Healing Misty - no hoof no horse?

Misty's back feet, while not laminitic, have problems too.  Her heels are quite underrun and her foot was overall very overgrown. 

While trimming them, I found evidence of old bruising in the heels.  She seems comfortable on them though.  I will continue to keep her heels rasped back to the frog and shorten the toe in an effort to change her angles and encourage the heel to grow more down rather than forward.

After being comfortable for a few days on her fronts after her big trim, Misty became uncomfortable again.  I was decreaing her bute dose, so wondered if it had anything to do with that, but bumping the dose back up, did not make any difference.  At the same time, I began to notice a bump over both coronary bands above the toe.  She was landing exaggeratingly heel first while slowly walking.  I suspected bilateral abscesses.  She was so sensitive over the coronary band that she would not let me soak her feet, so I just let her go.

It took a week, but she finally burst abscesses out of both coronary bands.  They were nasty.  The right front foot was much worse than the left - abscess was much bigger and pussy.

I expected her to be more comfortable after the abscesses finally burst, and she wasn't really getting there, so I decided perhaps I needed to work on getting her toe more parallel with the coffin bone inside.  It was also time to lower her heels again.  They were growing pretty fast.  It had only been about 2 weeks since I did her first major trim.

I lowered her heels, then started working on her toe and found a nasty black pocket in her hoof wall at the quarter.  I expected that this all communicated with the coronary band  at the toe.

I looked more closely at the bottom of her foot and found a flat that was soft and has some black oozy stuff under it.  I grabbed the flap with the hoof knife and ended up peeling away the whole sole on that outside hoof, exposing very soft grayish material - the material put out but lamina trying to cover themselves and produce new sole.  I was millimeters from the coffin bone.  At the time, my first thought was I was going to have to just euthanize her.

Thankfully, a little bit of hoof wall was still attached (though loosely) which kept her weight off that super soft material which was also quite sensitive.  After I watched her walk around on that foot, I realized she was no more tender than before, so I decided to see what would happen.  Afterall, if I quit now, neither of us would be benefiting.  Dealing with hoof abscesses sure is discouraging though.  Misty's hoof abscesses are huge.

I retook radiographs and the extensive nature of the abscesses could be seen. 

After exposing that soft tissue, I soaked her feet in iodine water for an hour. 

I had to do nerve blocks to make her feet less sensitive in order for her to leave her feet in the soaking water.  Then I booted her in softride boots with iodine soaked guaze covering the areas where her absesses were draining and over that soft sole. 

She drained for several days at the toe on the left foot (where I had opened up an abscess pocket that communicated inside when I trimmed) and at the coronary band on the right foot.  She does lay down a lot, but also is up and fairly mobile often.  And, she has gained a little bit of weight in the short time I've had her.  She is still bony, but is losing the sharpness.

Healing Misty - Jake's new best friend

Pictures of Misty in the round pen. She really loves Jake, the pony, since they live in neighboring pens, so I turn them out together. 


These pictures are from the time of the previous post, just a few days after her first big trim.  I was trying to get my video to load, but I can't figure out how to get it off my phone and onto blogger.  So you'll have to make due with pictures.

The following pictures just show how hard life has been for her in the past.  

She laid down a lot because her feet hurt and wore the hair off her elbows, her hindquarters, and developed a fluidy filled sac to cushion her sternum.  The ground was hard at her previous place.  She also has pin-firing scars on her right hind leg.  She raced very successfully all last year.

She also has a small hernia...nothing that will hurt her most likely, but could be passed on if she were to be bred...not that the racing folks probably consider a hernia when breeding a fast horse.

This is a picture of her racing last year.  She is number 4.  It's just a sad story all around.  This horse with great potential ended 2013 racing all washed up (probably injured or showing lameness if the pin firing is any clue), then was sold to a working family who was excited about their new fast cart horse, then she foundered after just a few times out on the road.  Sounds like there was just too much stress at the end of the year there for her, and it all may likely have lead to the severe founder event.  And then without appropriate management, she could not heal.  I'm glad she has had these good days at least and we'll see what her future holds.

Healing Misty - first trim

After Misty had been here for a few days on 2 grams of bute twice a day and housed 24/7 on deep sand, I did her first big trim. I had trimmed about 1.5 inches off her toe out front and lowered her heels a week before while she was still at her previous owners.  Now, based on having seen radiographs I took off as much as I dared off the front of her toes. The goal is to improve her break over and get rid of the deformed hoof capsule to prevent further deformation.

