Thursday, March 12, 2009

Horse I trimmed today.



This is Sea. An Arab mare about 15. Rescued and the owners have been trying to rehab her feet, but during the past year or so, even they got a little behind in her hoofcare. A farrier was called in to trim her at one point, but was adviced not to do too much at once.



This is the inside of her right front foot (taken from her left side so I was shooting from underneath her body).








This is her left front.









Solar view of right front.

Right front again.










Solar view of left front. You can see from solar views that she had likely she suffered from Pedal Osteitis at one point.








After I explained that not doing enough with her trim was detrimental to helping her get better. The owner was okay to let me do what I felt was best for the horse after hearing the analogy of our fingernails. I told her that when our fingernails get long, the growth of nail past the nailbed is no longer connected to anything. If we walked on our long finger nails, it would put pressure on the connection of nail to finger until separation of the two occurred and how painful would that be?!





Left front - trim is nearly finished for today.


Left front lateral view.





Right front. Pictures taken just before I added a few finishing touches. Sea was getting a little antsy.



These trims are fun for me. I love the challenge and the obvious changes I can make in just a short time.

This is a cute little mare and she was fairly cooperative with her feet, but I didn't want to push it with her so I only trimmed and changed as much as I thought she could tolerate at one time.

A few more trims and some growth of well connected wall and this horse will be kicking butt all over the pasture!

9 comments:

LatigoLiz said...

Wow! I love that little horse already! Let me know if they ever need to rehome her. I have a severe soft spot for Ayrabs. ;) Much to my husband’s dismay.

LatigoLiz said...

Whoops! How did that happen??? It's not Ellen posting, but Liz. Weird! I’ll get it fixed!

LatigoLiz said...

She looks like Lana!

Andrea said...

They got "a little behind"?! O.o Great before and after pictures! How much better did she walk off after the trim was over?

Pat said...

Yep, they got a little behind on the hoof care. She actually trotted off without any sign of lameness. That was in the pasture.

I look as much flared wall as I could and left her with as much sole (padding for the coffin bone) as there was to leave.

She was happy!

Mikey said...

Goodness! That's a good one there. Good job on fixing that up! It looks beautiful!! Like how you left good sole for that coffin bone. I do the same thing on trims like that.
Excellent and great before and after pics :)

Anonymous said...

I am so glad I came across your site!!! I have been worried about a pony we bought from the sellers to whom house we purchased back in September... her right front hoof looks exactly like this the rest of her hooves look fine.... The previous folks did nothing for her and I did have the ferrier out a couple of months ago and he trimmed her.... How often Do you think with her hoof looking exactly like this horse does will need to have the ferrier out? I want to help her and it aches me because I get so frustrated at the previous owners who did nothing for her and now that she is ours she is quite the social girl with us..

Pat said...

Jeanne,

Any horse should be trimmed at least every 6 weeks if possible. But when you're correcting a problem like this, I would trim every 2 weeks. Since economically that time frame isn't feasible for most, at least every 4 weeks.

Feel free to send me pictures at my personal email address, patslark@fairpoint.net and I'll help out if I can.

Pat

Rachel said...

Wow... I can only imagine how much better she felt!

She's a tough one if she was already trotting off :)

Amazing to see the difference in the pictures. Glad she was good for you!