Questions on Club Foot - Update with X-Rays - Update *Hoof pictures!

Your colt is absolutely gorgeous! Glad you had the surgery and that there is a positive prognosis. I have seen just as bad and, while it took some time, as the horse matured the club foot continued to resolve until it was hardly noticeable at all. I’d be very optimistic. :+1:

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Not really a dog person, but holy cow that baby horse is GORGEOUS

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I was in your shoes and opted not to do the surgery, I have regretted that decision ever since. Glad you got it done and soon this will all be behind you

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Thank you all. So far all I have heard from others was that the surgery has been successful, except in one case, where the pony was eventually unsound and was retired at a young age. But I have heard from at least 10 other people who have had it done, one about 20 years ago when the surgery was quite new, and the horses and ponies had long and successful careers.

I have removed the sterile bandage once, and re wrapped it right afterwards. I have to change and re wrap the sterile bandage every 2 days (so today will be the second time) and then I re wrap the stable bandage every day. So far he’s been a pretty good patient for a yearling, tries to play with me on our hand walks (no-no) and loves going for his grass afterwards. I do have him on trazadone to keep him quiet, and tried to lower the dosage yesterday, but he was getting a bit restless in his outdoor stall, so decided for his safety to bring it back to where it was. He was just banging at his gate with his surgery leg, which wasn’t ideal of course.

Here is a picture of his leg after my first sterile bandage change. 2 days after surgery and no swelling. Very happy with how it looks! I’m now wrapping the sterile bandage with an Incrediwear wrap, but not sure if it will do too much. I just had a pair that I purchased for my CDE ponies so thought it wouldn’t hurt to use it.

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Here is my funny girl with Sirrey. He is so used to her antics, but I did move her right after this in case he tried to jump on her. You can see his typical grazing stance where is club foot is always back. I know horses can be left or right handed and graze with the same leg always back, but its so noticeable with him as he has such an exaggerated stance with those long legs.

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Couldn’t look better!

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it looks great!

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Yay! It looks very similar to Coco’s incision, wrapping, etc. I did get advice (from a vet) to do a lot of straight line hand walking AFTER she had some lameness a few months after the surgery. It made a HUGE difference and she’s been sound on that leg ever since (she’s 11, surgery was at 2yo).

Also a dog person here, she’s precious! I love a rare breed! I have a Borzoi/Scottish Deerhound that terrifies people bc he’s 34" tall and people say he looks like he’s from middle earth!

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There was a little more swelling at the site when I removed his sterile bandage the other day. He seems sound at the walk, but when I was hand walking him, he spooked and took a couple of trot steps and seemed sore - to be expected of course. Great tip on the straight hand walking. I was walking him in my ring, using the whole thing, but I may take him out around some of my fields to change it up a bit and let him see things.

So far, for a yearling, he has taken his stall rest very well (so far). I did go and buy him a few more toys (Lick it, Jimmy’s hanging balls - ha ha! and a hay ball that you stuff with hay and carrots. He was terrified of the Jimmy’s hanging balls which I tied to the middle of the ceiling so it was hanging down. He slept in the front corner of his stall, as far away from it as possible last night. I just moved it and attached it to the wall (not ideal) but maybe he will be a bit happier about that. I bought them to entertain him, not scare him. Horses! My dog on the other hand thinks all the new toys are the best and she keeps taking them out of his stall to play with them. Or was jumping up to try and eat the Jimmy toy.

I redo his sterile bandage today, so will see what it looks like. He now stands quite well (a few steps here and there) when I remove and rebandage. Its so many layers and takes me about 20 mins to undo and then redress it. He stands like a champ now for just the stable bandage wrap and rewrap. He’s getting used to fly spray as well. So I guess he’s getting lots of handling and seeing things now! Thats a plus.

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It has been 6 weeks now since surgery and my guy has had 2 resets and the surgeons farrier was very happy with his first reset after 3 weeks. He worked with my farrier and explained everything to him. My farrier was out yesterday for his next reset and he is also happy with the new growth.

I have sent some pictures of this to his surgeon so she can see his progress. The incision site has healed well, but there is a fairly large lump there now. The surgeons farrier told me its a bit of a catch 22 as the shoe is putting pressure on the tendon and is allowing for a slow heal as the shoe is stretching the tendon out so it doesn’t go back to being short and creating the club foot again. I would love to laser it but the farrier said to hold off on it for now so we don’t speed the healing up too quickly. I did ask the surgeon when or if I can laser it in the future, so I’ll see what she says.

He did develop some pretty bad bandage burns almost 2 weeks after surgery, but they are healing well now. The hair is growing back white, but if I do show him on the line next year, a bit of black spray can cover those easily!!

I did take the recent pictures before he was trimmed (I should have taken them afterwards!), but you can see the new growth already. I also added a few pictures of his “stance”. He eats/grazes like this 100% of the time with the club foot back and has a huge stance - he is literally 4" shorter at the withers as he’s so crouched. I will be getting some physio done on him soon as others have suggested, as I know he’s super tight in that shoulder. I hoping it will become less exaggerated once he realizes the tendon has been released and is hopefully more comfortable for him to graze normally, as well as the massage/physio to help release that shoulder.

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2 months post surgery for my boys club foot and we couldn’t be happier. I can’t believe the difference already. He was unable to put his heel on the ground mid August, and now his foot is starting to look “normal”. He still wears a shoe on that foot and is trimmed/reset every 3 weeks, but amazing progress.

I do not regret the surgery one bit.

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this is fantastic!!

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Amazing! Thanks for sharing!

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What a wonderful update! His foot looks really, really good and almost normal :slightly_smiling_face:

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Wow! What an amazing change.

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I guess I see his foot every day so never really notice the change. The farrier was here and said how much he was really happy with the progress so I took some pictures. I then just did a comparison today and never really realized how much it has already changed!

The surgeon said it will never quite be normal, it will be a different shape/size than the other foot, but its starting to look more normal and less narrow. He needed a new shoe as his foot was getting too big for his old one, so that’s a good thing as the original shoe is just 8 weeks old. I know he’s just over a year old and his foot would be growing anyway, but 8 weeks seems fairly fast to me to outgrow a shoe. So I’m very pleased on the surgery so far. I thought I would show some pictures in case someone is on the fence like I was a few months ago.

I will keep updating as we go along :slight_smile:

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It looks great!! I’m happy you’re getting a good result so far!

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Truly, remarkable improvement! So happy for you and your beautiful boy.

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So happy for you both! That is incredible progress

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Wow that’s a huge improvement! Thank you for sharing!

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