Update p122: good news/bad news. Is this founder? Xrays included

[alteredcarbon]

Okay, good to know! I was worried her feet were just sloughing off.

She eats (total per day): 3lb TC Senior Gold, 6lb Kalm and Easy, and gets vitamin E, Cu, Zn, biotin, a gut supplement, salt and/or electrolytes, local fescue/orchard hay, and sometimes some local alfalfa. The pasture is dry and dead.

It’s a lot of grain, but she just wasn’t putting on weight until I added more. She was eating 6lb kalm and easy, plus hay pellets and a fat supplement and she was still a bit thin. Then I had her on Ultium (4 pounds a day), but switched to the TC Gold when her feet got sore. She looks good now.

I do have some sole pics upthread, I think. But she’s in Cavallos with comfort pads or some insulation foam I have, depending on fronts or backs.

[alteredcarbon]

Update again, good news and bad news.

Good news:
I got her first round of IRAP done, as well as put shoes and pads on. Vet told me to put her to work - be reasonable but not too conservative.

I started their plan of 10 min walk, 1 min trot, 10 min walk, and adding a minute of trot every day until doing 10 minutes. It goes on from there but that’s the start. First two days riding she felt great! A lot of her fussiness in the bridle is gone.

Bad news:
She immediately pulled both front shoes. We have had a ton of rain and the horses went a little wild in turnout. She lasted barely a week.

I have her back in boots up front while I try to find a way to get the shoes fixed (her hinds have slipped a bit too but are still attached at the moment). I rode her only in the boot setup. Day 3, she’s lame. She feels just as bad and “disconnected/wonky” as she did right before I called the vet. However, the bridle issues are mostly gone, so I think maybe the stifle feels better but the feet are an issue?

Ugh. Has anyone had a horse in substantial boots like Cavallos + pads and had the horse come sound only in shoes?

[lenapesadie]

@alteredcarbon

Ugh. Has anyone had a horse in substantial boots like Cavallos + pads and had the horse come sound only in shoes?

My dearly departed Norman went better in shoes than boots (in general). I dunno if the shoes kept pressure off his soles better or if shoes gave him a better break over or both or something else all together

[sascha]

@alteredcarbon

Ugh. Has anyone had a horse in substantial boots like Cavallos + pads and had the horse come sound only in shoes?

Yes. My foundered horse was in boots and shoes and insulation for months. Then we transitioned back to shoes. A few years later back to shoeless.

I will say that my vet and farrier had me put her on a much slower route back to work. No trot until we were up to 45 minutes of walk adding a minute a day or it may have been every other day. It felt like forever. It was pretty much a summer of walking under saddle. I then reintroduced half steps before we went to a big trot to make sure her butt was engaged and she wouldn’t tank off on her forehand and pound those front feet to shit.

[alteredcarbon]

I’d wondered about that. However, a lot of routines I found online also go to trot pretty much right away… My vet wants her to build up to trotting for 30 minutes (in intervals) before we go canter.

The conflict is the stifle needs fitness and more than the walk can give. But her feet could certainly be an issue. She runs around in turnout now (she didn’t do much more than a few trot steps before we did IRAP and shoes), but going downhill is hard. It was hard for her to go downhill when she got here, it got better, and now it’s back to slightly better than when she first arrived.

So much info out there says that boots should offer the same support as shoes with some additional benefits, but I feel as if my horse needs more than that. I’ve never had a horse that needed shoes for anything other than protection from the showgrounds (no boots in hunters), so having a horse that isn’t comfortable ridden in boots is new to me. To be clear, she’s sound in the boots in turnout and feels great at the walk, it’s the trot that regressed MASSIVELY after two rides.

[TWH_Girl]

How soon after IRAP did you start to work her? Also, if this is the first injection of IRAP, it normally takes 3 injections about a week apart. Given her diagnosis, I would be inclined to rest her until the entire IRAP series is completed and she’s had a chance to heal a bit. It may have been too much too soon.
Can you confine her in a smaller area? I would try to keep shoes and pads on if it’s dry enough. That’s likely to be more beneficial than boots so long as she can keep them on.

[sascha]

@alteredcarbon

The conflict is the stifle needs fitness and more than the walk can give. But her feet could certainly be an issue.

@alteredcarbon

. To be clear, she’s sound in the boots in turnout and feels great at the walk, it’s the trot that regressed MASSIVELY after two rides.

Look up in-hand work for starting piaffe. You can put a metric ton of stifle support on a horse without trotting.

I have also done the intense stifle fitness work (after internal blistering) and wish I had been smart enough to figure out in-hand and under saddle half steps right off the bat. I could have shortened my 2-rides a day stint by weeks. Imo, there are better ways than pounding out the miles (especially on a horse who probably has sore feet) to build stifle support.

