It's About The Horse

Chablis · Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 11:12 pm Post subject:

Wow. Look at that new growth.

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Horseshoe Creek · Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2011 1:11 am Post subject:

Loving the looks of the new growth! What hoof supplement are you feeding?

Clarissa · Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 1:36 am Post subject:

Clarissa · Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2012 12:45 pm Post subject:

I took some photos the other day prior to doing a light trim mostly to do the groove behind the toe wall again. I only did the trim this morning while his feet were still soft from overnight dew & light showers. They were too hard to do after I took these photos the other day. I haven't taken more 'post trim' shots yet. Hopefully tomorrow.

Here are some of those photos with comparison shots beside them from almost 2mths ago. The thing I notice most is that the frogs are moving back making the heel butresses shorter. More in keeping with how they should normally appear. Also the walls are now touching the ground at a good angle so that they actually will be able to bear weight rather than run along the ground.

I still have to give him a bute each day for 3 days after a trim. All that bone & tissue movement causes a fair amount of heat for those first few days. but other than that I seem to have broken the laminitic cycle because mostly his feet are much cooler than they have been for over a year.

I'll know for sure I've broken the laminitic cycle when the walls grow out with no seperation or rot in them.

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Clarissa · Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 1:44 pm Post subject:

Sonny has relapsed back into the laminitic cycle & is back on bute daily. It got so bad a few days ago after his last trim that he was unable to walk even on the soft lawn. I think I have caught it in time so there shouldn’t be any abscesses.

However in last few days I have been taking a good look at his feet with thoughts of insulin resistant laminitis. He has got very cresty & fat. I am wondering if he is getting a bit insulin resistant from the grass being too sweet from being stressed. The season is way out of kilter. Firstly it was way too wet & almost totally overcast all day in November & December with the rain running off instead of soaking in. Now it’s bone dry, very sunny & hot & the grass is drying fast & looking very stressed out. I am assuming it is therefore getting high in sugars, oxalic acid etc. He may just be fat because there is so much grass that is high in sugar & not any other reason. All the horses are scratching a bit too on their faces mostly.

Anyway I rang the vet to ask about an insulin test. He told me it would cost over $200 & would have to be a full blood work up. There is no separate insulin test like for humans apparently, well not in Australia anyway. I went on to tell him how Sonny’s feet were progressing & that I had succeeded in pulling the toes back about an inch & the heel bulbs & buttresses were starting to like right again. I told him I thought they were nearly ready to get a farrier.

I then told him I was worried about insulin resistant laminitis because there is deep separation of Sonny’s front walls around the toe that is not responding to the hoof supplement or the trim method of removing the pressure off the toe. That is one indication of insulin resistant laminitis. There isn’t any sort of rot etc just this deep separation that is quite dry.

The vet’s advice was that I’d be better just spending my money on a farrier who will apply an early breakover shoe & keeping Sonny on the bute for another full growth cycle to see if the shoes fix the problem. He also said by then the wet season will be almost over & the grass would have completely changed in dietary quality & I’d have a better idea if he was getting insulin resistant. He thought Sonny was just over fat from no exercise, his age now of 13 & too much good grass.

I have gone back to getting all the horses in & feeding them a belly full of moistened grass straw which is actually 2yo shedded Rhodes grass hay that will have almost no nutrition in it anymore but still tastes ok when wet & so soft to eat. At least that is one belly full of sweet grass they are NOT getting each day. Lol

So the search is on again for a suitable farrier. There is a guy about an hour south of me who uses one sort of early breakover shoe. It is an aluminum plate designed for performance horses made in Holland & selling here for $55 a pair! Which makes shoeing a very expensive process.

So I am hunting for alternatives.

Here’s a photo of fat Sonny taken today once the worst of the heat had gone out of the day & I could go outside. It was 100 degrees today again.

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Clarissa · Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 11:30 am Post subject:

Here are a heap of photos taken today before trim & after. I think this might be the last time I have to cut the groove behind the toe of the Left Front hoof. Hopefully it won’t be too long before the other hoof has caught up. He is still sore after I cut the groove & still on bute daily, but I can see an end to that too the way things are going now.

