AMW Equine Services, LLC

11/10/2024

If you’re new here you may not know…

I served 4.5 years in the United States Marines Corps. I had the pleasure of also serving in the Marines with my two sisters.

So today November 10th holds something special to us Devil Dogs as it is the day the Marines Corps was founded in Tun Tavern. .

Once a Marine, Always a Marines

So today and tomorrow holds a very special place for me.

Happy Birthday to my Fellow Marines!!!

11/09/2024

AMW Equine officially welcomed home Leela aka Cypher Spicemyster.

She is settling in beautifully with Freckles being the best babysitter anyone could ask for.

We are so excited to see this little filly grow and develop into herself.

Cyphers Dun On Fire

11/09/2024

Welcome to the family Leela.

Check out Augusta Mae Wott’s post.

11/07/2024

Game changer!!!!

11/07/2024

Anyone else have an old man that gets to kinda do what he wants?

Freckles has earned it.

Including trying to open the treat bag…thankfully not successful. But, he got plenty of treats with his stretches tonight.

11/04/2024

I remember once reading that true collection is a gift from the horse.

I truly didn’t understand this until recently.

That moment… that very moment ….when it’s given….. it’s a feeling like no other.

In that moment ….. you realize you can’t force it because true collection truly is a gift.

You can help the horse find it and give them all the pieces, but it’s truly up to the horse to give it to you.

But …. the true question is have you become the rider that truly deserves the gift?

11/04/2024

Mills has a way with words and bringing to words exactly why I do certain things in my trims and hoofcare work.

ONE BAD APPLE SPOILS THE WHOLE BUNCH…

I have people ask me time and time again WHY I dress the foot, why I don’t just deal with distortion at the ground surface…

Well, first of all, I’m obviously not doing it just for the heck of it. A set-up trim addressing distortion is a LOT of work. It would be so much easier to just work from the bottom.

It’s also not thrifty… do you know how many rasps I go through? 🤦‍♀️

The real answer is, one, no matter how well things are functioning at the ground surface the day of the trim, within a week, distorted tubules are going to be on the ground again, leveraging the capsule.

This is why many trimmers have to trim on such short cycles, and this is why trimmers who trim every week or so, or who have horses on a track system, CAN make progress, albeit over months and years. I know this because I used to trim exactly like that.

ONE DISTORTED TUBULE DISTORTS THE WHOLE BUNCH…
Two, all tubules are bound to each other and influence each other, so if a cluster of tubules at the toe is distorted, it will pull every tubule in the capsule in that direction as well, until we sever the connection, and how we do that is by dressing the foot and disconnecting the distorted tubules from new growth.

WHAT ABOUT ADAPTIVE ASYMMETRY?
An educated farrier can tell the difference between capsular distortion and natural capsular asymmetry, so I’m not even going to address that.
The hoof capsule does not ‘adapt’ once the coffin bone has stopped growing, but it can distort.

And for those who say you can’t ‘read’ the foot if you dress the wall, that’s not true…
We can read pigmentation to see where dressing has happened in the past, and evaluate distortion that way, we can see color changes due to serum leaking, we can see bruising, and we can judge distortion by the white line junction, wall thickness, and tubule angle at the ground surface.

CAN YOU GET AWAY WITH LEAVING DISTORTION?

Absolutely. For a while.

But keep in mind the collapse of the solar vault is a direct result of unaddressed capsular distortion.

Keep in mind damage over the long-term is insidious, and by the time we realize joint or soft tissue damage is occurring, it may be too late.

A capsule may hold itself together, flaws and all, until it quite literally folds in on itself and we see a quarter crack or the like ‘spring out of nowhere.’

The cry to ‘never dress the wall’ or ‘never trim the frog’ has probably lamed more horses than we’d care to know…

“But dressing the foot weakens the capsule.”

A distorted capsule is already weak, it’s already compromised.

Dressing the foot merely weakens the connection between distorted and healthy new tubules.

Yes, you may see crumbling until new growth hits the ground, but rest assured, it’s temporary, and the lesser of two evils.

A full thickness distorted wall isn’t strong, it’s just strongly sabotaging new growth.

(I do want to add, at the ground surface, I’m still leaving wall height and not going past what I would take with a mustang roll, and once the distortion is grown out, my mustang roll replaces top dressing…)

11/03/2024

This is showing the front of the navicular bone. The part by my index finger is the joint surface that it forms with the coffin bone.

If you have a navicular bone in your hand, you can work out which way up it goes by that part. I call it “the smile”.
Find the smile and place it at the top.

Below the smile is an indentation running across the whole bone. The impar ligament is present there and it attached the navicular bone to the coffin bone.

The impar ligament can feel pain per my chats with Dr Sue Dyson. It’s a common site for stress and strain.

Then there are those holes. The big ones can be big or small and there can be many holes or not many. The holes contain cells that create synovial fluid. The fluid for the joint.

Blood vessels also run through the smaller holes.

All horses are different. Historically the research suggested bigger deeper holes with certain shapes showed pathology in the bone but now we know it’s not true.

The part where my thumb is, is where the deep digital flexor tendon runs.

I find them fascinating and each one tells me a story of the horses life, or more correctly, the biomechanical pressures put on different parts of the bone, or ligament insertion damage, or in balance in the foot.

