Latest Trim, things beginning to look much better

 

Yesterday I did Sonny's feet again all round this time. Usually I don't get all 4 done in one go. But it's getting easier as his feet get better shaped, although they are very hard this time. I use a power dremel with a cylindrical abrasive stone bit. There is no way a knife will cut or scrape that hard horn!

I used my dremel to clean out the overgrown bar area along the collateral grooves & better define the bars themselves. I'm sure there is still too much in there but I took out about 3/16th to 1/4inch depth so that must help a lot. No rain on the horizon so the feet will stay hard for a while yet.

This time I only did a slight bevel on the wall under the toe only. I didn't bring it back inside the white line at all. I did rasp a little off the top side of the bevel after taking the photos (because I forgot to do it prior!) So the finished walls around the front of the hooves aren't quite as thick as in the photos. There is plenty if thickness just now, maybe a bit too much.

Sonny is still a little sore on his RF if he is turning to the right but otherwise he is moving ok although I wouldn't ask him to trot if he didn’t want to. However he will trot to the gate when it is time to come into the house yard for a bit of green grass! He's fine with boots & pads on so once I get this toe wall bevel right & the collateral grooves cleaned out properly which will allow the bars to grow correctly, he should feel much more comfy. It's amazing just how far overgrown the bars were. On some feet they had reached right to the tip of the frog.

Here is the link to the latest photos of all 4 feet pretrim & trimmed.

www.photobucket.com/December2012SonnysFeet

Here are a couple of shots with the rest at the above link.

 

 

The walls had grown down beyond the sole so I wanted to get the toe wall off the ground to get rid of the leverage. Since he tends to get a bit sore after a trim where I lower the heels (therefore crushing the frog a bit), I only do that on either fronts or backs, never on all 4 feet at the same time. He has to be left with something to stand on!

.