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Clarissa · Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 11:33 am Post subject:

I think I have discovered what causes the ‘toe callous’ that has been developing inside the wall circumference on the sole of Sonny’s feet. It’s that ridge of sole immediately behind the wall.

Now that it is NOT there I can see what was causing it. Now that the walls are steep enough to act as a bearing surface for the hoof rather than all the weight being borne by the sole alone, the sole isn’t overgrowing the bottom of the walls or pushing on the inner side of the walls.

It seemed that when the toe was too long to act as a bearing surface the sole could push from behind & overgrow the bottom of the walls. However as it grew past the bottom of the walls it made a little ripple. Or perhaps that ripple was caused by movement of the sole wall connection.

In anycase since I have been able to cause the toe angle to get steeper, the sole now is beginning to grow normally staying within the bounds of the walls. Well mostly it is. There is still one short part right at the toe of each hoof where the sole still overgrows the walls & that is the only place where there is still some ‘toe callous’ or ‘ripple’.

I'm going to start a new thread about this because I think it is worth more discussion by people who might not look in this thread.

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Clarissa · Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 5:05 am Post subject:

Poor Sonny is feeling hard done by. Until the houseyard got too wet a few days ago, I had all horses in here so I could keep Sonny's magnetic boots on him & under observation. I could administer bute & cuddles as necessary. I could also put them in the play pen & feed them a belly full of straw hay to lessen the amount of lush green grass they were eating. But with this extra rain I've had to lock them down the bottom of the back paddock so they don't churn the yard, play pen & near back paddock into slush.

So Sonny spends most of his day standing on the grass overflow of the dam which effectively drenches his hot feet in cooling water. Which is a good thing but he doesn't see it that way!

He's just had another abscess break open on one heel bulb yesterday. Everytime I walk around to the back verandah to observe them down there I get a plaintive whinny from him. He's such a sook when he's unwell.

It appears he's fully laminitic due to insulin problems from the overly sweet lush grass. Hopefully he'll be shod in a week or so & after assessing that & his pain levels for a few weeks I may have the opportunity to send him west to a vet farm if I can afford it (& flooding permitting too). The vet lady who owns the farm will have to personally assess him during her extended travelling rounds in March. This time last year I couldn't have even entertained such a thought irrespective of how bad Sonny was.

With this developing heavy wet season, I again have the same problem as last year regarding dry & non grassed areas for the horses to keep them off the wet sweet lush grass. They have already churned up the playpen where they usually get their hay. And with a new abscess hole in his heel bulb I don't want Sonny standing in such slush. Damned if I do & damned if I don't

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Kim Cassidy · Member Joined: 21 Dec 2009 Posts: 207 Location: Tucson

Clarissa:

I don't mean this in a mean way, but have you thought about letting Sonny go? Not comfortable on soft grassy ground? Not good.

I'm speaking from experience. Letting Finn go was not easy but I don't regret it and am glad that I've allowed him the peace he deserved. Love isn't easy and sometimes it means saying goodbye.

Clarissa · Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2012 2:41 am Post subject:

I understand you Kim. However I don’t think Sonny is anywhere near that point yet. Yes he gets bad from time to time & the rain makes things worse. Weather & grass have been my main problems now for 18mths I guess. Learning that his problems are related to the sweet rich grass has been a relief really. I was fiddling around the edges of that theory all last year regarding my management practices but nobody really thought that was the main issue.

However once this really deep separation began appearing in his feet I was quite sure it was insulin related. That means I have a focus for treatment. However the vet still thinks shoes will pull him through because Sonny isn’t near as bad as many of the horses that particular vet has seen this last wet season.

Also late last year another vet who usually just does travelling rounds in SEQld saw the need for a specialized vet farm for laminitic horses in this area due solely to the last 2 horrendous wet seasons. So she has designed a section of her farm to cater specially for these horses but she insists on inspecting & assessing each horse herself during her rounds. We are on the list for March. Her methods don’t include shoes unless it’s a last option & she has a specialist barefoot trimmer on staff. I just hope the cost is doable for me. (last year I couldn’t even have thought of sending him away due to being totally financially depressed)

I have done most of the hard work getting rid of the lamella wedge, shortening the toes & growing out a fair bit of the separation. However with most of the wet season yet to happen & no reasonable chance of moving from this property in the near future, I have to move Sonny off it to get full healing. Hopefully he will make the grade to go west in March for 6mths living on progressively rougher paddocks once his hoof quality & pain levels permit.

