Farrier visit Sept. 4, 2009

Three weeks have flown by since our last farrier visit. At first, she felt great transitioning to barefoot, and then she got very ouchie. But slowly and surely her hooves are getting conditioned.

The last visit we did not apply a lot of the cast. As a result, it came off in a hurry. I lost most of it from the sole by week two, and all of it by today. No biggie since we had rolled her hoof wall back to prevent pressure. But if she wasn't done this week, we may have gotten pressure on it again as it grows down.

We have some heel growth coming in and a few positive looks. I only took pics of her feet without the casts since the casts have a way of bulging up at the toe and making the hoof look distorted anyway.

Front left:

I like the heel growth we are getting here. You can see we still have really rolled the toe back and rolled back on the quarters. The bulge at the toe is really not evident right now, but imagine it going up about halfway up the hoof. That's where we have good growth coming out. Now, if we can just get it to grow down.


I'm not concerned about the crack. I'm not concerned about the crack. I'm not concerned about the crack ... I have had to repeat this a million times to my husband the other day. She was sound with it up until more than a year ago, and she was lame with it. I don't care if it sticks around until Buttercup is in her 30s, so long as she is comfortable and sound. But maybe our new method will encourage it to grow out? I don't know. I'm not concerned with it. I am a little concerned as the hoof does not show very proper symmetrical balance at the cornet band. But as we progress, that will get better. One step at a time.

You can see on this view how wrapped under her heels were and how they are gravitating back toward the bulb. I'm actually pretty happy with this solar view. She is not quite symmetrical, but it is getting there. It is hard to tell from the pic, but she has some concavity (though not much) forming on the sides of the frog and at the apex of the frog. That's a good sign that blood flow is restored and her hoof is starting to rebuild.

Now for the right:


We weren't happy with this hoof going into the trim. The toe seems to be getting away from us, despite her looking pretty nice on the solar view. Her heel is also staying stubbornly wrapped after the quarters. But patience! Time and pressure will bring it around.


She's standing a little wonky in this photo, but this hoof has nice symmetry (especially compared to her left).


Now that's a solar view! We did end up rolling more of the toe hoof wall away after this pic was taken, however. This being the healthier of the two hooves, she exhibits more concavity here and from the last Xrays does have more sole depth. You can also see how her buttresses are starting to work their way back toward the heel bulb and lose that hard angle a few inches down where the heel used to be.

At this point and time, I wish I had a good solar of Buttercup's hooves when they were so badly underrun last year at around this time. Unwrapping the crushed heel and setting it back has taken some time. But we're progressing nicely. Hopefully it will only continue to progress as we are in this new phase of rehab.