10/07/2024
✈️PHCP's hoof care conference was quite transformative for me✈️
I have deeply considered the horses body for my own horses in relation to the growth of their feet. I however, have often narrowed my focus just to the feet and gait in my hoof care practice. Of course, mentioning glaring issues but not the more subtle observations. I tend to overwhelm people with information anyways, as you can see in this post here 😂.
Tension in the muscles, a lack of structural development, an imbalanced rider, a poor fitting saddle, nerve compression and vascular compression, riding a horse without structural development, and the horses metabolic state deeply affects the whole horse and their feet.
❤️The health and happiness of the horse at risk if we ignore the sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle signs.
💡 In my practice, I will be implementing more focus on metabolic health, and I will be paying attention to compensatory postures and patterns and making bodywork recommendations.
✍️ I cannot fit them all here, but are some other key take aways from the conference taken from speakers Dr. Jenny Hagan, Celeste Lazaris, Wendy Murdoch, Dr. Rendle, and Ida Hammer:
👉It is really fun to talk to strangers when they are fellow horse nerds.
👉There are toads in Chicago 🐸
❤️Horses are not motorcycles, you cannot just jump on and expect good results.
❤️Physical development is paramount, especially for the spine, thoracic outlet, and lumbosacral regions of the horse.
💡Laminitis is a collective failure of owner, veterinarian and podiatrist. It is preventable.
✍️Studys have shown that obese mares have profound differences in placental metabolism that are passed on to the foal. Fat mares produce foals with reduced metabolic function.
✍️Obese pregnant mares are at a heightened risk for developing laminitis.
💡A physically well developed horse has more confidence.
‼️In a published study- If insulin levels were less than 21.6, 6% of ponies developed laminitis, if insulin was 21.6-45.2, 22% percent developed laminitis, if insulin was > 45, 69% of them developed laminitis- a 2 in 3 risk. The ponies were fed a pasture diet and were studied over a 4-year period.
❤️🩹Aggressive horses are always in pain.
✏️High insulin levels induce laminitis. 90 % of laminitis has an endocrine cause.
✏️Thin horses can have elevated insulin levels, it is not just a condition of obese horses.
✏️50% of domestic horses are obese.
💚Take more pictures!
✏️Small increases in NSC have been shown to markedly increase insulin levels.
✏️Exercise has a 72 hour effect on reducing insulin resistance.
✏️Peroglide does not suppress progression of disease (PPID), but aims at managing clinical signs.
✏️Turning out late at night to early morning is the best way to restrict sugar pasture sugar intake.
✏️Horses show less aggressive behavior on a track system versus a strip grazing system.
✏️Obese pregnant mares have foals with higher incidents of OCD.
💡Compression at the cervicothoracic junction causes nerve impingement and blood flow impingement leading to unwanted behaviors and poor hoof quality.
✏️Fascia is composed of 90% nerve endings dictating proprioception and can stretch up to 200%
💡All myofascial nerve lines in the body feed into the poll and feet except one.
❤️🩹Gelding scars can be a cause of behavioral issues in the horse.
💡💡💡Don't just look at the foot, foot issues are not always foot issues ➡ look at the body.
💡The first year of a horse's life they have a 100% remodeling of tissues in the hoof. In comparison, an adult has as little as 10% per year. Foals must be trimmed and maintained early. Once the conformation fully develops, it can no longer be corrected.
✏️Hoof capsule shape mimics the shape of the coffin bone. So, if it was allowed to become conformationally misshaped as a foal, you are stuck with it. Body conformation cannot be influenced, just posture.
💚💚💚If you made it this far, you are a hoof nerd- let's be friends 😉
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