Comments on feet please :)

Zingy

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Nov 18, 2001
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I have a couple of queries on feet. Firstly, Yog has developed a crack in one of his fronts. He does have a tendency to get small chips and cracks in the summer, but they aer always just at the base of his hoof wall. This one looks to me a bit weird as it runs most of the length of his hoof but doesn't actually reach the base or the coronet band.

Crack1.jpg


Crack2.jpg


Next one - Benj has the oddest shaped back feet. They don't cause him a problem, but I'd appreciate any comments on them. Excuse the muddy photo but you can see the shape of the foot in that one quite well! I've only taken photos of one of them, but they are pretty much a matching pair with the badly misshapen bit on the inside.

Benjback2.jpg


Benjback1.jpg


Benjback3.jpg


Benjback4.jpg
 
They're not very good photos to judge from, you really want pictures of clean feet on a flat hard surface taken directly from if front looking straight at the hoof, directly from the side looking directly at the hoof and of the sole from directly above as you're holding it.

I suspect from the pictures the front toe is too long and the foot is imbalanced hence the cracking but I really can't tell from the piccies. The hind looks flared on one side but again I can't tell. Can you get any better piccies?

This is a link to my latest album of my horse's feet showing the sort of photos which are easiest to interpret.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v126/gingeremmie/Feet/August 2007/
 
Thanks. I'll try and get some improved photos, but I'm a bit limited on surfaces (hard and flat doesn't exist) and trying to avoid mud :eek:

There's no change in angle of the hoof wall on the cracked hoof, so how can the toe be shortened without changing it? I thought you were supposed to maintain the angle of growth, or am I wrong?
 
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The toe does look long on the cracked foot, but hard to be sure of anything much from the pics since not at good angles. If the entire wall is at the wrong angle from the coronet band down then changing diet may help (often its a result of low grade laminitis), and adding a bit more of a roll to the toe can take pressure off it so the new growth can come down at a better angle.

Can't make out enough detail of the back feet to see anything much. If the growth is straight at the top and then flares out then a change of trim would let the flare grow out and would improve the shape out the other side of the foot which probably collapses inwards. If the odd shape on the inside is all the way from the coronet band down then its possible its the feet adapting to some kind of problem further up, either conformational problem or some kind of soreness that affects the way of moving.
 
The ones on the straw are fine if you get them at a better angle. It's hard to tell but I think you may have some tighter growth at the top and then some flaring further down, but you need a pic direct from the side really. I've tried to show what I mean but it might be the angle of the photo and not a real effect if you see what I mean :)

Crack1_edited.jpg
 
You're right, there is some flare. You can see it a bit better on these photos (though still probably not the best examples)

yog2.jpg


yog1.jpg


They are due a trim this week, so not really the best time to take photos.

Is it this that would have caused the crack do you think? How does the hoof wall manage to crack straight down the middle like that yet it doesn't reach the bottom? I'm used to hooves cracking from the base upwards.

Re Benj, I haven't got any better photos of him at the moment. His back feet are badly flared, just on the insides from about halfway down. They're vastly improved from what they used to be but he walks on a funny angle as well - he walks on the outside of his feet and twists his feet when he walks. Doesn't seem to cause him any problems and my farrier is loathe to try to alter it as he thinks it would generate a whole lot of problems. Never seen anything with feet like that before though!
 
Yogs feet are definitely flared, and I suspect that is what is causing the crack in the hoof wall, which is presumably just responding to stresses in that particular area. They also look too deep / tall to me too and may well be infilled with false sole. What are his frogs and heels like? It would be interesting to see a sole shot if you are able to take one.

Not really sure about the shots of Benj's feet, they're not really clear enough to tell anything for sure. Is he stood with his foot in a hole in the second front on shot or is that on level ground too? :)
 
Is he stood with his foot in a hole in the second front on shot or is that on level ground too? :)

I think he's going down a hole :eek: Even my rubber matting isn't flat :rolleyes:

False sole? Explanation needed please :D

My farrier has said before that he does leave his feet a bit long (and I think a bit longer than he does with the ponies) so he can walk without being footsore. He's not really the best candidate for being barefoot, but none of us can cope with the trauma of shoeing.

I have got sole shots that so far only prove that I can't hold a foot and a camera parallel to each other. And they don't work well with the flash when the horses won't come out of the field shelter, so I have some artistic shots of red feet.

I'll be armed with fresh camera batteries and the means to wash feet tomorrow morning so will get some better photos. Will be interesting to take some later in the week after trimming as well.
 
I know some farriers think its best to leave some extra lenght on horses that aren't shod but it often isn't. It takes some pressure off the sole and frog which can help with comfort if they're cr*p but doesn't help with improving the feet and will put more pressure on any flare. The type of flare on the back feet is often related to foot balance so maybe sorting out balance (sometimes out because farrier is trying to balance a foot as if it were on the end of a straight leg when it isn't) and then taking off the flare over a few trims would give a huge improvement in the back feet.
 
