On de Feets
Feb. 8th, 2006 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancinghorsePulling this out of Comments as a couple of people happened to mention the Barefoot Thang. This is a hotly debated topic in horsedom and can reach burn-the-embassy status in some quarters.
At any rate, Pooka has gone through a House-like sequence of experimentation since he was 3 and his front feet started showing strange growth patterns, which started as a complete collapse of the heels and a strange wavy growth of the quarters. We couldn't figure out why, because his back feet have always been perfect and his genetics universally favor Perfect Feet(tm). We thought at first it must be either hormones or the weight of the stallion front end. Then we wondered about some sort of subtle structural thing. Then perhaps nutrition. He went on a hoof supplement. He had shoes to try to sort out the weird growth thang, then when we pulled them, he was so massively unhappy we reshod him within a couple of weeks.
Finally last summer it all hit critical, he had quarter cracks everywhere, and the vet came in and said he needed partial resection of each front foot--i.e. removal of the hoof wall and reshaping with acrylic inserts. For that he had to be shod as the acrylic won't stay on a bare foot. Shoeing was to be Natural Balance style, i.e. boxy feet.
So this went on, and we struggled and we paid much money and we had the vet out often. And at last he said, "This isn't structural--this is trauma!" And sure enough, a few days later, I caught him doing his patented reach up from behind and slam the coronet band move, hard enough to draw blood.
With this confirmation, and this injury being bad enough to cause bruising all along the coronet which meant it had gone into the laminae and we might have a real problem, Curt the Wonder Shoer said Enough, call the vet again, I'm pulling the shoes and we'll see what happens after I do. Adding that we might need Yet Another resection and this time we should do it at the vet clinic.
I had a meltdown at that point. And I put bell boots on his nibs and waited for the vet.
And while I waited, his feet started to sort themselves out. And the vet said this is good, let him stay this way. And that's where we are now.
The resections did work. The new growth from the coronet band is straight for the first time in five years, and the cracks are not reappearing except in that one spot where he whacked himself hard (and that crack, which Curt dremeled out, is healing well). I don't think he could have shed his shoes without the resections--the damage was too far gone and he was too far down on his soles as a partial consequence. I still don't know if he can handle being ridden without shoes; he's about 3 months away from that experiment. I hope he can. If not, there are Horsesneakers. But if he grows out the same feet his siblings have, that won't have to be an option. (If he does end up with them, he's getting a Lipizzan logo, by yiminy.)
I do believe in shoes for horses who need them. Keed with his clubfoot and sinker and Capria with her bad hock need the support, and she has flat feet as well. They stay shod by vet and shoer prescription. The rest have never seen a horseshoe nail and I hope never will.
And that's the scoop on the local equine foot situation. We didn't pull his shoes sooner because [a] the patches would come off (as they did after we did pull the shoes) and he was missing half of each foot for several months, all the way down to the sensitive laminae, and [b] prior attempts had resulted in a lame horse. Once his quarters had been removed and new growth had come in clean, he had something to work with. He's still not standing on anything that looks like a real hoof, but the toes are solid and the heels are coming up (versus earlier attempts in which the heels got worse), and the quarters are growing out well.
So we carry on.
At any rate, Pooka has gone through a House-like sequence of experimentation since he was 3 and his front feet started showing strange growth patterns, which started as a complete collapse of the heels and a strange wavy growth of the quarters. We couldn't figure out why, because his back feet have always been perfect and his genetics universally favor Perfect Feet(tm). We thought at first it must be either hormones or the weight of the stallion front end. Then we wondered about some sort of subtle structural thing. Then perhaps nutrition. He went on a hoof supplement. He had shoes to try to sort out the weird growth thang, then when we pulled them, he was so massively unhappy we reshod him within a couple of weeks.
Finally last summer it all hit critical, he had quarter cracks everywhere, and the vet came in and said he needed partial resection of each front foot--i.e. removal of the hoof wall and reshaping with acrylic inserts. For that he had to be shod as the acrylic won't stay on a bare foot. Shoeing was to be Natural Balance style, i.e. boxy feet.
So this went on, and we struggled and we paid much money and we had the vet out often. And at last he said, "This isn't structural--this is trauma!" And sure enough, a few days later, I caught him doing his patented reach up from behind and slam the coronet band move, hard enough to draw blood.
With this confirmation, and this injury being bad enough to cause bruising all along the coronet which meant it had gone into the laminae and we might have a real problem, Curt the Wonder Shoer said Enough, call the vet again, I'm pulling the shoes and we'll see what happens after I do. Adding that we might need Yet Another resection and this time we should do it at the vet clinic.
I had a meltdown at that point. And I put bell boots on his nibs and waited for the vet.
And while I waited, his feet started to sort themselves out. And the vet said this is good, let him stay this way. And that's where we are now.
The resections did work. The new growth from the coronet band is straight for the first time in five years, and the cracks are not reappearing except in that one spot where he whacked himself hard (and that crack, which Curt dremeled out, is healing well). I don't think he could have shed his shoes without the resections--the damage was too far gone and he was too far down on his soles as a partial consequence. I still don't know if he can handle being ridden without shoes; he's about 3 months away from that experiment. I hope he can. If not, there are Horsesneakers. But if he grows out the same feet his siblings have, that won't have to be an option. (If he does end up with them, he's getting a Lipizzan logo, by yiminy.)
I do believe in shoes for horses who need them. Keed with his clubfoot and sinker and Capria with her bad hock need the support, and she has flat feet as well. They stay shod by vet and shoer prescription. The rest have never seen a horseshoe nail and I hope never will.
And that's the scoop on the local equine foot situation. We didn't pull his shoes sooner because [a] the patches would come off (as they did after we did pull the shoes) and he was missing half of each foot for several months, all the way down to the sensitive laminae, and [b] prior attempts had resulted in a lame horse. Once his quarters had been removed and new growth had come in clean, he had something to work with. He's still not standing on anything that looks like a real hoof, but the toes are solid and the heels are coming up (versus earlier attempts in which the heels got worse), and the quarters are growing out well.
So we carry on.
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-09 10:04 am (UTC)At any rate, things seem to be going right for a while. Hope to the stars it continues.
By the by, did I ever show you the photograph of horse snowshoes?