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"Erick" is a
Morgan stallion that has had excessive flaring to his front feet. This can
be caused by various ways. The main point is that the horse has gone
unshod for a period of time and has been in situations that allowed the problem
to begin and then to progress to the point that the feet have become greatly out
of shape. While it is unsightly it is also detrimental to the proper
function and support of the feet themselves.
This is
how Erick's feet looked right after I removed the left front shoe.
Although the flaring is quite pronounced, it has been corrected a great deal
over the last six months. The overall shape of the feet are more belled
out then normal. There should be some belling out of the foot; that is to
say, that the foot should be anywhere from 3/4 to 1 inch wider (on each side of
the foot) at the ground bearing surface (where the shoe is attached to the foot)
than the shape and size of the hairline. If you take a close look at the
shape of the feet you will notice that the foot is being contained from our
previous work and a little more than 1/2 way down the spreading out or belling
becomes much more greater than normal. What we have done is exactly what
we are going to explain here. It is a process that is somewhat time
consuming, but it is a program that allows the horse to continue to be used and
cause no down time for the horse.
This
picture shows the root of the problem and what is the main reason behind the
overall flaring problem. What I have done is to clean out the areas at the
quarter and heel area of the foot of all dirt. For it has been the dirt
that has caused the foot to spread in the fashion that it has. This can be
quite deep at first and to truly contain the problem, that is to prevent it from
becoming any worse -- it has to be contained if not stopped all together.
But, this can be a bit of a problem since the horse's foot is always in contact
with the dirt. What we have to do is keep any additional dirt from getting
into the effected area of the foot. For as more and more dirt is compacted
into the effected area, the higher it works up the foot and greatest very wide
flaring.
This has
been the greatest deterrent of dirt that I have been able to find.
Household acrylic caulking. This is the type that is clear and comes in
the standard caulking tubes and is used with the caulking gun. This takes
time to cure or dry and needs to be added just before the shoe is placed on the
foot. Once that the caulking is placed in the open cavity DO NOT PUT THE
FOOT DOWN! The whole concept here is to keep any additional dirt from
entering into the cleaned out cavity. I have found that the fastest way to
control the flaring of the foot is to eliminate the dirt (the main cause) and to
keep shoes on, these two acting together contain the foot. Keeping the
foot contained stops it from spreading.
This is
the foot with the shoe attached. In most cases the acrylic caulking will
never be noticed and the shoe will allow the caulking to cure and at the same
time giving it some additional area to attach itself. This will help
assure that it will not work loose during the normal shoeing cycle.
You can
see that additional problems come with this particular situation. As the
flair gets wider it effect the degree of the heel (also referred to as the
angle). Usually one of the heels is effected more than the other.
This is also referred to as an "Underslung Heel" problem. If you
look close at the picture you will notice that the heel that is at the right
hand side of the picture (the outside heel) has more shoe sticking out than the
other heel (the inside heel). This is done to compensate for the uneven
heel strike that is caused by the changing of the heels.
I have
reused this photo to explain to you that even though the one heel of the shoe,
the one to the right hand side of the photo (the outside heel) has more heel
extended out past the actual end of the foot -- the length of shoe at the back
of the foot is equal at both heels. This is necessary to start the foot as
well as the entire leg to start to work correctly. Even heel strike will
do more for blood flow through the entire foot and it is blood flow that will
start the process in motion. Blood flow is what nourishes the foot and it
is nourishment that the foot needs to grow. The faster that we can grow
out the foot the sooner the problem will be corrected. Our main concern is
to keep the horse active and without pain.
This
picture shows the foot once that the shoe has been attached and the proper
amount of foot has been "dressed down" or removed. For it is
necessary to remove as much of the excessive flared area as possible, but not to
much to weaken the integrity of the hoof wall. The weakened hoof wall will
not properly support the weight of the horse and will break down or collapse
with the weight and pressure of the horse. The using of the acrylic
caulking also adds some strength to the hoof wall.
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