Feet

I have a new farrier and so far, after one trim, I am really impressed. She addressed all of the things I thought might be an issue (from my limited knowledge stalking hoof blogs) and reconfirmed what I suspected was the issue with Ashke's feet. So, without further ado:

LF. Pre trim. The front of the frog looked really bad to me. The bars have grown out along the collateral groves and the foot over all is very flat on the bottom. I know that the Old Farrier hasn't touched the bottom of his hoof with anything but a rasp since he started working on his feet. 

Ashke has been touchy on both front feet. My feeling was that he was tender because of the amount of sole he had and the sole was carrying the weight rather than his wall. New Farrier had me walk him out first and noticed he had problems on his turn with his RF, just a touch. The second thing that was noticed was the length of his front hoof. His feet are only about 3" long. I was asked if that was normal for him, which it is. Michelle had commented on it when she was trimming him as well.

New Farrier took down his bars and then cleaned out the part of his hoof where the bar meets the sole. She said that because his bars were allowed to grow out, and they are stronger than the sole, that leaving them long allowed dirt to be compressed into his hoof, between the bar and the sole. This could have become an abscess and New Farrier said that the areas she was cleaning out were called bar abscesses.

New Farrier took a long time on this front hoof. She took down the bars and cleaned up the areas that could have become abscesses. She carefully cleaned out some of the sole, checked the angle and balanced the foot. Then she had me walk him again to watch his movement. Finally, she finished the last of the rasping. She told me that because his foot was so short that he only has a quarter inch of sole between the ground and the coffin bone. She made sure there was some space between his sole and the ground by laying the rasp across his foot, resting on the hoof wall, and made sure there was light from the front of the hoof to the back. 

An area of concern was back toward the heel of the hoof, where the sole and hoof wall has a deep grove. Right where the white line is. She wants me to soak it with a thrush buster, by packing cotton balls into the grove and then soaking them with an anti-thrush solution. She suggested betadyne mixed with sugar, so that is what I am going to try. There is also a product called No Thrush, which is a powder that I should be using on the entire hoof once a day. I will pick some of that up tomorrow and start using it. 

Very Flare.

Before pic of the RF. The grooves between the hoof wall  and the sole are not as bad in this hoof as the other front one. 

The after pic. The foot had a pretty worn down toe, which could have occurred due to compensating because of his RH. Again she took down the sole to alleviate the pressure he was feeling on his coffin bone.

RH. New Farrier said "his hind foot is really flat."

It didn't use to be. I wanted to cry.

After.

LH. Pre-trim.

There is a small crack in the sole of his LH that New Farrier said we needed to keep an eye on.

At the end, I walked him out again and we talked about his way of moving. New Farrier said she wasn't going to change much on this first trim especially on his hind hooves, since he had a distinct breakover on both back feet that she didn't want to mess with. We are scheduled again in six weeks and will see what changes between now and then. In the meantime, I have ordered the No Thrush and pads for my Easyboots.

The best thing about this ever? New Farrier is going to email Dr D with the details and her observations. Ashke will see Dr D before our next trim and will then communicate any thing she sees or any suggestions she might have to New Farrier to implement/observe at our next trim. New Farrier also took over an hour on this trim, measuring angles and inspecting his hooves from every angle. And she was willing to tell me everything she was doing and what she was seeing as she was doing the trim.

I am very pleased.