Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Hoof Work 4-25-09

Last week I noticed that Halo's hoof wall was starting to get a little long, especially her heels. Time for a trim! Her front feet are growing noticeably faster than her hinds, so I decided to just focus my attention on her front feet for the day. I should also note that due to a barn management mix-up, I did NOT do her last trim - the barn farrier did. I was a bit upset when I found out about it, especially since I have to pay for it. However, the barn owner said that Halo was well-behaved. I restated my request to have her removed from the farrier's list.

Here is a view of her front hooves before the trim. I see some flaring on both hooves on the outside. Her toes are looking rather pointy - she doesn't have a good mustang roll.


Right front sole view:


Her heels look especially long to me here. You can see how much depth there is in her seat of corn. She'd already broken off the bar on the left side, but the right hand one was very long.

Right front flat view:


Again, the heels look long, and I also feel like the left side is a little longer than the right. That's also the side that flares out.

Left front sole view:


Even from the sole you can tell that there's some flaring on the right side of this hoof. She's also got a funky hole near her toe on the right side. Nothing serious, but I want to take that spot down so that she doesn't break off a big chunk of hoof.

What I do like about all these pictures is that she has a nice shape to her hoof. While she has a few things that can be corrected, overall her feet are well-shaped, strong, and look healthy.

Left front flat view:




Holy heels batman. They look very long to me, and unbalanced as well. The right side looks noticeably longer than the left. I think this is something I will continue to battle with her. It suggests to me that she may be bearing more of her weight with the inside of her front feet when she travels. I will have to be vigilant about watching for stress there, especially quarter cracks.

Here are the after trim photos.



I think I probably could have been a little more aggressive with the flare on the outsides. It definitely looks reduced, but perhaps could have been reduced more. I'll let the experts weigh in on this one.

Right front sole:


Right front flat:


Left front sole:


Left front flat:


Overall I was happy with my trim job. There are a few things I think I could do better, like addressing the flares. This time I think I did a better job trimming her heels. I was less afraid of doing so, and did it more aggressively than before. Hopefully it will continue to encourage her heels to grow straight and not become underrun like they once were. My mustang roll could still use more definition. I think the issue there is that I'm afraid of being too aggressive and taking off too much hoof. She's in soft ground for the most part, and I think that is probably the only reason I am not forced to do better with the mustang roll. There's not much in the pasture or arena for her to chip up her feet on.

I'd love to hear thoughts on my trim job, or her feet in general.

And here is a bonus cute pic for those of you tired of looking at hooves!

4 comments:

Leah Fry said...

What is her breeding again? Her cannon bones look so delicate to me. Of course, look what I'm comparing your little flower to LOL!

spazfilly said...

Her breeding is nothing special - she's mostly Driftwood on the top, and mostly Leo on the bottom. She does have very fine-boned legs, and small feet. I'm not a huge fan of her lack of bone...I keep hoping she'll grow more, but it's not likely!

Tara Morris said...

After a long session of me learning to trim Tex with my farrier husband, I finally understand what you're describing in these pictures! I didn't know that you're supposed to look at the "flat" view to determine which side is longer than the other. It looks like you know what you're doing.

spazfilly said...

I hope I'm doing a good job. Someone else who looked at these images said it still looks like her heels need to be brought back more, ie, they should be in line with the back of her frog. I trimmed her again this past Tuesday, so I need to get some new photos to document the progress.