We Went for a Short Ride Last Week!

About 10days ago I rode Sonny for a short ride out along the old highway!  :-)

I put his Easyboot Trails on his front feet with the new inner pads I made which I posted photos of a couple of posts back. The pads wore well. Sonny went well too. I just let him go at his own pace which was an average speed walk with a little shuffle trot now & then.  We only went about 1.5k in total & took about 30mins but I think it was a good test of his feet.

There hasn’t been much cavorting in the paddock recently because of rain to see if he is lame at all. But yesterday he ran through a gate & took off down the paddock when separated from Jude & he was limping a tiny bit as he made the sharp turn but I didn’t get to see it long enough to determine which leg it was.

Supplements 

Apart from that I have changed the supplement back to Jenny’s Provide It. I saved some from the last order because I had noticed that once their feet naturally wanted to stop growing for winter, the Dr Kohnke’s supplement would get them growing again, whereas Jenny’s didn’t. So I got some DK’s Cell Provide & changed all my horses onto that after their feet stopped growing for winter. They soon all started growing again which is why I have been able to keep trimming every 2-3wks. Usually there is nothing to trim for about 6wks at a time. So once the wet season arrived again I changed them back to Jenny’s Provide It to compare horn quality & growth speed. It will be interesting to see how their feet grow over the next several weeks.

 

 

3wks since last full trim. 

I was shocked to see it has been 3wks since I last did a full trim. I think I got out of sync because I have been redoing the toe bevel a lot more, almost every second day some weeks. It sure makes a huge difference to the new growth angle when the bevel is kept perfect.

Stronger toe bevel.
This trim I have made the toe bevel a little stronger just to see what happens. Previously if I did that & removed any of the inner wall, the sole would grow out from under the wall due to forward pushing pressure from the underrun heels. I’m aiming at starting the mapping method again which involves doing a rocker under the toe from just infront of the tip of P3. That removes more than just a tiny bit of inner wall under the toe. It takes a bit of sole too, so this week’s stronger toe bevel is the first step down that path. Previously when I tried the mapping with rocker, it made Sonny sore, just as it has done 3yrs ago when I first tried it. Back then I thought I must have done too strong of a rocker. But when I did it late last year he went sore too & it may still have been too much. It all points to the sole still being too thin even though it’s clear to see from last trim photos that his bony column is rising up through the capsule somewhat.

This mapping with toe rocker will be the last stage in repairing his feet. Hopefully after 1 or 2 growth cycles the whole hoof should be in good shape again.

Hope to ride again.

All being well, I will ride Sonny again this coming weekend as this lot of rain will be finished by then apparently. Just another short ride along the road in boots. It’s as much as my back can tolerate at this stage anyway. It’s just as well we didn’t go for a longer ride last time because my back is still getting over the ride in a saddle. He would like to get at the cattle in the paddocks over the back fence & along the roadsides but unfortunately he will just have to dream! I’m sure the owners of those cattle don’t want some horse chasing them around!

Here is the link to this week’s album:- http://s340.beta.photobucket.com/user/claireT_2008/library/2013%20%20all%20photos/2013%20February2%20Sonnys%20Feet

 

Nice looking feet.

I like the photos this week. It’s easy to see the fronts are slowly developing quite a nice shape now. Even the backs are beginning to respond to digging out all that excess bar material & doing the bevel under the toe wall too. The length of the back feet from heel to toe has shortened quite a bit too.

 

 

                                                                            

Note in this photo above of the RF just how tightly the new growth is coming down from the coronet band now. In the first photo in this post of the LF you can see the new tighter angle is well established now. Hopefuly keeping the toe bevel strong will allow that tighter angle to grow all the way down & eliminate all that toe lamella wedge totally. The heels of this RF do seem to be quite a lot more upright now too.

I tried really hard to work within the software restrictions of the new Photobucket web albums but I still got it wrong even on the 5^th attempt to upload & the whole series of photos has come out all back to front with the fronts at the end of the list rather than the beginning. I gave up!  grrrr  >:-[

 

 

GREAT PROGRESS!!

First anniversary of Sonny’s founder in his RF

What a change there has been in the year since! This last week he has been actively trotting here & there with the occasional canter & cavort, all by himself. I think digging those overlaid bars out has really made a huge improvement.

 

 

I’m really happy with the progress showing in Sonny’s feet now. It seems the wet came just at the right time after just the right length of extended dry season. I feel very lucky because things don’t usually go so well for me.

Everything seems to be on track other than the one thing which I have commented on in this particular photo. I’ve been at this place before & it all went to putty. Admittedly it was year 2 of the never ending wet season but that wasn’t the real cause of his founder.

I’m sure his founder was mechanical & the shape of the LF reminds me all too well that we are at that point again except last time it was the RF. It has a bit of heel, deepening collateral grooves between the heels & running out to next to nothing at the frog tip. This time however, he has a much better sole/wall connection with stronger walls. Also this time he no longer has all that ingrown bar material jamming up into his corium & heel cushion.

I wonder if it was all that jammed up bar material that set all this founder & hoof problems in action in the first place a few years ago. Perhaps it all cut into the sole cushion & corium & cut off circulation & set laminitis in motion.

 

                      

 

 

 

Left Front :- It looks like the wall is really long, standing proud of the sole. But it’s actually that the sole is withdrawing rapidly back to the correct position leaving a large gap between sole/wall connection & the bearing surface of the wall. I think the way things are going most of that long toe will have been removed 3 trims from now. The large gap shows there is no more lamella wedge growing, instead it is a nice tight connection to the P3. Still some general reshaping to stand the whole hoof a little more upright but that too will hurry along in no time.

The toe is coming back better this time. I expect to be making big inroads into that long toe in the next 3 trims. I am leaving as much wall thickness as I feel I can so I don’t leave him walking just on sole. That seems to be a trigger for the sole to run out from under the toe wall. Now there is softer soil, a nice bit gets trapped in the sole helping to hold the bit of depth that has been developed recently.

Also note there are almost no black lines anymore on the sole where the overlaid bars were jamming up into his feet. These last 3 trims I have been aggressively addressing those overlaid bars by digging it all out with the dremel & knife & the results are now obvious.

 

Here are the pretrim photos of both fronts. Note how even they are becoming now. Although the frog on the LF is much longer but hopefully shortening as that hoof gets more upright now.

 

                    

 

 

With him leaping all around obviously feeling good, I am loathe to change the trim at this point but I know I do have to bring the heels down a tad again once the tighter angle has grown down a bit at the toe.

It’s by no means perfect yet. All feet still have big problems to do with the bars mostly along with some heel angle, but also some lingering wall separation, but that too will resolve soon enough.

It’s also time to have a close look at what direction the sole tubules are growing in now. By now a new sole should have grown that should have tubules growing more perpendicular.

The remainder of this week’s photos are found here:-  www.photobucket.com/2013_February_Sonnys_Feet

 

Also this will probably be the last use of Photobucket. They are changing their whole methodology & format to suit facebook & I won’t be able to link to the photos as I have been doing so I will probably move to google, but to view the photos you might find you have to log in unfortunately. Sorry about that. It is a real bone of contention amongst the Photobucket users that the site is changing so dramatically. So far I am lucky in that my photos, posted over the last 5yrs, are still all in the right place in the various forums & blogs but who knows if that will last because many other users have lost their links. It will probably be best if I change the format of my blog posts. Also now that Sonny’s feet are so improved I may not post so often.