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Quick X Ray? Now founder/laminitis/hoof care talk

I’d love to see his back feet as well.

My gut says this is not the right farrier but I can’t say for sure without seeing the feet.

The anti shoe kool aid. I had one of those trimmers once. I’m familiar with Pete.

I’ll check out the hoof mapping!

Haha it’s his back legs not the feet so much. Horse, bless him, has assorted issues.

We may get a new farrier regardless. If the toe is visibly too long from outside then that could have been addressed before.

Gotcha. Were his feet just absolutely awful before this farrier?

I’d assume with 9/10 month of work, you’d have a better outcome. I do think the farrier work is contributing to his lameness just based on the limited pictures I’ve seen. I think pads would do wonders for him and I suspect a wedged pad could be beneficial.

There are some horses that grow a lot of toe and no heel. They can get out of hand in just one cycle. It becomes a big issue for those that are laminitis prone and with thin soles. That may be happening in this situation.

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I wouldn’t say awful. But no he’s never had “good feet”.

I didn’t say it’s “current rotation”–I said “to me it [the rotation] doesn’t look new”. But the presence of the laminar wedge means at some point, P3 started to rotate. And it’s still separated there, which is why the hoof wall at the toe looks squared off from the frontal plane, like the horn is pointing more upward (as P3 is pointing more downward). So, he’s been trimmed potentially several times since the first incident. But not enough maybe to try to correct that laminar separation.

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One theory that’s getting tossed around is that when he was so lame behind a few months back it caused him to overload front feet, possibly a crisis on his already delicate front feet. :woman_shrugging:t2:

I’m not sure how to interpret these x rays or how the vet is interpreting them, but I’m thinking we are starting here. We’ll make changes. We’ll get more x rays. We’ll be able to compare x rays to see if we are on right track.

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Yup. If he is compensating in the front then that can affect how they regrow as well. I thought that as well.

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This is the right (most affected hoof) as it was the very first time I met the horse in spring 2021.

Maybe I’m just seeing what I’m looking for, but it almost looks like the bottom front of his toes is starting to bulge even here. Maybe it’s the background not being enough contrast or whatever

Yes, that foot has been long toed and long-heeled for a good while, so was in trouble back then.

It’s hard to compare it to the first pic of this foot due to the angle, grass in the way, etc, so I couldn’t speculate whether it’s the same, or better, or worse.

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Ya. I haven’t got very many good pics. I’ve been going through what I do have, zooming in on feet, and none of its good :roll_eyes:

This is about two trims in with the previous barefoot trimmer guy. So about two months after the above photo. I think he was probably doing the most for the horses feet, but the guy is impossible to work with.

Here’s another sketchy pic from April of this year. This was taken late in cycle. So three weeks after last shoeing. This is the left foot, but you can see dishing fairly easily and also toe crack (have been a problem, from the bulging toe / laminar wedge / over long toe I’m guessing). This was exactly ten days before he pulled up dead lame in the back end.

Today after removing shoes.

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This is progress in the right direction! A lot of toe leverage/lamellar wedge has been removed.

Who trimmed?

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Same farrier. He said he might could take more but wasn’t comfortable doing so w out vet here to re x ray.

Farrier is going out of country tomorrow so I was grateful he squeezed me in before leaving.

Vet coming next Tuesday to re check and shoot the lateral views again. We’ll put the marker at sole frog junction so farrier can see better how far we can go. I’m going to ask if she wants the bulging bit rasped more higher on outer wall. Seems some folks think that’s the way to go and others don’t. Probably gonna take rads of my other horse’s front feet too just because

Have easy soft ride boots (I thought it was gonna be clouds but ok). Gonna go try and put them in him shortly

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The pictures from removing the shoes today are far better than any of the other pictures. The toe is much better and the heels are heading in the right direction. The coffin bone appears to be in a better position over the hoof. I think this horse needs minimal toe and adequate heel (without being under run) to encourage more sole. I think the farriers have been lowering the heel too much and allowing them to be under run. I would have the person trim every 2 weeks if possible to prevent the toe from becoming too long and creating unwanted leverage on the internal structures of the hoof. You can see the flare in the hoof wall from the toe being too long. Then I think you will see improvement with lameness.

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I wonder why this farrier couldn’t do this sooner? He might still have been a little conservative without xrays but he had a lot of obvious room to bring things back.

I would be careful rasping too much from the top. What’s most important is moving the breakover back, which was worked on here. How much more there is to go, it’s too hard to tell from this pic, but it looks pretty close

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I have no clue of the mechanics of why, but this horse’s heels will crush and run forward when he’s flat shod; previously before the glue on shoes he got a week ago he was in the heel lift shoes for 2 cycles 8 weeks.

We can do two week trims easy enough