A chilled Filly

Wednesday 28 January 2015

Filly breaks a nail again

A couple of days ago I went to the yard in the afternoon to take Filly for her usual walk. As we started to leave the yard I glanced around to make sure she was sound and something on her right hind hoof caught my attention. A bit of mud stuck to the hoof wall seemed to be moving strangely.
I decided to tie her up and investigate. As I probed around I found I could dig away at the mud and eventually arrived at the following

This was alarming to say the least. I could guess what had happened.
When Filly first came out of shoes at Rockley farm the increased mobility of the hoof caused several abscesses to come out of her hooves around the coronet band. One of these was on the back right and two on the front left (though the front left was probably the same one twice).

The general feeling was that, given she had been very lame on her front left to the point of barely being able to walk prior to the shoes coming off, these were old injuries that the increased circulation due to the foot being able to expand and contract on each footfall had finally caused to come out. When they came out of the coronet band they created a hole in the hoof wall which then healed over internally. However the hole remained and slowly grew down the hoof.
The hole on the right hind was getting close to the ground when a small crack appeared to one side of it. She then had a burst of running around the field and must have landed her foot on a rock. The pressure that caused made the lump of hoof wall below the abscess come away, it also caused the bruising you can see to the left of the missing lump.

As you can imagine I was very concerned about this, never having seen anything like it before. However she was walking normally so it did not appear to be causing much pain. I took the photo above and sent it to Nic Barker at Rockley farm asking her what I should do. Unfortunately it was not until the following day I got a reply. I also consulted Mel Isaac who is a barefoot trimmer who knows Nic well. Again she was not available. So I asked the yard owner who did not seem too concerned either.
I abandoned the idea of the walk and spent time cleaning up the wound site and putting some hoof putty in. More to make me feel better than thinking it would help. I also bevelled the underside of the toe just a little to take pressure of the edges of the damage.

It was a somewhat sleepless night.

I woke in the morning to find a message from Nic saying she felt that the edges of the damage would have sealed when the abscess healed itself and the bit that had come out was probably dead anyway and not to worry too much about it. A conversation with Mel later gave much the same advice and so I relaxed a little.

The yard staff said she had been lame in the morning as she was turned out but came in fine. I took her for a walk and again found she was fine. Since then we have been on some longish walks on a variety of terrain with no apparent soreness so I'm just monitoring the area for any further damage and applying some antiseptic to it daily just to make me feel better.

Saturday 24 January 2015

Walking Filly

Filly continues to make good progress. I've found a route we can walk that includes a quiet road with only a little traffic. This is important as the woods are currently very muddy and slippery. An additional worry about the woods is that there are some flints in the mud and I don't want to risk her cutting her feet stepping on one buried in the slime. Additionally, road work is better for grinding the hooves down naturally so that they become the best shape to support her upper limbs.
This idea that the hoof can adjust to help with problems further up the leg is an important one. I feel that in the past hooves have been shaped by man to best conform to what they think the hoof should look like relative to the lower leg. That may not be the best shape for the rest of the horse. The hooves are the platform that support the rest of the horse and they need to be the shape the whole horse requires, not just the lower limb.

At Rockley farm Nic owns one horse that has been barefoot for many years. The state of the feet were to me shocking when I first saw them. They looked flared and had cracks running up the hoof wall. Nic said that she had hoped I would only see him after I understood more, but having seen him gave me a detailed explanation about his history.
He has a deformity of the upper limb that made him very lame. In desperation they left him barefoot with no trimming, but lots of hard work on varied surfaces. Of course he also lives in the track surfaces at Rockley that are designed to reshape horses hooves naturally with their abrasive surfaces. So he had the best chance to create a hoof that best suited his needs. And this misshapen hoof is what he came up with. As a result he can now hunt over Exmoor and has done 66 miles hunting this year ! Nic said she had tried trimming his hooves to a more "normal" looking shape and he instantly went lame so she learnt to leave him alone.

I think maybe humans interfere with their horses too much on occasion. Maybe rather than impose our idea of the what the horse needs on them we should let nature sort it out for us. This does not mean we can just leave our horses alone and hope they fix themselves. We have to create the conditions for the horse to be able to help itself. In many ways this is harder work than just relying on the trimmer / farrier doing the work for us.
In the case of Filly, as we don't have a track surface for her to live on, it means lots of walking out to find the surfaces her feet need. If I miss the walks for a while the hoof walls do tend to grow a bit longer than I would like. When that happens I very reluctantly take out the rasp and take a tiny amount off around the whole hoof. I don't try to shape the hoof at all, just take the same amount off all the way around. And no more that 1mm. I've only had to do this a few times when I've been away for an extended period and been unable to walk her to let it happen naturally.

The upside is that I actually really enjoy the walks. Filly seems to like them as well and finds the countryside very interesting. Yesterday she insisted on spending a few minutes staring at the local golf course while I explained the strange rituals that take place on that glorious stretch of grass. I think Filly thought that was just a waste of good grass ;)