These’s no doubt about it, I am going to have to move from this property eventually to stop a reoccurrence. It breaks my heart after all I’ve invested in it & all I lost trying to get this place. However, for the benefit of my horses it’s best to move to less lush pastures! The first 2yrs here we were in drought, then we had a reasonable season but with some really dry months, now these last 2yrs of almost total wet. So it’s no wonder it took this long for problems to develop. This place is fine for all the drier years but not good for the few wetter years.

Regarding what I said in my earlier post about Sonny feeling despondent & standing on the dam overflow all day. I let them up into the near back paddock right behind the house 2 days ago & amazingly his stopped limping! Still only getting 1 bute daily but being closer to me seems to lift him somewhat.

This shows me that once he does get better I will need to be carefull that he doesn't keep limping just to continue recieving special treatment from me! I think he already does that anyway!

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Chablis · Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 12:17 am Post subject:

Clarissa · Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 1:13 am Post subject:

I’m feeling so low & disillusioned today.

Sonny’s R Front hoof has almost total separation right around the front & sides & as far in as is possible to see. He is unable to put it on the ground. I have doubled his bute but I think it is not the correct pain medication for this problem. That hoof is so bad I doubt it will hold a nailed on shoe so it will have to have a glue-on. I can’t pick the other front up but luckily it isn’t as bad. The farrier who was to do him this weekend is now uncontactable….some sort of family problems.

Friday while in town I collected the business cards from 7 more farriers who were advertising on local tack & feed barn notice boards.

Yesterday I rang each & didn’t manage to speak to any but was able to leave some messages. Some have rung back but none are available. Hip replacement, too busy, don’t do corrective work, on holidays, divorce, are the list of excuses so far from the total of 15 farriers I have now contacted recently. Of the 10 or so I contacted before xmas none got back to me. I have to wait till Monday to ring the expensive vets & ask who they use.

I did manage to get onto a lady who actually doesn’t do shoeing but does advanced natural corrective trimming of some description. She was to ring me back last night once the screaming brats were away from the phone so we could actually have a conversation but my internet has been out for 24hrs now so no phone. Maybe she will ring today but in anycase she doesn’t do shoeing so not a lot she can do but she may know someone.

Some farriers pointed me to others but didn’t have contact details for them & I have not been able to find their phone numbers by any method. One farrier who only comes to this area every 8wks said “oh we just bung bar shoes on ‘em. They’re better in no time”!! riiiight

& leave them on 8wks?!

I don't think so!

Time for another vet visit tomorrow I think to at least change his pain relief. I was saving the remaining donated funds for a farrier but it will be spent on the vet instead since all the local farriers obviously don't want to do him.

So Sonny is on a new regime of feeding from last Friday while the weather holds dryish anyway. He is staying in the play pen & just having dry straw hay 12hrs & out on some thin native grass 12hrs daily. At least that will cut his consumption of green grass in half if that is the problem. He has run/limped around & screamed his tits off & gotten all upset & sad & sorry but what can I do?

This new extra separation has come on quickly. Or rather the hoof has grown enough to show that the separation is a lot worse than I first thought. Whereas back in early January I took photos that showed there was improvement with new sound growth, it was temporary obviously with this worser separation coming along behind waiting to grow out enough to be seen.

On a time line I guess that better tight hoof must have grown during the drier months of August September. The grass was a bit less green & I was feeding them a big heap of dry hay each night too.

Then there was out of season rain so they had to stay out of the house yard & I let them back down the back paddock. During that time Sonny was on bute daily about half the time. So the hoof that is growing out to the ground now was made back then & during October November. There were a few abscesses around then also. It was drier again in December & early January so possibly there will be another band of reasonable grow appearing soon but it will be only narrow, about 6wks long. Because the last 3wks have been heavy rain with lush grass & I have again had to keep them out of the house yard, they spent most time down back paddock so there will be another band of separation appear in a few months no doubt.

Also they haven’t had any hay since well before xmas.

