Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Trimmer visit Oct. 12, 2010

I wasn't able to grab pictures until this weekend so there was a long delay for this post!

And wouldn't you know it? I forgot solar shots. But I was slightly distracted:


Yep! I snuck a ride on the vaca-diva herself. After some acrobatics on the lunge, she begrudgingly indulged me in a little tour of her dry lot. 

I will likely try to do some more groundwork with her when I see her, and perhaps go out on trail around the property for a short ride in the future. 

While she has been sound since June, she needs some chiropractic work before she comes out of vacation in February. I could feel her just muscled wrongly. 

OK, hoof photos! Been a long time coming this time around! 




What I really like is the angle we've been keeping. You can see we've gotten less aggressive with rolling up the hoof wall as the separation has grown down, too. They actually look like real, honest-to-goodness hooves.

Bud's heel foundation is looking very strong. Her hooves just look fantastic in person. I love holding them in my hand. 

The evident separation is much more apparent on the front left with the huge dietary rings and flares. I'm hoping we have less than three months left on all that separation. The crack — which I also failed at getting a pic of — is still evident from the coronary band on down, but the place where it detaches from the lamina is growing down with great gusto. I think it looks more open to me but I can't compare pictures so that could just be me fretting over it. If it is more open, I think that's from the delay in trimming we experienced because of the floods. 

Something that I don't like about this trim — and I will have to mention to Scott — is the pointed quarters. I worry that can upset the balance we've been trying to establish and that it may encourage the heels to draw forward again.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Flooding delayed trim

We had some epic rains here in eastern North Carolina last week, washing out many roads. Unfortunately Scott was unable to make it up here without tacking on an extra three hours to his already exhaustive trip up here.

The vet saw Buttercup yesterday for her fall shots/coggins, and reported that she is in great health, her hooves look fantastic and she's a little snot. Well, the last part is a given. The diva has been on vacation so long now, she's bound to make lots more demands. Boy is she going to have a rude awakening in February! 

Hopefully her hooves will get done Monday or Tuesday of next week, but things are still up in the air. 

Stay tuned! I promise more hoof pics ... eventually!

That brings up an interesting point though. I've had this happen before under different circumstances where the farrier simply couldn't make it to the appointment. One had me wait nearly two and half weeks! 

What do you do in that situation?

Typically if I love my farrier, I will wait, even at my horse's expense. I learned my lesson a long time ago when this happened and I figured "What the heck, this farrier here won't do any harm." Wrong. He completely undid my farrier's hard work. I'd rather her be uncomfortable for a few days than have to rework the balance in her hoof, if we have the choice.