Long Toe GONE!

Since my last post I have been able to do Sonny’s feet twice & remove most of the long toe. I did it over 2 days, 3^rd & 9^th of July. His feet were not hot before each trim & didn’t get hot after each trim. I was really chuffed.

I have been experimenting again with leaving the heel a tiny tad longer & that seems to be the thing that prevents his feet getting hot or inflamed or laminitic. Of course I am very carefully monitoring this as even a slightly longer heel can cause the toe to run forward.

I’m trying to keep the toe well bevelled or rockered to remove any leverage that might affect a slightly longer heel until any probability of heat is past. Sonny needs exercise & if his feet are hot he won’t walk around.

The LF is pretty much the right shape now I think. I will leave it at that for the time being until I know the internals are happy. The RF is not so far advanced. When I was editing the photos after the most recent trim I was very surprised to see that the dorsal wall of this RF appeared to be slightly broken forward. I will keep a very close eye on that. I might be that I just rasped to a point on the wall where the new tighter angle began. Or it could be that there is more going on.

The RF also has a deteriorated medial heel platform area where there was a problem in the coronet band late last year & early this year. Several abscesses broke out through the same point damaging the blood supply to the horn growth points in the coronet. The wall horn that grew has been very poor & the platform horn has also been similarly affected. With this never ending wet weather again, the heel platform are has just rotted away despite my regular application of Thrushbuster. I think the horn quality is so poor that just normal wear & tear would be enough to wear it away. It was so thin that I inadvertently put the hoof pick through the horn making Sonny jump big time! Poor guy.

I am thinking of casting that foot & using some tape to build up to the height of the normal heel platform height in that area. However I am concerned that applying a bit of material that will go hard might press on the sensitive live sole & cause too much pain for him to walk on it. So that would defeat the purpose of the cast. Previously I didn’t want to cast his feet due to the frequency of trimming. Leaving long toes & heels just would have contradicted & voided all attempts to restore his feet. Perhaps I can find a piece of firm foam rubber that might be better for that heel build up. It would have some give to it.

Anyway here are a few comparison photos in the form of 2 sets of collages with a comprehensive list of photos taken at each stage of both trims to be found that the following links.

These collages have been made with full sized photos so they will blow up much bigger if you want to see the photos in more detail. I think you just click on them.

3July2013 Left Front trim collage:-

 

3July2013 Right Front trim Collage:-

 

All photos from trim on 3July:- http://s340.photobucket.com/user/claireT_2008/library/2013%20%20all%20photos/2013%20July%20Sonnys%20Feet

All photos from 9July trim:- http://s340.photobucket.com/user/claireT_2008/library/2013%20%20all%20photos/2013%20July%20Sonnys%20Feet/2013%20%20July9%20Sonnys%20Feet

9July2013 Left Front Trim Collage:-

9July2013 Right Front Trim Collage:-

You can see in the photos at the bottom of this above collage of the RF trimmed that it does have an almost broken forward look to it like the P3 might be rotating to point downward, rather than what originally happened where the capsule rotated round the bony column. I am saving for new xrays & hopefully they can be done in about 4wks time. This is the heel I am thinking of casting to help it grow back to get over the loss of the platform.



All in all I'm pretty impressed with recent improvements. Now to see if the internals have also healed so I can ride again! Hopefully the vet & the xray can tell me that.