I had been trying to conserve the last few bales of old dry hay because it is not that easy to get. Around here at this time of year it is all fresh lucerne with fresh Rhodes grass coming in soon but what I have heard is that fresh Rhodes hay is almost as bad as fresh lucerne re sugars. There has been bad flooding out in the hay growing areas this last week so there is likely to be a shortage again this year meaning high prices for all that is available too.

Well if the worst comes to the worst I will have to buy some sort of glue-on shoe system online & do it myself like I was thinking of doing this time last year. I’ve done a complete circle with no improvement & no better ideas during the last year. I also think I will have to join some Aussie online hoof forums so I can maybe make contact with farriers who might get up this way or at least I might get onto different shoe options that I can do myself.

dontknow

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Chablis · Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 10:29 pm Post subject:

Clarissa, I hate to say this as well but have you given any more thought to what Kim wrote above? This is a hard post for me to write but I've got to write it.

Financially, it's going to be awfully hard for you to pay some professionals (vet & farrier) to give Sonny the specialist support he needs right now.

Also, as you are now unable to float Sonny to that specialist clinic - if he could even be floated given how sore he is - due to the flooding, I don't know what you could do that will help him and he needs that help right now.

Sometimes the kindest thing we can do, hard as it is, is to let our horses go.

Thinking of you both right now.
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Clarissa · Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 11:44 am Post subject:

So the farrier turned up almost on time today right after I had raked the carport & laid down a large square of old carpet for Sonny to stand on. I also printed out a brief photo history from my photos & recent xrays. We discussed the photos & drew on Sonny’s feet, did some hoof testing which just about sent him through the tarp roof! One abscess broke out on coronet band yesterday morning after weeping via the deep separation for a few days prior…..unless there were 2 in the one foot!

So we back & forthed as to what the best solution was & farrier had more looks at the photos & we discussed diet & pasture. In the end he asked me what I was hoping to achieve by shoeing him & I said to get him & me back into work. I said I had been thinking along the lines of an early break over shoe or a rockered shoe so that Sonny could shift his weight around to alleviate the sore parts yet not overload the rest of the hoof as is happening now.

Farrier said he didn’t think Sonny was bad enough for heartbars & that he would modify a set of rolled toes to put more roll on & set them back a tad from normal place. So that’s what Sonny got.

The horse was very good considering how sore his RF was. Last week it was the LF so sore he couldn’t even put it on the ground, then this week it was the other with abscesses. One nail did go through the abscess on the RF & it was still sore this afternoon. As that nail was clinched he did rear up so it must have hurt a lot.

I was asked to give it 24hrs to settle with some bute & if still sore I had to pull the nail. However by late afternoon he seemed to be walking much better & could even muster a small trot to stay infront of my fast walk carrying the fruit & veg scraps for their dinner!

The RF was done first, then the LF was done really quickly with everything set up in prep to just quickly do the 6nails & Sonny tolerated standing on the sore foot for 2 nails at a time even though he had the added discomfort of the hurting nail in the sore foot. He was hot shod which he found interesting.

One thing I was a bit concerned about was that he farrier rasped off most or all of the front thickness of the toe on both hooves to square them off somewhat for the early break over shoe. I was expecting it to be set back under the toe a little to keep the wall thickness intack & maybe just bevel off the overhang. I didn't say anything because just at this point in time it probably doesn't matter but in preperation for him going back to being unshod later in the year the toe needs to be left full thickness & not rasped so far up the hoof. Well that's what I know of it anyway. I remember getting flamed in late 2010 for doing a megaroll & being told I was thinning the front toe wall too much.

Farrier says rasping the toe off is the way to pull the toe back from being too long. Anyway time will tell I guess.

This is Sonny the other day trying to move across to me.

The offending hoof separation got mostly compressed at shoeing.

The RF before.... ...... & after

Quite a difference in the shape of LF after being shod.

An hour after shoeing.

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PasoBaby_CarolU · Site Admin Joined: 31 Jan 2009 Posts: 9038

That looks good and you have a plan, now get him in dry shavings and NO FRUIT! It also contains sugar. He is way overweight. Dry, grass hay only! No pasture. You can start hand walking him once he can walk on his own without being on bute. Do that for 3-6 months and gradually increase time each day.
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