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[TD=“colspan: 1”]Is it true that a farrier can rasp inside of weanling hooves to help the hooves align and grow straight? My weanling is 5 months old and both front and back are toed out. Hocks seem too close. Is this common in babies, should corrective rasping of inside be tried to help legs to grow straight?
Need advice??
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Leave his hooves alone! This toe out is quite normal, actually much better on a baby than straight legs with toes pointing forward!!
Front horse legs are only attached with muscle and set tissue. A toe-out baby will probably be straight legged, toes forward, as a more mature animal because the rest of his body wi ll change his leg attachment. Expanding ribcage pushes elbows out, rotating the entire leg column as horse gets older, bigger. The straight leg look you want now, would make baby toe in, be pigeon-toed as he gets older, elbows get pushed out.
On the hind legs, horse should toe -out again. It allows his hind legs to go out around his barrel at a gallop. Toes pointing straight ahead on hinds mean he is not going to be as good a mover with age, may cause interference problems too. I sure would not buy a weanling with hind feet that toe straight forward. Problem waiting to happen as he ages.
You should look up some photos in general horse knowledge books showing straight legged adult horses and the faults found on less ideal legs. Book may may tell you how to use a string and weight to determine straight legged on an adult horse, aligning the leg bones, knee and hoof on fronts. Hinds have string dropping thru hock, cannon, with hoof toe outside that line, showing a proper straight hind leg. Hocks and fetlocks should be equal distance apart. Leg is not artistic pretty by looking straight with toe pointing forward, but it is a correct hind leg.
Asking Farrier to do corrective trimming to make toes point forward will load weight and cause bone wear unevenly, causing problems as weanling grows, body changes. Get the string and weight out again, hold string at the top of forearm, see that string drops down the center of forearm, knee, cannon, pasterns and hoof. That turned out toe is on a STRAIGHT leg, he just has to grow and let leg rotate over time to “now look” straight legged like an older horse looks. You have to look at the entire leg column to determine if baby actually has a leg problem, not just the toes. I would fire a Farrier who “helps me” by corrective trimming my baby horse!! Totally showing his ignorance, by “fixing” the baby horse legs. They are not fixed, won’t stay fixed, just moves problems to a new location further up the leg.
Smart Farrier deals with what God gave the horse, does not think they can improve the original animal.
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A picture is required to properly know what to do.
A foal that age SHOULD be toed-out in front, with the entire leg rotated out from the shoulder. As their chest widens, their legs will rotate in and straighten.
Hind legs SHOULD toe-out slightly on all horses, to allow the stifle to clear the barrel when the leg moves forward. And young fast-growing horses can easily go through spurts where their hocks are closer together than ideal. As long as the cannon bones are staying vertical (more or less), it’s all good. Hocks pointing inward more than idea is NOT the same as being cow-hocked. If the hocks are closer together than the fetlocks, that’s cow-hocked. But simply having legs that point out to some degree may be very normal for that horse at that point of growth.
If your farrier tries to tell you otherwise, stop him contact your vet, and get a consult with a university who knows foals and legs.
