The new farrier's work...what do you guys think? *pic heavy!*

Yesterday the new farrier (yes, a legitimate farrier, haha) came out.

I very much liked how he was with Lacey, respected her age but also didn't let her bully him (she likes to be a passive aggressive jerk to her farriers - cocks a hind foot while the front ones are being worked on and "has to" lean on the farrier, etc, stuff she doesn't ever do with me, just farriers). She can get nervous if she's rushed or scared by whatever is happening but he was very respectful of her and she was a true lady.

I saw some things I wasn't sure about, like he did a little trimming on her soles to "give her hoof some more concavity to get her up off the gravel", he rasped her hoof walls a bit, and he did reference dampness causing softer soles - making horses more ouchy, like my previous trimmer said (and like you guys said was hogwash...), but overall I think he did a job worthy of $30...
Lacey seems very comfortable as well, I didn't see her sidestep off a piece of gravel (up by her feilds gate, there's a lot of small gravel and a few large gravel chunks) once today and usually she does it at least once while I'm there.


He was also super impressed with her hooves. He said that he hasn't see a horse with hooves as hard as hers in quite a while. He really had to work to cut her excess hoof off. Hah!

He did say that she has a small hoof bruise in her right hoof (the black front one) but he felt that with all the gravel she's ridden on, that was par for the course.
I forgot to ask him, but can you guys tell me how long hoof bruises are usually painful (I assume they're painful?) for? If I was going to pick a front foot that she was ouchier on, I would have to say that for the last month or two, she's been ouchier on that right front hoof.
I would figure, to encourage quick healing, I probably should keep her off the gravel until that's all healed up?


I'm so sorry but it totally slipped my mind to do "befores" yesterday. I can tell you that the flares left by the other trimmer were looking pretty sketchy.
I'll link to my Picasa album for her hooves so you can refresh your mind as to what she looked like after the last trim. This trim yesterday was about 4.5 weeks out from that other "shoddy" trim.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1116720...NXXkJa0icvitQE


New trim (it's also in that album but I'll post them here too for those who might not want to have to go searching):

Left front:








Right front:







Left back:







Right back:











What do you think?
He said she has really great hooves and he wasn't worried about them really at all... ?



Also, should I be concerned at all about those little gaps between her sole and the hoof wall? I figure that's just flare growing out but I don't know, no one seems to be very worried about it? Just me...


Thanks! :)

I had my horse trimmed by a natural farrier who said he didn't need shoes. At first I was very impressed by the bowl shaped hoove that lifted the sole off of the ground. Unfortunately, after a week his hooves started chipping and were banged up so bad I had no choice but to put shoes back on him. When I did he threw a shoe a week later cause the hoof was so damaged. I wish you the best of luck, I hope your horse has stronger hooves than mine.

Not remembering what her feet looked like before (sorry, i'll admit to being lazy and not clicking on the link), i'd say these feet look nice for being what they are (given your recent worries, etc.). I'm not the biggest fan of how the soles look but i'm not sure I can put my finger what it is exactly that I don't like but there's something. It's not so "bad", per se, that I would worry but it's not something I like either. Know what I mean?

:P sorry if that makes absolutely no sense. Hopefully one of our resident hoof people will come pipe in. :)

Hberrie, I think she'll be ok that way. She very rarely chips and that's when her feet are way way too long. My fingers are crossed! :) He didn't take an excessive amount out or anything, just a little. That stinks that happened to your horse though! I'd be so mad!

I think I get what you're saying, crimson! I'm glad they look pretty good to you. :)
Her soles do have a "used" sort of look, they don't look like the soles I've seen on horses that are used on predominantly soft ground... And then there's that small gap/line between her sole and hoof wall that scares me and looks weird.
I hope someone "in the know" comes along to set us straight!

Her feet look fairly healthy to me, I think the farrier did a nice job.

There is one thing which I'm surprised he didn't mention to you. The grooves between her sole and hoof wall as you described look like the beginnings of White Line Disease (WLD).

You can treat this with many products, I have been using No Thrush of late on my mare. She has thrush in all 4 feet as well as WLD... it works wonders. Also, the 'cracks' in the middle of her frogs should not be there - although they are only small, this is caused by bacteria munching away at the frog (thrush). There should only be a slight 'groove' in the sulcus, not an evident crack.

You can dust No Thrush powder into these areas to kill the bacteria, soak up the moisture as well as promoting the healthy tissue to grow through, closing the crack. Note that you shouldn't stop treatment until the cracks are healed up - its best to get ontop of this now before it gets worse :)

I'd go with Sally - lovely feet, but yeah, all those grooves.

Her feet look good, the angles are nearly perfect (meaning the angle of the coronary band and front wall, and the front wall and heels, all match), only I wonder why your farrier didn't address the flare? As long as you don't take away too much wall (and there's not THAT much flare) it helps to file off the flare as it will reduce stress on the part of the hoof wall.

If she has a 'problem foot', it would be her right hind.. Is she just standing unfortunately, or is the coronary band really not level with the ground? Looking at the stress rings on the right side of the foot, I'd say it's unlevel and has been for a while. The left hind seems to have the same problem but only a tiny little bit.

If you want to learn a bit on feet and good hoof care - look up The Natural Farrier on facebook/google. She always posts case studies of her client's horses with lots of explanation, and her website is also stocked full of info.

I think it's a HUGE improvement from the last set of pics!

Those certainly do look better than your last set of pics! The only thing I see is the hailine slopes down considerably towards the heel of both front feet indicating a little more heel platform back there might benefit her, but otherwise, I'd let that guy do my horse any time.

I'll be interested to see what Loosie says. I also get freaked out a bit by that dip between the sole and hoof wall. My horse gets that too. I'm thinking its more important to just keep that area from getting infected by thrush in wet conditions that anything else. Is she walking less ouchy now?

To MyBoyPuck - as far as I know the best way to discern whether either the heel or toe needs to be lowered is to look at the hoof wall-pastern angle, providing that the angle of the hoof wall is okay. From what I can see on these pics it's almost a perfectly straight line. Also there is no sign of underrun heels (the end of the heels is at the widest part of the frog).

In this pic, the toe appears to be long if you follow the new growth straight down. If you apply that to matching angles, this heel is indeed underrun.