mcmIV,
My horse has started getting hock sores too despite a fastidiously clean stall and lots of shavings. He has never had this problem until about 2 weeks after he got the ice “corks” too. Coincidence? He doesn’t have any soundness or stiffness issues and gets Equinyl CM for prevention. I will see what my farrier has to say.
Doggone it John, you are supposed to wax poetic with how you’d fix poor Bear. The vet is lobbying for the KB-N shoe and less hard for it to be combined with pouring pads. My opinion, not that anyone asked me, is that he needs 1)shorter toes, and 2) something to reduce concussion. The caudal hoof lameness article in the most recent american farriers journal was very enlightening, especially to a knows-enough-to-be-dangerous one like me. What would you do with him?
And Martha, I think the hoof fetish clique has a nice ring to it! 
Bensmom-
Didn’t the chiro come BEFORE you got the back feet fixed? Wouldn’t it be nice if he just needed re-adjustment 
FWIW, we were sound yesterday
“I’ve got a holiday, a paid holiday, I’ve got a holiday in my head”
Hey guys…can you all vote in the foot poll I posted? Thanks…
Can you all tell that I am bored today
Proud member of the * Hoof Fetish Clique *
Bensmom- wow those x-rays were really cool.
Actually this whole thread has been really cool. I just sat down and read the entire thing. Now I’m thinking about posting some pics of my TBs feet. They’re definitely not the greatest,but are much better since we’ve owned him. Well I’m going to go see if I can find my mom’s digital so I can take some pics of Billy’s feet.
All that is gold, does not glitter. Not all those who wander are lost.The old that is strong does not wither. Deep roots are not reached by frost.From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring, renewed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.~J.R.R Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring.
Chin up Cassie…the foot can be reshaped at any time. Most club feet are created…generally start by a baby that doesn’t want to weight its heels for a variety of reasons. It can almost always be corrected by trimming. Check out the Hope for Soundness web site. There is a trimming tutorial as well as a newsletter that gives some good pointers. They also have a couple of tapes…a new one that should be available soon is made for DIY barefoot trimmers. They also have a list of recommended farriers…maybe one is in your area. I know some of the people on their list and if they are all as talented as those, then any one of them should be able to help.
Thanks for the replies everyone! Uh oh… this could be dangerous… I might become addicted to this thread. Gayla is a cutie, isn’t she? 
My instructor used to compete her when she was younger and said that she’s always had very tough feet. She’s been without back shoes for a few years… got them put on just a few weeks ago because the sand was wearing away at her toes and feet too much. Anywho, thanks for the comments!
Libby…please explain “allergic to grass”…what happens?
Could Buzz have a rotated coffin bone with remodeling at the tip which would appear like the bottom goes one way and the joint another? Is this seen in a side view or toe view? Can’t wait to see the pics.
Some farrier’s like to be very conservative when making these kinds of changes, others are not so. My husband has found that he has never lamed a horse by making several changes at once, but then that is probably easier said than done. 
Proud member of the * Hoof Fetish Clique *
hmmmm – I don’t think we can do barefoot with Mr. Bear, at least at this point. He is pretty lame without them, and with them, even with this rotten trim, he is only barely lame with them on, and that is really surprising considering how bad his changes look.
It is interesting that in the films taken when he first went lame, you can hardly see anything at all, and he was really lame and in the recent ones, there are lots of visible problems and he is only off sometimes and usually not more than 1 or .5 grade lame. The interesting part of this seems to be that the bone spurs you can see on the top of his navicular bone could have been started by a tearing away of one or the other or both of his sesmoidian ligaments. He originally went lame after crashing through a fence and he and the rider went down in a heap. They never did an u/s to look for a ligament problem because he blocked to his PDN, but it is worth keeping in mind. I wish I could go back in time . . . oh well, hindsight and all that.
I agree with you guys about the underlying trim being your most important consideration – without a good trim, your shoes are going to be no help. But what do y’all think about the idea that sometimes, when nature hasn’t provided enough, using the shoe to augment what should be there – i.e. more support behind the heel, and actually under the canon bone on a horse like Buzz, who has long angled pasterns and is not built to properly support his front end?
Martha, that is exactly what this vet was quoting an expert as saying – an horse with badlly underrun heels is unfixable. This local vet and my farrier don’t believe that, but this vet does have some issues with the idea of cutting the heels to regrow them properly – all he could tell me was that he didn’t think it worked – thoughts?
Thanks guys!
Libby
Proud member of the Hoof Fetish Clique
Pics of Buzz’s wedge bar shoe:
http://community.webshots.com/album/31517240kUwBiNzacx
are in this album.
slb – I didn’t shoot Ben’s as he was already full of hoof packing before I remembered. I’ll get him tomorrow.
I’ll be back to re-read and be ready to discuss after some sleep! 
Libby
Proud member of the Hoof Fetish Clique
Well, I’ll third that idea of checking feet first, but you guys expected that, right?
Hey, Martha, do you think we should start a clique of our own?
slb – the odd tilt to Buzzy’s coronary band appears to be just an optical illusion of the photo. It seems perfectly straight in person.
We did a navicular bursogram on Bear tonight and it confirmed the radiographic diagnosis. Navicular. I learned a lot and have some more questions to ask you guys, but I’ll collect my thoughts some and ask tomorrow.
