The wait

So I was pretty thrilled to get our new horses... but were they going to fit in our plans and activities??? Right then... I didn't know. I put off evaluating them because I wanted them to gain weight before I would do anything with them... they got handled and groomed, but that was the extent of it... I trimmed Peg's feet. Pearl was in foal and due any day, I did not subject her to standing on three legs to trim her feet.

Here are a few pictures of their feet.

To start, we have Peg... Peg was probably born base-narrow, which means that her legs, viewed from the front, taper at the bottom... so it looks like a "V" shape from her hooves to her chest. As you can see from this picture, the heels are very long and a bit narrow for my likings... also, the left side (from your perspective) of the hoof looks much longer than the right... and it is. Since Peg is older (16 years old), her feet probably wont ever change dramatically... so I will have to trim and rebalance often to keep them right. The other thing I have noticed is that when /if I balance her feet the way they should be, she becomes lame, since pressure is on her joints to force the leg in a straight line... I have later found that she is arthritic, so I no longer force her leg straight as much as I did by trimming her feet... I still trim to have as much balance as possible, but I don't want her to be in pain. At her age, she needs to be comfortable, we don't use her all that much, she is mostly retired. Her hooves grow so slow, she only gets a trim avery 2-3 months, much less in the summer if we ride her, her feet wear down, so no need to trim, just rebalance where needed.

Here, I am trimming Peg's back hoof (not the same pictured above), if I didn't have the rasp in the way, you'd notice how unbalanced her foot really is. Her back feet are in much better shape than the fronts, back feet are usually naturally well maintained so there is always less rebalancing to do and the hooves are naturally more even. You can see that the heels are less narrow and wider that the front foot (above), that is a sign of health (of the hoof). Note that I am using a chair to sit, I have bad back problems and I feel the effects even when sitting and using the stand... this is why I only trim my horses and do not do this as a job. Also, I do not use a rasp handle and hold my rasp as close or as far as I need, this gives much more control and you can hold a good flat edge, not like when holding a round handle... then the rasp has a chance to not be completely flat, therefore causing discomfort to the horse if not corrected.

Half done! Note how the sole compensate for the wall... I did the rest of the foot too...

Here's the final result after the first trim... there is still imbalance but as a first trim, this is all I could do, heels are pretty much the same length, she seems to have sustained an injury to her hoof, in the quarter area, she has a lot of sole compensation on one side and the outer wall and inner wall seem to be permanently disconnected. I would like to take pictures of her feet today, If I have some time this weekend, I will. I would like to see the improvements on film (or computer screen!). I did work a bit more on that left quarter after this pic.

This is Pearls feet... they were all like that... the lenght over the toe area was okay, but the heels were a mile high and super contracted, which had me concerned about mechanical founder, especially that she was in foal... I don't have after pictures, since I trimmed her after she foaled (like right after) and I didn't have my camera handy, I will take some soon. Pearl has great legs, her feet are mostly balanced on their own, she is very sound but very hot, even at 18 years of age!
I wish I had taken more pics but it is hard to try and take pics while trimming and making sure the horses don't get impatient and uncomfortable.