I took radiographs after her trim, and while much improved, there is still a lot of material in front of her coffin bone.  Her angles are hard to assess because she was variably weighting her feet during rads, and I wanted to take them quick and not make her stand on a block for very long.  The best news is that she actually has some sole depth!  We have something to build on!

I shot really quick rads of the solar margin of her coffin bone (totally rough because I did not take the time to clean the sand out or pack the grooves with playdoh (because of all the sand and how painful she was standing on one foot).  It is really hard to see, but the solar margin of the coffin bone at the tip is eaten away.  At one point she had some pretty significant pedal osteitis.  I don't think it is active right now though.  It has a sclerotic rim and seems well defined.  That bone will never come back.  There are also pockets at the quarters where the hoof wall is not connected to the underlying tissue.  These feet are a disaster.

The next day, I took her out for a walk and I could not believe how good she was moving!  She looked almost normal while walking through my round pen, striding out and looking comfortable.  While standing, she still shifts from one foot to another constantly, but the walking comfort is huge.  Before we got to this point, Misty wasn't really rocking back on her haunches, but reluctant to move and carefully setting a hoof down while quickly walking up with her hind feet to support herself.  So, this striding out and looking seriously almost normal is amazing!



While her improvement is wonderful, it is only the start. She still needs to grow a whole new hoof, if even possible. Previous growth rings show that she is growing very little at the toe, and quite a bit at the heel.  I will have to continue to keep the heel rasped down as new growth comes in.  And she will continue to be at risk for abscesses.  She has previous evidence of blowing an abscess out of a heel on each hoof, and out the top of the coronary band on one.

Healing Misty

Misty's story will be an interesting, and potentially heartbreaking one. I can't tell you much about her past, but I can say that she is a 4 year old Standardbred mare that foundered very badly back in January. She has not been managed appropriately since then and her feet may be irrepairable. But her stoic nature, and sweet eyes made me give her a second chance. I am her proud/scared/worried new owner. This story is just beginning again for Misty, and it may yet be even more heartbreaking than it has already. She may remain uncomfortable and painful, or even become worse, and if that happens, I am prepared to help her pass on peacefully. But in the meantime, we will be doing our best to get her comfortable, keep her feet trimmed correctly, and encourage new hoof growth. Cross your fingers...we need the luck.

Misty upon arriving at my house. She is wearing the styrofoam pads I had asked her previous owners to use instead of shoes, which had been nailed on the bottom of her misshapen hooves just to try to get her sole off the ground. However, the styrofoam was crushed flat and not doing any good. While still at her previous owners, I had removed some of her super long curled up toe and lowered her heels, but was afraid to do too much without radiographs, which we had not done at that time. Then applied the pads...but the pads have to be layered on and replaced every time they become crushed down.

The first changes I made now that Misty is at my house: 1) House her in deep sand (initially was about 6 inches deep of dry sand). 2) Keep the wraps off and give her rotten feet a chance to dry out. 3) Start her on antiinflammatory medications - phenylbutazone.  4) Offer all the free choice grass hay she can eat, 5) Start a complete mineral/vitamin supplement that will support healthy hoof growth. 

Her toe is growing very slowly compared to her heels, if at all, and the deformed hoof capsule is contributing to further deformation.

She has also blown at least 3 abscesses at some time in the recent past on her two front feet, and could potentially blow more. I'm hoping she just keeps the majority of her hoof capsule intact. I worry about this huge crack at her heel and I'm hoping it doesn't extend forward any further, or pinch new growing tissues.

She also has a very convex sole and the sole just in front of the frog is pushed out the most. This makes her very uncomfortable on hard surfaces.

These are the quick rads I shot through her wraps and pads while still at her previous owners (right before I took her home) because we were all curious what was going on inside there.

Obviously there is rotation and sinking of the coffin bone, with an excessively curved dorsal hoof wall, but not much else can be assumed because there is tape and a pad also in the view.

This journey with Misty is just beginning, but I will continue to post about our progress (or lack thereof).  It may be a year or two in the making (time to grow a new hoof), or it may be over in a few months.  It all depends on her comfort.

Spring, back to normal

I've been pretty successful at not getting too far behind on trimming my horses now.  It feels good.  Right now, Kachina is due, but if I get even a week behind, she's not really going too long since I'm keeping on a 6 week schedule right now.  I haven't taken any recent pictures of the horses.  Our spring has been interesting.  After coming so early and really getting jumpstarted with our high 70 degree weather in mid March, it has totally slowed down.  The weather went back to a much more seasonal temperature, with some cool days and even frosts at night thrown in.  All completely normal.  The trees that were on the verge of leafing out just hung there for the last several weeks.  For 3 weeks now, I keep coming home expecting to see the new daffodils I planted under our business's sign to be flowering, but they haven't yet!  For that whole 3 weeks, they've been up with buds on, but they are taking their time.  I think they might have at least one flower tomorrow finally.

