21/12/2024
Most of us in the Northern Rivers have been battling seedy toe for longer than we care to recall....I've come to the conclusion that labour is the key...its not easy and it's not quick and it's not cheap. Believe me, I'm not immune, many of my horses have been affected.
👉Pick , clean and sanitise twice a day if you possibly can. Daily at minimum.
👉Build them somewhere to stand out of the wet (I know it's hard) even if it's just for feed time.
👉Keep your trim cycle Short ...4 weeks is great, 5 if you must and I hate to say it but 6 is too long. If you can't get a farrier, learn as much as you can and do touchups yourself...so many resources online.
👉make sure you've got their diet right.
⭕️ “𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗔 𝗕𝗶𝘁 𝗢𝗳 𝗦𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘆 𝗧𝗼𝗲”
🪄 It's human nature to want a quick fix for everything, and in my line of work a quick fix to a lot of people looks like a silver bullet supplement that they add to their horse's feed which will resolve any and all health issues. Today, the issue I want to bring awareness to is White Line Disease, or "Seedy Toe" as it has been coined by many.
📩 I often receive messages from existing clients or potential clients who ask me questions such as "my horse has a little bit of separation that doesn't seem to resolve, what can I add to his diet to fix this?" I wouldn't be surprised if they think I am deflecting or being a smart-arse when my response looks like this:
• What is the whole diet (by weight) currently? Are you weighing all feed and supplements or "eye-balling" it?
• If you aren't an existing client, has the horse's diet been assessed and formulated by an equine nutritionist?
• How regular is the horse's trim cycle?
• Has the White Line Disease, Seedy Toe, or separation (whichever name you'd like to call it) been resected back to healthy tissue?
• Have radiographs of the hoof/hooves been taken?
• How regularly are you cleaning out the hooves between trims?
• What products are you using topically to treat the pathology and how often?
• Does the horse have a clean and dry area to stand in if the weather has been particularly unfavourable?
⚙️ I don't really mind how my response is perceived, because if I am truly going to be of any help, I need to know if there are gaps in the current management or diet of the horse before offering further advice. I genuinely care, but I care with 110% commitment to the problem at hand and rarely are quick fixes an option if the disease is persistent and hard to eliminate.
❗️Truth be told, White Line Disease scares me. It scares me because I look at images of cadavers (horses who have been euthanised and donated to research in this case) such as the ones below and it becomes very apparent, very quickly, just how far this disease can track if it is not treated aggressively and from multiple angles.
💬 "Just a bit of separation..." or "Just a little hole in the toe..."
🐴 Well, the "just a bit" in these photos has tracked so far that it has impacted P3. Can you imagine how compromised the sensitive laminae and hoof capsule becomes when diseased tissue makes it all the way to the pedal bone? Do you know what inflamed or damaged laminae is technically called? Laminitis. Do you know what a rotated or dropped pedal bone is called? Founder.
☝🏼 Fun fact... Laminitis and Founder are not the same thing. You can have a horse with Laminitis (inflammation of the laminar structures) and without Founder, but you cannot have a horse with Founder (rotation or sinking of the pedal/coffin bone) without also having Laminitis.
🖼️ Where am I going with all of this? Well, I take responsibility for managing your horse's dietary intake and supplementation as best as I possibly can with the information available, but I cannot prevent or cure your horse's White Line Disease if the whole picture isn't addressed.
🦠 I might ruffle some feathers here, but if you or your farrier/trimmer are not resecting the infected hoof back to healthy tissue, I almost see zero point in trying anything else. The offending bacteria is anaerobic, which means it thrives in deep, dark, dirty crevices where oxygen cannot get to with ease. By opening up and resecting the diseased tissue, not only are you stopping the pathology from tracking further, but you are preventing reinfection by keeping the area exposed to oxygen and easily treated with topical products.
🐎 Please, resect the hoof. You have no idea how far the disease has tracked or what structures are involved until you get to healthy tissue. Sometimes it all cannot be achieved in one go, but this is where you need to be working closely with an experienced hoof care professional to get on top of the issue, and then involve your equine nutritionist for dietary management and your veterinarian for radiographs if necessary.
🥴 It hits a nerve when a farrier/trimmer refuses to resect White Line Disease but then tells the client to add Biotin to the diet as if it will resolve the problem overnight. Biotin is important, yes, but if the horse is deficient in Biotin then their diet isn't balanced to begin with OR their hindgut (where B vitamins such as Biotin are synthesised during microbial fermentation) is not operating how it should be.
🗓️ And lastly, it can take anywhere from 6 to 12 months to grow out an entirely new hoof capsule, depending on factors such as diet, environment, movement, and trim cycle. Even if I could concoct the world's best hoof-saving, pathology-preventing supplement, it would take literal months for the benefits to be seen in the hooves and by then (if the disease hasn't been resected and aggressively treated) P3 could very well be involved. Seedy Toe is not a joke.
🔄 Please, feel welcome to share this article around if you wish to do so. I would like to give special thanks to Lindsey Field from The study of the equine hoof for granting me permission to use her research photographs for the purpose of bringing awareness to an issue that is often downplayed.
