Toed Out Opinions

First I will start by saying this is Rain. 8yo TWH. We bought her Oct. Of 2011. When we first bought her she was horrible toed out. Both her knees and pasturns touched. She was pasture sound but could not do any kind of work (even walk for ten minutes) on a lunge line. Now, she is currently overdue 2 weeks and has pulled a shoe. She has been 100% sound for a almost a year now. I am going to upload some pictures of her as is and see what you all have to say about what needs to be done and should be done. Farrier is coming on February 27th so I will post after pictures to. What I need to know is what pictures from what angles. Do you need a front, inside, outside, heel, and bottom side picture of each hoof?

Right front

Left front

Do you, by chance, have a concrete sidewalk or paved road nearby that you could stand her on and get some better pictures? It is hard to see much and make any sort of definitive opinion on it with the uneven ground and the grass being in the way. It may just be the pictures, but those hooves don't look even remotely balanced to me.

I can take her down the road to the church parking lot tomorrow. I didn't have time today. She is exactly at 8 weeks today. We are also scheduled for xrays in 2 weeks I believe

I think pictures in the parking lot would be good. Also, whenever you're taking them, you might want to take some that show both her hooves and her legs from the front/sides. That will help folks see whether or not her hooves appear balanced for her leg shape/conformation.

When we bought her when she walked her knees hit together. The insides of he feet were around 3 inches and the outsides were 6 inches. She was dead lame. Her inside walls were paper thin while the outsides were extremely thick. The church isn't far from us but I live on a dirt road and don't have any concrete pads so I will take better pictures tomorrow.

If you check out the recent thread called Xrays to share, a lot of the info applies here.

You need a new farrier. Those feet were far too long when the shoes were put on. The toes are way too long, the heels are way too long, the bars are way too long. The wall is jammed up into the coronary. You can see the bruising from this coming down the outside of the outer hoof wall on one side. The bars and heels were left longer on the outsides so the bars are more laid over to the outside. This is forcing the horse to stand on the inner part of the foot, and to toe out.

Perhaps this is an improvement, but it still is very far from ideal for the horse.

Her problems are structural and should have been corrected when very young. By the age of six the growth is finished. Considering what the farrier has had to work with at least the horse is sound. This will be a slow process, too fast and the horse will be lame again.

Please do not critique my farrier works until after you see it. It isnt fair to him for people to critique work on a horse that has been 8 weeks sense his visit. This mare is far from ideal, yes. But what we had to work with was not pretty. It takes a long time to correct such a severe problem in a horse that is finished growing. It isnt a badabingbadaboom fix. This mares feet grow extremely fast and in every direction. These pictures are a poor example becaue they are so overgrown. I was sharing current pictures to see if anybody had ideas of what could be done to help improve her and then on wednesday I will post pictures of what my farrier is doing with her to correct her. My farrier has been out of work and I didnt want to have someone else because I didnt want to chance them causing her to go lame. So, please wait for the pictures on wednesday of after the farrier has trimmed and shod her to critique his work.

Now the right front, that still has the shoe, the shoe has twisted sense her hoof as grown which is something the farrier will address to keep it from happening again. But also, in all good luck, she will never have to wait to have her shoes done this long again. Waiting 2 1/2 extra weeks to have shoes done is hard on a horse especially with a poor hoof.