Really?! Hoof trimming

Ok, today, I was going to bring you a post about hoof trimming.

When we separated, my SO and I separated the horses. He kept Peg and Pearl as they were bought for him although I forked half of the money. Anyways, I had trimmed the horses in June (mid-June) and they were left untouched since then, even if I offered to trim them several times (we still talked). It was in dire need but I was thankful, for once, that their hooves grow really slowly. So, my plans were to trim Peg and document the whole thing, but my camera decided differently. I was getting ready to start and took one picture... cleaned the hoof and went to take another one when I noticed that a button on my camera had gone missing. It was obviously the one I need to press to take the picture. I looked frantically on the ground to find it... no such luck.

Maybe it was the -35C that was affecting it... I'll never know. Thankfully, I can still turn it on and off, just not take pictures with it, which kind of defies the whole purpose of having a camera, but at least I can get my pictures out. It was old, but still worked fine and I wasn't really planning on buying one so soon!

Anyways, Peg's feet were a bit overgrown, one had a crack in it, so I decided to just go to work on her front feet right away, it was brutally cold and I didn't want to spend more time out than needed. So I started trimming with the nippers, but Peg's feet don't grow too fast and have always been in mediocre shape (compared to Dandy's, let's say). I decided to go with a toe rocker trim, because her hoof is so stretched forward that it is becoming ridiculous.

A toe rocker is a strategic trim that you should only do when the whole hoof is pulled forward or has become oblong. Remember, a front hoof should be as round as possible. In order to do such a trim (which is also called "backing the toe"), you need to leave a little bit of heel (not trim the heels directly to the level of the sole), I would say to leave about 3-5 mm, leave the same lenght in the quarters too. Your vertical cut should be between 10 and 2 o'clock on the hoof (imagine the hoof as a clock). The purpose of this is to remove all of the wall (thickness wise) between those points. The wall should be inexistant and backed up to the level of the sole...

Below is one of Dandy's feet... now, If I was to do a Toe Rocker on her foot (which doesn't need it at all! This is just for information purpose), I would remove all of the wall material between 10 and 2 (or in this case 4 and 8 o'clock) past the white line that you see (which is the Water Line) and right to the edge of the sole, which is greyish in colour. I would leave the rest of the wall (Quarters and Heels) as they are in this picture. The purpose of the Toe Rocker is to permit the hoof to land heel first (given that there is no Thrush or heel pain) and eventually make the hoof rounded, giving a shorter breakover, therefore greatly improving stride and comfort for the horse.

Now, you can't apply this strategy every time you trim, you can alternate between a Toe Rocker (which I don't have a picture of... GRR) and an aggressive Mustang Roll (like in the picture above, that's a very good Mustang Roll, Maybe I would do it a little more aggressive than that if the horse had a really oblong hoof). Then you can go back to the Toe Rocker for the next trim, etc. Once your horse's hooves have regained a somewhat normal shape, you can stop applying the Toe Rocker and just continue with a good Mustang Roll for the next trims. Using too much of the toe rocker might make your horse go flat-soled, so only use it if it is really necessary and don't over-use it.

As I have probably mentionned before, I like doing my Mustang rolls so there is no more pigmented area in front of the Water Line (which is the really white part that goes all around the hoof, the White Line is yellowish / Light grey, you can see it if you look closely at the picture above, right between the Water Line and the Sole). This eases the breakover and reduces the amount of "pull" the hoof has to endure at every stride, therefore reducing the risk for White Line disease and founder. I always compare it to a fingernail, If you have a long fingernail, it can easily be ripped off if enough pressure is applied, as opposed to having a nice short nail that is harder to rip off or break.

Cracks aren't normal in hooves and there is no way on earth that anyone will ever convince me of the opposite. A crack is formed by an unatural leverage force that is applied or created by the badly trimmed or too-long hoof. If treated early, you can probably trim the whole crack out, but if left long, the crack will continue to grow with the force exherted on the hoof. A toe crack necessitates a good toe rocker that extends to the quarters, make sure that the hoof doesn't have any "corners" that would exhert more pressure on the toe and making the crack even worse. The goal here is to remove ALL pressure that could affect the crack. If this is done correctly, the crack should be able to grow out and the hoof will return to normal again.

Every horse has different hooves and some might be able to take more aggressive trims than others, my advice would be to always be carefull and never go and trim a horse too short too soon. Trim a little at a time, when I first start on a horse that I don't know, I only take out the basic. I touch up my trims every week and it is amazing how the hoof can change in such little time. Take the time it takes, don't rush nature, work with what you have, your horse will thank you and will never go sore or lame!

I really wish that I could've provided more pictures... I'll try and buy a new camera soon and show you what a toe rocker looks like. Have a great week!

Hoof Trimming

So I have a few pictures about Dandy's feet. I will take more while on Holiday, since I want to correct more stuff on her feet.




I will only post a few pictures at a time to evaluate one by one.




Like I said before, Dandy's feet are super hard and I have a hard time getting the nippers to cut through them... Also, my back causes me a bit of pain if I spend all day trimming hooves. So this time, I took two days to trim Dandy, because I have such a hard time with her rock hard hooves.





So here is our first picture.


It's a bit hard to see with all the snow, but this is Dandy's right front hoof before trimming. I cleaned it out as much as I could before taking the pic. That ice was really stuck there! You can see that the wall is about a half to 3/4 of an inch longer than the sole (maybe you can see... but I'm telling you!) The heels are longer than I like to see, but the frog and sole look super healthy. I have noticed that Dandy's feet have gained a great amount of concavity, which means that the coffin (or pedal) bone sits much higher up in the hoof capsule than it used to. This is great news and means that Dandy is now more resistant to rocky footing, slippery footing, etc. She is also less 'ouchy' on gravel. The bars here are a bit laid over. Laid over bars are useless, so I will trim them short, short enough so there is no more dirt between the bars and the sole.

Here is the same foot after the trim. The bars are much shorter, the heels are back to where they should be and the wall is trimmed to the level of the sole. There is still something that bugs me... and that is the quarter of the hoof on the let (of picture) You see there is like a line of dirt between the sole and the white line... this would need to be assessed. What I would do with something like this is trim the hoof (in that area) right to the edge of the sole. This does not mean removing a large quantity of hoof, but rather removing enough hoof so that the pressure is completely relieved from that area when the hoof is weight bearing... this allows the hoof to reconnect to the laminae inside. After the hoof is tight and connected, a regular maintenance trim will do the trick. This could solve Dandy's problem (unbalanced hooves in the fronts). So, this means that I will be trimming to the edge of the sole next time I have a minute to do it in daylight. I will take more pictures when I do so to show what it looks like.

This picture is how I like to keep Dandy's feet. For me, this is a great looking hoof. I have a great sense of accomplishment when looking at Dandy's hooves today. I haved solved most of the issues with her hooves and what is left is minimal compared to the first trims. Dandy certainly doesn't need supplements to help her hooves grow... I think that getting the blood to flow correctly in the hoof is the key to rock crushing feet!

After trimming Dandy's fronts, I jumped on her bareback to ride on gravel, she didn't put a foot wrong and can trot or canter on gravel. The enclosure she is in is mostly gravel (that's the composition of the land where Dandy is pastured), she will run, buck and play all over it. Transitions from dirt to gravel is flawless and easy for Dandy. I am very proud of the way this turned out. Her left front is the one that abscessed this summer and the line that broke in the coronet is now almost to the ground... which means that in 4 months, her feet nearly renewed themselves completely.

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.