I've been trying to have "balance" which means riding horse once in a while, but once again, that has been extremely difficult.  This has been an extremely busy semester at school with exam after exam and many on Mondays and Tuesdays (which means I'm studying on weekends).  All this means that I haven't done anything with Griffin in over a month (aside from trims).  I rode Cody 2 weeks ago on a wonderful ride and I rode Chico today.  My ride with Chico was really nice, but I did get bucked off!  It was pretty warm today (65) and he's fat and out of shape.  He got sick of cantering (really we hadn't been cantering that much, since I didn't want to work him too hard), and the rascal decided he'd had enough and bucked me off.  It wasn't terribly hard bucking, but I cannot ride a bucking horse, so I came right off, landing on my feet then falling onto my butt.  I had a tight hold on the reins, determined not to let him get loose from me and run home.  I was successful, but I got rope burn for it.  I was so glad I'd ridden with my halter and lead rope, because I was able to immediately get to working him HARD on the ground.  He was huffing and puffing.  I got back on and we went right back over the spot where he'd bucked cantering again.  He didn't try anything this time.  I continued on asking him to trot and or canter, then stop immediately to a whoa and one-rein stop, just to remind him that I can stop him whenever I want.  Then we cantered circles in the field before I dropped the reins on his neck and relaxed and we walked home.  He was pooped after that.  Really, aside from the buck, he was a good boy.  His canter circles were really quite nice.  That was only the third time he's bucked me off, EVER and he's never once gotten away from me and been able to run home.  I don't think he has an issue with bucking, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't see it as a solution to solving what he doesn't like about what we are doing.  So I'm not worried about it.  But I was sure MAD when he tried it today!

So, no recent horse pictures, but here are a bunch from around our farm and house.  Enjoy!

One of our newest calves was born to this brand-new momma.  She's a pretty good momma.

I think this calf is so cute...but I think all the newborn calves are cute.  I think I like her white blaze.

My tulips are up and the phlox is flowering.  I love spring.

Kitty sees something in the grass.  What could it be?

Our first toad of the year!  My little helper wanted to pick it up, but it kept jumping away.  At first she got frustrated, but then she started laughing and squealing when his jumping startled her.

More trimming

It's been a busy last couple of weeks.  Several exams, including one yesterday and one today, which means that I was pretty busy studying this weekend.  I really dislike studying on the weekends since that is my only time at home with family and animals, but sometimes it has to be done!  Even so, I did trim a couple horses and worked with Griffin a bit.  And I realized that I have not posted many pictures recently so I took some as I walked through the pasture...not super exciting, but better than nothing!  The first picture is Cody, my oldest mare and most dominant horse in my herd.  The picture below is her hooves which are at 6 weeks of growth, meaning she was due for a trim (and got trimmed on Sunday).

Cody is one of those horses that I think have feet that are too small for the size of her body, given that she weighs about 200-400 lbs more than any of my other horses and their feet are the same size as hers.  In fact, Catlow's feet are BIGGER than Cody's and Catlow is definitely about 300lb less than Cody.  She also has chronic thrush that I've never been able to get rid of (but not too sore from it), and has thin soles and has always been ouchy on hard gravel.

I caught Catlow snoozing at one point as I walked through the pasture.  She was so cute.  Her eyes were closed and everything.  She woke up when I walked past, but lay still as I patted her on the head.

Catlow's feet are only a couple weeks out from having been trimmed, so she still looks nice and tight.  Chico's feet are last and he was trimmed at the same time as Catlow.  I love horse feet.

The other horse that was trimmed this weekend was Griffin.  He was long overdue.  My neighbor was kind enough to sharpen my tools for me and then hold Griffin while I trimmed him up over at their place.  He was pretty good, except for not really being excited about standing still to let me trim his hinds.  It took some consistent following him and asking for his hoof back before he stood and relaxed.  It also took some time to get used to letting my neighbor handle him.  Griffin's feet tend to spread out when they get long like platters, and not in a good way...they get too shallow in the sole and he gets significant separation of the white line with the leverage produced by the long hoof wall.  So when I trim them the right length, his soles have very little concavity.  I've made a promise to him and myself that I am going to keep up with him and trim him every 6 weeks or less with the goal of tightening up his white line and building some better sole concavity.  He has thin soles too, although they are not as ouchy as Cody's.