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RE: [RC] [RC] Club feet-vet/farrier advice requested? - heidiPete Ramey has some insight on the topic of club foot. See if it sets with you. click "Articles" http://www.hoofrehab.com/index.htm He has some good points, but he does not address the single biggest cause, which is that horses in confinement become one-sided and simply don't extend their "weak" side as far, time and time again. Hence the toe on that side becomes dubbed and the heels do not wear, whereas on the "good" side, the heels get hammered and the foot tends to become shallow and flared. He also makes a good point that it isn't just up to the farrier to correct this--although he does not talk about the responsibility of RIDING a horse symmetrically to try to strengthen his weak side and lengthen the stride on that side, so that the footfalls become even. He IS right that one can't correct this by taking the toe out from under the tip of the coffin bone on the low-heeled long-toed side. Instead, one has to maintain as much sole as possible there, and if need be, provide support to the heels on that foot. (This can be done by a wedge pad or by putting a bit of a trailer on a shoe on that foot, the former to get the angle where it should be and the latter to get the point of support in the correct relationship to the rest of the foot and leg.) One also has to address the upright foot, lowering the heel, and in many cases, removing hoof wall at the quarters to help prevent pressure on the coronet band above that point. If one does very drastic work in this regard, one doesn't want to be trying to ride the horse right after--best results that I've seen have been to go ahead and be fairly drastic trimming the upright foot, but to just turn the horse out between trims instead of putting him to work. One should also be scheduling fairly frequent appointments to trim such horses until the growth becomes more normal. Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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