Thanks for all the great input!
Libby
Libby - Yes to xrays! I think that would be a very nice tool.
Tell me who to use and what feet!
Robby - IMO Rhodey’s feet look similar to Java’s in terms of degree of underrunedness (wow, what a word!).
I was looking most at his LF side photo - which really looks familiar!
I’m thinking this underrunedness is not “terrible” compared to what I commonly see everywhere, but it’s workable!
Proud member of the * Hoof Fetish Clique *
**Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach that person to use the Internet and they won’t bother you for weeks. **
[This message was edited by mcmIV on Feb. 22, 2003 at 01:11 PM.]
An update on Clancy’s lovely feet - my farrier was surprised (had to call her 4 times to convince her) that his feet had grown sufficiently since Jan. 1 to need a trim. He did!
They are still very flexible so on his right front, he had a pinkish line at his white line. She said stress on his laminae from the foot flexing too much every time he steps. His hind feet, however, were in very good shape - thicker sole, heels doing well, and while one still looks vaguely off balance with a flare on the other side, she gave him good marks.
She also (hallelujah) is coming around to the concepts of bondo and pour-in pads. She’s never had a horse like him before, and I think her resistance came from not having ever needed the new technology. But working with him for the past year and with her mentor who used to do tons of eventers (including mine) she’s coming around to how this stuff can help a horse.
The plan is that come the end of March when I can put him back into regular work (weather cooperating), he’ll have pour in pads and a bit of bondo on the fronts to help his hoof be more stable, rather than flexing too much at every step, and promoting the cracks. She’s never seen a horse develop cracks that start at the top like his.
Does this plan sound sound?
I would like him to wear pads just because of all the rocks around here, and he did not last year because we worried that the additional movement of the nails caused by regular pads would even further weaken his hoof walls, and he’d lose shoes. This plan worked, he didn’t lose shoes, but I think there were times when pads would have made him more comfortable.
Ohhh…EQT…better than a cup of coffe to start the morning
Proud member of the * Hoof Fetish Clique *
slb, I sure agree with that post on the trim.
I was going to suggest the Bear wander around on some of that sand down there, before anyone gets around to nailing some steel on his feet.
I always feel they need a little time to let things settle down after a fairly aggressive trim. That’s aggressive in the “change the position of the foot, not cut till they bled aggressive.” 
Regards John
And, next, I’ll post my little TB’s feet. He has a bowed tendon on the left front, and an arthritic fetlock on the right, both I believe from having his feet with waaayy too long toes and no support behind long pasterns.
In order to work on his angles on the front feet, my terrific farrier built him some steel wedge bars that give him the correct angle without crushing the heels. Let me know what you guys think . . .
(edited to say that I’m working on getting the pic up – help, Martha, it says its too big!)
[This message was edited by Bensmom on Feb. 06, 2003 at 04:00 PM.]
Ok, just looked at Buzz’s side views…he’s a little underrun. Does the same farrier do Buzz and Ben, or is it a different farrier?
Proud member of the * Hoof Fetish Clique *
My horse has hip/stifle/back soreness.
I discovered the stifle culprit as a result of a bonescan. In addition, his xrays of the hind limbs showed some pretty terrible angles at the coffin/pastern connection.
From the outside, all the vets whose opinion I asked about shoeing said: “Eh, they look find to me, don’t think that’s a problem”. Sound familiar?
Anyway, I had his hind angles brought up 4 degrees. I also had his stifle injected.
Whether his stifle injection or the hind angles did the trick, I don’t know, but his back pain has almost gone away. I would suggest getting xrays just to see where his shoeing angles really are if you’ve got symptoms like back/hip pain. It’s pretty inexpensive to take a couple xrays.
martha
**Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach that person to use the Internet and they won’t bother you for weeks. **
HS…good idea…that sounds like just the ticket
Proud member of the * Hoof Fetish Clique *
I guess the ultimate goal would be to attain this look: Good Foot. However, I don’t think that every foot can be expected to look this good. This is a 7yo, never shod, on optimal terrain for the horse, basically self-trimming…only touch-ups are neccessary. Notice: white line is nice and tight and smoothly and evenly follows the hoof wall; hoof wall is symetrical with no flares or other problems; heels are back at the widest part of the frog; bars are not pushed against the frog and are fairly straight and not in excess…longer than half the frog, or folded over covering the sole; frog is full and robust; heels are nice and wide; approx. 1/3 of the foot is in front of the apex of the frog and 2/3 behind…very important equation for good form and function.
Edited 2/14…just realized I make a couple of errors in my haste…the bars should be no longer than approx. 3/4 (not 1/2) the length of the frog. And, apporx. 1/3 of the foot should be in front of the widest part of the foot (generally slightly behind the apex of the frog, not at it) and 2/3 behind. Sorry if I confused anyone with this.
While not every foot can get this good…it is a goal that should be strived for. There is a lot that depends on genetics, nutrition (probably the most difficult thing to optimize), terrain, environmental conditions, and exercise. But, knowing that this is what good form looks like, then that is a step in the right direction. Aiming for that goal is the best you can do.
Proud member of the * Hoof Fetish Clique *
[This message was edited by slb on Feb. 14, 2003 at 09:53 PM.]
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