And here’s the last bit where I finish thickening the wall and tidy things up a bit
Part 4 — rounding and thickening the wall, a fine edge will break out, so we round and thicken the wall, very muck like a brumbies hoof
Part three, this is important, don’t cut all the wall off, nature made the hoof wall to bear the load
Part 2 in trimming a barefoot horse
Just a short insight into feet maintenance. Now that horses don’t roam like they did in the wild, keeping your horses feet trimmed is important but often forgotten—- I’m the worst for this and I own all the tools!!!!
Please excuse the lack of OH&S!!!
This horse presented laminitic, diagnosed by the great equine team at Clermont vet centre, headed by Dr Caroline.
My job— fit shoes with welded in “frog plates”, the shoes to be set back to the white line to lessen the leverage load on the inflamed laminea, that hold the hoof wall in place, this horses feet are “ boxy” rectangular shaped which also contributes to loading on the laminea during break over.
His angles etc as determined by X-rays, were good so wedge heeled shoes were not needed.
An earlier post showed me doing the same, but I used leather shims to get a good fit over the frog
In this case I used dental putty which is quicker to use and to set up AND gets a more correct contact fit between the frog plate and frog.
Holes have been drilled into the frog plate allowing the putty to squeeze through and get a extra grip, the shoe is initially nailed down with just 2 nails, elastoplast wrapped around the hoof, to hold the putty in place as it sets, and the foot placed on the cement, the natural hoof to ground pressure squeezing out any excess.
The putty sets relatively quickly, and once set the shoe is nailed down properly and finished off.
Ps: thanks to Ange for your knowledge and input