They're a bit clearer :)

It's uncanny how similar Yog's feet look to Tess's, must be in the breeding. They all look more than ready for a trim, would be interesting to see the 'after' pics as well. Yog and B. are badly flared, it might be that the farrier isn't taking enough, or that the trimming interval is too long or both. I'm sure the grazing will be playing its part too.

I do think it's the flare causing the crack on Yog's fore, Tess has similar cracks on a much smaller scale, but the cause will be the same as far as I can tell. I would think that so long as the cause is dealt with it won't cause any major issues once it hits the ground. The feet do look tall, and the view from underneath suggests there may be retained sole as the tip of the frog looks like it might be in a bit of a valley. As Yog is retired the farrier probably has a point regarding keeping him comfortable, but it's possible he could do more without compromising that, I don't know. Interesting to see that Yog's hinds are bullnosed, this suggests a possible negative pedal bone angle issue, maybe related to something higher up, again Tess's hinds went like this but have now resolved by themselves. Does he toe drag at all?

Benj has nice strong little pony feet but they do look a bit long in the toe on the fronts, again that's possibly a dietary thing. Something funny happening in the hinds though, again possibly related to higher up. Normal trimming practice would be to treat anything that wasn't following the angle of growth coming out at the coronet band as flare, but I don't know enough to say whether that would still be the case here. What I do know though in milder cases is that if you keep following the sole with the trim is that everything tends to level itself up automatically in time.

Good news is that it looks like Buchanan has nice strong feet, they just need a good tidy up :) Better pick up that rasp and start doing some maintenance ;) :D
 
Thanks Yann :)

First - Yog! The feet must be a TB thing :rolleyes: Good to know the crack is unlikely to cause major problems - I had visions of his foot falling to bits. His back feet have always been that shape, and combined with stretched suspensory ligaments, he makes for an interesting study in what things are not supposed to look like. He does actually look good for him in that photo :rolleyes:

He did drag his back feet a great deal when I got him, to the point where I couldn't walk him straight down even a gentle slope and would never trot him on a hard surface. His walk improved a lot from an acupuncture session, but still did it in trot. Never knew it could be related to his pedal bone - is that the same kind of rotation you'd get in a laminitis case?

Benj - his flare on his back feet is more like a bulge outwards that starts about halfway down his hooves. I think if you trimmed it out, there would be no hoof wall left. I've no photos of him that show his feet when I got him, but they are much better now than they were (though not improving any more). Conformation wise, his hind feet are very close together and his legs are at an angle, so putting more weight on the outside of his feet. It's difficult to get a photo that shows it properly.

If the history I've been told is correct, he was (at about 3), found as a neglect case. He was in an outside toilet with an earth floor. He had no space to turn round and his feet had grown into the floor so he had to be cut out. Not exactly the ideal to get good conformation in a growing pony! For a long time he couldn't balance if you picked up a back foot, so you had to stand him next to a wall and he'd lean on it. The interesting bit is that the hind feet are symmetrical, so whatever the damage to the underlying structures has been the same on both.

I was wielding a rasp yesterday :D On the plus side, noone's spotted the bit I've done, so it can't be that bad. On the downside, noone's spotted the bit I've done, so I can't have achieved a great deal :D
 
Much better piccies and they don't look half as bad from a decent angle as I thought they might. Can't really add any more to what Yann has said. I would be interested to see pics after a trim too. Just to echo the crack shouldn't be a problem if you can address it quickly, if it gets worse and deeper then it will be a problem but what you have there is minor at the moment.

Are they both sound now? Good over different surfaces?
 
Never knew it could be related to his pedal bone - is that the same kind of rotation you'd get in a laminitis case?

It's a bit of a surmise based on comments on posted pics from knowledgable people, but it's actually the opposite to what happens in a lami case. You get tremendous concavity at the front of the foot which isn't matched at the back, and possibly the toe dragging too. Back feet certainly appear to be affected quite quickly if something is going on higher up.

Poor poor Benj, didn't realise he'd been through something like that :( Just as a possibly unrelated aside you wouldn't take all the flare in one go and leave the horse with nothing to stand on, you'd compromise each time but hopefully end up with a hoof capsule heading in the right direction after a while :)
 
For what my opinion is worth I think he's making a good job of them judging from these pictures. There is still flare on some of the feet but he's limited in how much he can remove and still leave something for the horse to walk on. A shorter trimming interval or some owner maintenance in between would help there.

There do seem to be an awful lot of growth rings on B.'s feet, I would be concerned there was something metabolic going on there.
 
Thanks Yann :) B's growth rings were his second (and last) comment on his vetting. Vet checked them then and farrier has checked them since and said that as they're parallel, they're nothing to worry about and are just dietary changes. They are very obvious on him and much less so on the others though. His feet seem to grow quicker than theirs, so I don't know if that makes a difference. He's had a couple of diet changes this year - one being spring grass and the second being a change of fields which I guess are the 2 very obvious ones. He never shows any signs of being footy or lame or having raised pulses.
 
That does look like a good trim. How often are they trimmed? Maybe trimming more often or you rolling around the edge between farrier visits would help.
 
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