Shoeing question

["Mick & Katie" <caughey@merredin.agn.net.au>]

Hi Carol,

Your situation seems slightly different to one I experienced but I would
suggest getting your horses troubled foot (or all four feet) X-rayed.  I
had a similar experience with a horse seeming perfectly sound, but for 3-4
days after each shoeing would go just slightly lame.  Hoof testers would
show no problems.  Turns out both his front pedal bones were fractured. 
One was a crack up the side and the other was small fractures all the way
around toe area.  Because of the tiniest change of angle every shoeing it
would create pressure on these areas that were just getting healed.  It
would take a few days for the horse to wear round the front of his shoes
again, then he would be sound again.  He required very wide shoes after
that (about 1 inch) with the toe of the shoe rolled quite a lot to prevent
any pressure on the toe of his foot, this worked really well for a while
but during this diagnosis it also appeared that the horse was in the first
stages of navicular problems so I no longer use him for much more than a
paddock ornament but thats another story!!  So do get it checked out as
soon as you can, it sould save a lot of heartache if there is a real
problem that isn't going away or prevent a lot of frustration if it is
something easily fixed.

Good luck

Kate
Western Australia


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