[alteredcarbon]

Vet said to start work after the first round. I have two more rounds lined up, though they’re more than a week apart due to scheduling issues. I only did 3 days of work and the first two felt pretty good, but she’s getting a break until I can figure out the shoe situation anyway. Just walking, if anything.

To be clear, this is a well respected sporthorse/lameness vet that is doing the IRAP and giving me the rehab. I have estrone as well but haven’t used it yet.

She’s not a candidate for smaller turnout. We did that after the initial findings and she did not tolerate it well. They’re usually quiet out there but something got into them this week and sent them running and she threw/slid out of her shoes. Of course it’s muddy as all get out. The boots and pads have stayed on well, but not the shoes

[alteredcarbon]

We do tail pulls, backing, and gentle hill work as well. Can’t really avoid it here. Vet wanted trot, built up slowly. Build to 10 min, then adding some poles and basic lateral work, but mostly straight lines. I’m not sure how 30 minute rides would be pounding out the miles.

Again she did the first two days quite well, and day three was a massive regression. Clearly something is up, as the walk feels great and a lot of the stifle symptoms have faded. Seeing as the shoes on her backs have slid and the fronts are gone, I’m guessing it is her feet.

Farrier says the horse doesn’t have a lot of foot or wall thickness so the shoe + pad took up most of the nail but they couldn’t use a bigger nail. The clinches were very small. To me it seems like there wasn’t a lot holding the shoes on. Are there all-in-one shoes that would give frog support like a pad but be less bulky than shoe + pad? I’ve had this issue before on another horse that could hold regular shoes but nothing fancy. Regular open heeled shoes aren’t really an option for this one though.

[trubandloki]

Could the boots be putting pressure on places she is not appreciating the pressure, where the shoes, even with pads, were not putting pressure there?

Or could the boots be irritating something else, say her heel bulbs from them rubbing?

[fivestrideline]

@trubandloki

Could the boots be putting pressure on places she is not appreciating the pressure, where the shoes, even with pads, were not putting pressure there?

IME some boots have a flat bottom, so a lot of sole pressure. Pads can help but I would assume that even a shoe + frog support pad gives more relief to the sole? Especially if instead of pour-in the farrier uses something soft like magic cushion or DIM.

[dacasodivine]

Regarding the pads in boots, you can cut out the area under the pedal bone in the pad so there isn’t pressure right on it but the rest of the sole and internal structures are supported.

[alteredcarbon]

I hadn’t thought of that exactly. They could also be rubbing a bit - the heels aren’t raw, but definitely get pink.

[alteredcarbon]

Where would that be? Basically leaving the wall and frog area but cutting out the sole area? I could try that. I think the easycare pads I have are too flimsy though, I’d have to glue them down in the boots which won’t work. Maybe if I tried a different pad?

[IPEsq]

If she can tolerate a pour in pad, then there’s only a thin mesh between shoe and foot, not a full thickness pad. The pour in material is applied after the shoe is on. You can do a more shallow pour (not all the way to the ground) for one more sensitive to sole pressure and for more traction in the mud (full pours on mud and snow can sometimes be a little like skates). It’s hard to do a shallow pour if there isn’t much concavity, because the material will be so thin that it might wear out or fall out before the cycle is over. But you could maybe touch up or reapply yourself.

Is she out 24/7? It can be hard to keep shoes on in wet conditions even with good hoof to nail to. Would be good if her feet get a chance to dry out some. And you could try some hoof wax or something in and around the nail holes to keep water out.

[alteredcarbon]

I can ask about pour in. She has almost no concavity though. She’s out 24/7 but does come in to eat. Sometimes it’s 30 minutes, sometimes 3 hours. Leaving her in creates personality issues and she cribs like crazy if I do that, but I could try to wean her on to stall time. She just really hates it and the vet said to give her as much turnout as possible for the stifle.

Of course what’s best for one thing is bad for another.

I’ll look for hoof wax, I’ve not heard of that!

[IPEsq]

I’ve used this on my shelly walled horse at my farrier’s suggestion.

https://www.ridingwarehouse.com/Pure_Sole_Hoof_Wax_Putty_w_Beeswax/descpage-PSHWB.html

[dacasodivine]

I have cut out a half moon area between the frog and toe. This is where the pedal bone sits. If there is rotation, that would be where it is pressing down. I haven’t read up to see if there is rotation or not. But this is something suggested in the ECIR group to make the pads a bit more comfortable.

I use soft ride boots and pads and also have Cloud pads that I put in the soft ride boots.

[TWH_Girl]

Are glue on shoes an option for her?

[alteredcarbon]

I’d have to DIY them I think. I am catching up on the thread about that though!