Pictures! YAY!

After countless day of not bringing pictures after having promised them ages ago... I got to uploading them yesterday... so I bring them to you!

I got around to doing Dandy's feet this weekend... The were very long, she had lost a bit of dead sole too.

This is Dandy's left front, also know as the abcess of doom foot. It is coming along pretty nice, but both her fronts have an imbalance to them that I am desperately trying to resolve. I will trim her again this weekend too to aim at keeping them balanced. This hoof was mainly long in the left quarter and tip of the hoof. The frog will exfoliate soon, it does every Spring.

Same foot as above, after the trim. The left heel still seems a bit longer, which causes the imbalance, but I don't want to correct it too fast and cause another problem, one little bit at a time. You can see that there is not much left but the water line to walk on and that's the way it should be. You can also see a hole in the white line (at the toe) where the abcess came out. The abcess line is almost completely grown out after about 6 months. Dandy's feet grow way too fast!!! Her wall is so hard that regular nippers don't really cut it anymore... I have to ask another person to help me get the nippers closed to actually cut the wall. I then proceed to thin the wall in a roll (Mustang Roll) to help ease breakover and keep the white line and all inner components of the hoof nice and thightly held together.

Next, we have her front right, which looks an awful lot like the left front! Notice the little ditch between the sole and the wall. That needs to go!

and here's the after. No more little ditch! The photo was taken at a bit of an angle so we can't see as well as we should.

Then we have the back feet... although they still grow as fast, I have much less problems fixing the back feet. See how thick the gosh darn wall is!? This is the right hind foot.

And the After! I notice that the right heel is a tad longer that the left, this may cause Dandy to stand splay footed (toes pointing outwards). I will correct that next weekend! There is also quite a bit of dead sole on this foot too. It will probably fall out during the week.

Here is the last foot... her left hind. It was very long in the toe!!

Pretty nice compared to above. This one doesn't seem to have quite as much roll as the others, but I was satisfied about the way it looked and was completely balanced.

I want to show how concave and wide Dandy's feet really are... her heels are super wide which gives her a good base to walk on, great balance, a nice long stride and incredible traction over any terrain. The scoop or spoon shape permits the hoof to expand and contract like it is ment to, therefore improving blood flow in the legs and hooves and creating a healthier, stronger hoof. The frog also helps in this process by providing a cushion and also acts like a little heart to pump the blood back up the leg. Dandy is officially a rock crusher and can go anywhere barefoot: rocks, pavement, gravel, stone dust. She is turned out in a gravel enclosure (our land is mostly gravel, we didn't put it there!) and runs and bucks as well or better than any horse. Here is a shot of Dandy's right front hoof showing how concave it is (usually back hooves are the most concave) and how I trim to allow the water line to touch the ground only.For general information, thinning my horses hooves like this have never made them crumble or crack. It doesn't make the hoof weaker, if I must say, it can only help to improve it by removing harmful pressure caused by a long wall. I am not saying that ALL horses should have hooves like this... mine have their problems too. Besides, I DO NOT thin the hoof all the way up, but only the very lower part as seen in the picture above.

Here is a video of Dandy walking... note the heel first landing on all of her feet. Look at that long stride! SOUND ALERT! Sorry for the noise, a neighbours were driving (poorly) a truck in the field in front of my dad's house... idiots...!!

Peg and Pearl have hooves as thin as paper, I trim them about 3-4 times a year!!!! They had shoes on all of their lives and left their heels contracted and pretty much petrified whatever was left of their frogs. A 2 hour ride will wear their hooves enough to have them walking on their soles, so I need a new alternative. I thought deeply about putting shoes on Pearl (my sister rides her often), but I don't like the idea and I would have to buy a lot more gear. I will consider boots like Easy-boots for her and maybe Peg too. I held back from trimming them too much since we were left unable to ride them for about 1.5 months (enough time for the hoof to grow back a little)! I will look into that option since I am much more comfortable using rubber boots than iron shoes. Boots are a great alternative to shoes and a great transition tool if you are trying to get your horse out of shoes. They are easily removed when turning out your horse and can easily be put on if your horse has to stand on hard ground for a long time or on rocky rides.