It’s possible that some bullnosing can start without the coffin bone having started to remodel, or anything remodeling, if it’s been mild enough, or hasn’t been going on long enough.
Setting a shoe back is one benefit of shoes - you can put the breakover where it needs to be if you can’t (or don’t know how to) trim the toe back where it belongs.
Did the vet use any markers to mark the apex of the frog and the coronet band? Did he measure the angle of the coffin bone? You’d like P3 to be 2-3* to the ground. Anything much less than that will start to be problematic after a while.
As others have stated, very bull-nosed rear hoof. The hoof wall was thinned prior to shoeing… alas, a standard practice. Then you have downward concussion from the force of the hoof landing (or even, I suspect, dragging) and the laminae are tearing away, thereby causing bruising.
Were this my client, I would politely but highly recommend pulling those back shoes. I’d recommend 24/7 turnout on varied surface and regular, as tolerated, exercise on a sand or pea-gravel surface. I would let the hoof remodel itself while working on the front hooves which, I highly suspect are also underrun. (Pictures would be helpful, if the OP is up to it.)
Underrun/crushed heels can be corrected by regular (4-week) trimming, tons of turnout, good exercise and, if needed, boots on surfaces the soles are not ready to tackle yet. Case in point: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?..1&l=e1c2af2c66
Oh dear… these feet are telling you a story and it’s not a good one. Both show large rings – signs of chronic, ongoing laminitis. The black hoof in particular shows a bit of rotation.