The problem is on X-ray we may find navicular bone changes but unless it’s backed up with the clinical presentation and nerve blocks we are chasing a diagnosis. There are so many changes see in the bone that have little to no effect on soundness.

As my farrier mate said -‘ don’t tell the horse what was seen on X-ray’.

My showcase of my hoof and whole horse dissections:
http://www.patreon.com/hoofstudies

Shop my website: https://hoofstudies.com

Thank you to my sponsors❤️

Holistic Equine:
https://www.holisticequine.co.uk/

Farrier Speciality products- https://fsphorse.com

Catherine Seingry - https://catherineseingry-equiholistique.fr

The Donkey farrier
http://www.donkeyhooves.com

Melissa La Flamme - https://www.espacechevalmoderne.com

Lighthoof Mud Control Grids Fix Your Muddy Horse Paddocks Forever - https://www.lighthoof.com

Hoof Doctor/Equine one - https://equine.one, https://hoofdoctor.ca

Heike Veit
http://www.gesundehufe.ch/

Areion Academy
https://areion.co.uk/

11/03/2024

Artist:ColorMeHappii

10/30/2024

Clients can either make or break you.

Good clients remind you on a daily why you chose a profession. Bad clients remind you on a daily what else you could be doing with your life.

Good clients make the long days go by quick. Bad clients make the long days longer and more tiring then they were.

Good clients breathe life back into your tired soul. Bad clients suck the soul and life right out of you.

Good clients respect your time. Bad clients take more and expect more of your time.

Good clients respect that you are human. Bad clients expect you to be god.

Good clients are worth more than they will ever realize. Bad clients think they are the most important every single time of day.

Good clients are what have kept me from closing the door. Bad clients remind me that I should always have an escape plan.

Today I am grateful for the good clients. Especially the ones that have been with me from the very beginning. They are what keeps me getting up and going out to work.

10/26/2024

Just a heads up Augusta shouldn't be left alone to do computer stuff late at night.

She may have toggled something on that ran old appointment reminders. If you received one please just ignore it.

Lesson is don't toggle things to published with out double checking things, and don't do it at 11 pm at night.

10/23/2024

Heads up!!! We are back from Indy and Dayton.

The next few days are quiet days here at AMW Equine.

We’re going to be playing catch up with computer work and scheduling tomorrow.

Friday is local appointments quick in the morning. Then, time off the rest of the afternoon.

Saturday I will be heading to Congress to enjoy some company of friends, and watch Zane and Mercedes run. To see what goodies Congress has to offer this year.

Sunday and Monday are personal days.

Messages will be answered on work days but anything received Saturday through Monday will be answered on Tuesday.

10/22/2024

We would like to wish the amazing Nikki Serrick a Happy Birthday!!!

Being able to travel for continuing education or to clients wouldn’t be possible with out her farm sitting.

She holds down the fort back at home while I’m away. She handles everything just like they were her own. I am beyond grateful to have a friend who supports me so I can continue what I do without worrying about my own herd.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NIKKI!!!

10/22/2024

Oof! Was just telling someone about this!

This was several years ago.

Staying in front of the front legs, with your head above the bellyline, usually works… until it doesn’t!

He brushed my collarbone, and didn’t even leave a mark, but sent me flying.

I’ve barely had any injuries over the years, in spite of working with a lot of problem horses, and keeping a couple hundred head on my books back in the day (amateur numbers compared to a lot of farriers).

The ones I had were mild and occasional…

Getting my feet stepped on, getting kicked in the calf a few times, a concussion from a handler standing on the wrong side of a fractious horse, etc.

The idea is to establish good habits and keep track of thresholds to keep ourselves safe, but when there’s physical cause behind ‘behavioral issues,’ it can indeed be ‘unpredictable.’

I’m willing to bet that every ‘unpredictable’ behavior probably has a physical origin.

I’m not sure what was wrong with this guy, because he wasn’t extensively vetted. He had quite a bit of trembling in his hind and front end, so possibly neurological.

He carried the mental and physical scars from rope burn across the majority of his body, even 6 months later.

Sometimes from my little bubble, I forget how bad it is out there for horses.

I’d share the pictures, but they’re pretty graphic and upsetting.

I did eventually end up getting his feet trimmed, but decided the best place for him was sanctuary or being PTS.

10/20/2024

I got to experience something today I’ve wanted to for awhile.

I always feel weird when I say I’m a farrier but I don’t do metal. I feel like an imposter but what the last year has taught me is we as farriers have our own specialities and our strengths. Mine is glueing and composites …. Others metals.

I have a profound respect for those who
Shape and make their own shoes. It’s hard and an art. It’s hard one the body.

So today at renn faire I took the Railroad Nail challenge. Didn’t meet it of getting to the proper thickness but the shape was there. Shoulders and hands gave out pounding that quick and already being exhausted.

The blacksmith assisting was a farrier also and we swapped stories and laughed. As we finished the knife.

I really enjoyed it, but it also made me
appreciate I don’t do this everyday. It made appreciate those who do.

Maybe….just maybe…. I’ll step up
to the anvil to shape metal into other things because it was a very therapeutic.

Also I did it with a corset on provided some nice back support.