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June 2005 - Butter
is a 10 year old TB broodmare
whose extremely long front left
hoof wall was 1 3/4 inches longer
than the front right hoof.
The reason I put this case study up is that it captures how a bar rapidly over-grew to provide support when the mare lost her medial heel and wall to the quarters. She lost this wall/heel after catching a ragged flared wall in a piece of wire and pulling to free herself. The injury occurred approx. two
weeks before I saw her. They
had wrapped the foot for a week, and... the wrap came off in the "pasture".
Note from Jan 2009 - This is another "Blast from the Past" - one of my very early clients, a breeder with poor environmental management... her place was not an easy place to keep horses on, and she had over 30 horses most of the time. I trimmed 4 to 15 horses a week here for about a year. Some horses got regular trimming, but most of the feet were only trimmed every 2 to 4 months.
Look at the THRUSH in these feet!!! I advised the owner to treat it, but at the time I had NO IDEA what a horrible problem is was for these horses.
This place was the perfect thrush nursery... horses lived in mud over their fetlocks, there was no manure management and all of the horses had horrible frogs. I got so used to seeing the diseased frogs, high bars and heels that I stopped trying to thoroughly clean the feet. It was here that I learned that bars protect thrushy feet from painful frog pressure. |
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Before |
After |
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Below, note the missing lateral heel and wall, and underneath, the bars had grown up to provide stability. It amazes me that this horse survived having this type of injury in an environment where her feet were continuously submerged in a muddy filthy swamp, but her wall grew out normally. |
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I
was astounded at how balanced
the foot appeared to be, and
when I lifted it, I saw that
the bar on that side of the
hoof had thickened at the heel
to provide a base of support
for the buttress, and had filled in the bar-heel triangle
and its calloused surface replaced
the missing wall as a base of
support for that part of her
hoof.
I
decided to leave that hoof alone
and focused on the very long
front feet, which were amazingly
easy to begin to get balanced.
Her heels were still much too
high, but lowering them would
mean invading the sole at the
bar heel triangle, and I wanted
her to weight that area to help
wear the heels. The heels will
come down nicely in successive
trims.
Butter,
who had hobbled into the barn
for this initial trim, trotted
off nickering when released. |
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When
we trimmers look at nightmare
feet like these, we groan, sure
that we are in over our heads.
Results like these keep me going...
a sound horse is all the incentive
I need to keep working with
lame horses who initially resist
my efforts to help them. |
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