Infrared thermometers for checking hoof temperatures

[Color_of_Light]

I just posted this in the thread about the horse getting into the grain. For $40 an infrared thermometer can be in your veterinary supply kit.

You can buy an infrared thermometer to check his hoof temperature. They range from $40 on up on Amazon.

Here’s a partial article about checking hoof temperatures with an infrared thermometer. You have to subscribe to see the entire article, $47.95 a year. The meat of the article states
“Normally, Elsbree can use his hand to determine if there’s any excessive heat in a portion of a hoof, but not always. Using the infrared thermometer, a typical temperature in the coronet band area measures 90 degrees but drops to 87 or 88 degrees a half inch lower on the hoof.”

https://www.americanfarriers.com/art…ures?v=preview

Years back someone invented “Temp-a-Sure Hoof Strips”. I actually think I still have some somewhere, but they are ancient. I don’t know how well they went over in the horse market. Now infrared thermometers are used instead.

http://www.animalworldnetwork.com/te…-hoofit19.html

[Scribbler]

Hmmm. My problem is not being able to tell if the hooves seem a bit warm. It’s telling if that slight increase in warmth is significant or not. Hoof surface temperature varies with weather and season, and to some degree exertion. The hoof surface will be warmer in the sun, cooler on winter days. I’ve looked after painful abscesses that generated only a very modest amount of heat as well.

[Guilherme]

Thermography, as a diagnostic tool, is valuable when you have a base line for comparison. If you don’t, if all you have is “averages,” then it can still be useful but somewhat less so.

Melvin Belli (the CA King of Torts) pushed it HARD as admissible evidence of back pain. But the connection between inflammation and pain is not always direct. And what is normal for any one person can vary some.

I think we’re all pretty familiar with non-contact temperature measurement devices about right now.

G.

[cbg]

@Scribbler

Hmmm. My problem is not being able to tell if the hooves seem a bit warm. It’s telling if that slight increase in warmth is significant or not. Hoof surface temperature varies with weather and season, and to some degree exertion. The hoof surface will be warmer in the sun, cooler on winter days. I’ve looked after painful abscesses that generated only a very modest amount of heat as well.

I have one of these and it seems to be most useful in comparing one hoof to the other. For example, if the temp at the same spot on both fronts is the same, then it’s probably just the normal temp for that horse. But if the same spot on both fronts varies by 5 degrees, then something might be going on. And if you’re super motivated, you could check the temp at various spots at various times/seasons and give yourself some kind of baseline for your particular horse.

[Color_of_Light]

@Scribbler

Hmmm. My problem is not being able to tell if the hooves seem a bit warm.

It’s telling if that slight increase in warmth is significant or not.

Hoof surface temperature varies with weather and season, and to some degree exertion. The hoof surface will be warmer in the sun, cooler on winter days. I’ve looked after painful abscesses that generated only a very modest amount of heat as well.

That’s a good point. The hand guess method doesn’t provide exact details. In this case, using an infrared thermometer would be a good idea. It can pinpoint the exact location of the heat source as well as how much higher the temperature is over the hoof’s normal temperature. The hand isn’t complex enough to calculate what it interprets to be a slight heat increase in the actual increase in degrees. As you said, weather, seasons, sun, etc. influence the temperature.

I’ve had three horses over the years who each had a single severely lame incident that ended up being abscesses. My hand also thought there was only a very modest amount of heat. The horses said the complete opposite. Two were on hind find hooves and in both incidents, the vets weren’t sure in the beginning that the problem was an abscess. If I’d have had an infrared thermometer back then I’d have been able to at least isolate the part of the hoof or leg where the heat and pain was sooner. I could probably have determined that it was a sole bruise or an abscess from the beginning. The infrared thermometer can also be used on tendons or other body parts suspected of injury. It sounds like a very handy device for both horses and humans.

[Color_of_Light]

@Guilherme

Thermography, as a diagnostic tool, is valuable when you have a base line for comparison.

I think we’re all pretty familiar with non-contact temperature measurement devices about right now.

G.

Of course. You’d have baseline hoof temps. Any method of taking a temperature is valuable when you have a baseline comparison, not just thermography.

But are we all? How is that we’re all pretty familiar with non-contact temperature measurement devices? (Are you referring to their use with Covid-19?) Not every doctor’s office used one prior to Covid-19. Not everyone has been exposed to them when going about their daily lives in lock-down, or in semi-lock down. We cannot all be pretty familiar with infrared thermometers since there are no rules for their required use, so they are not widely used at this time. Some people might have seen them on the news or read about their use in Covid-19 diagnostics.

This post is about the use of infrared thermometers on horse hooves, not the use of them that you think we’re all pretty familiar with. Do you think that most horse people are already pretty familiar with non-contact temperature measurement devices and we all already have them?

[Guilherme]

Well, not necessarily familiar with owning or using but I’ve been “shot” by them in doctors’ officers, PT venue, and I’ve heard of it being used in Big Box Stores/ I don’t know the technology of the non-contact devices that have been used but I’ve certainly seen LOTS of them in general use over the last few weeks. And I’ve become something of a “hermit” so I’ve been “shot” I would think others have been, too. That was the basis of my comment.

G.

[Scribbler]

@Color of Light

That’s a good point. The hand guess method doesn’t provide exact details. In this case, using an infrared thermometer would be a good idea. It can pinpoint the exact location of the heat source as well as how much higher the temperature is over the hoof’s normal temperature. The hand isn’t complex enough to calculate what it interprets to be a slight heat increase in the actual increase in degrees. As you said, weather, seasons, sun, etc. influence the temperature.

I’ve had three horses over the years who each had a single severely lame incident that ended up being abscesses. My hand also thought there was only a very modest amount of heat. The horses said the complete opposite. Two were on hind find hooves and in both incidents, the vets weren’t sure in the beginning that the problem was an abscess. If I’d have had an infrared thermometer back then I’d have been able to at least isolate the part of the hoof or leg where the heat and pain was sooner. I could probably have determined that it was a sole bruise or an abscess from the beginning. The infrared thermometer can also be used on tendons or other body parts suspected of injury. It sounds like a very handy device for both horses and humans.

My equine body worker had an infrared app on her phone for a while that was supposed to come with a subscription to an interpretation center but she let it lapse as it wasn’t helpful.

I believe if you pressed your hand on the horses flank for a minute you could then see the imprint of your hand on the app.

So the act of picking up a hoof and looking at the sole could skew your infrared results from the heat of your hand.

My mare has had several abscesses, they present in a very characteristic fashion, never called a vet in, just learned to soak and wrap from my trimmer coach mentor.