Hooves, and a possible abcess, uhg....

Yay! I spent 3 hours out in the barn yesterday with Easy and Mickey. I touched up Easys feet again its been almost 3 weeks since I trimmed her last and Meghan was complaining that she was a little trippy at the last drill practice, and we cant have that during drill! She was longer that I thought she would be, I only rasped her toes and heels a little though. These are 24 year old legs! Other than a few scars she has no lumps or bumps or stress breakdown of her legs, that is why she is still going at 24!!!

And her pretty front feet after I was done, she has always had bad quarters, straight up and down and they always break out, they are a lot better when I am good about keeping her feet up!! go figure LOL

She looks like an old moldy moth eaten horse right now LOL between all the sweat from being worked and shedding and her rain rot, well she is an old moldy moth eaten horse LOL She sheds in patches and there is not much hair under where she has shed yet, she has thin hair anyway, see just behind her elbow? thin hair, I brushed her all out and shedded her out more.

Grass? grass? grass? LOL I took her out and let her graze in the yard for 15-20 min, you would have though she was starving the way she was chomping down the grass!!

And the other old mare, I never thought she would have the problems she has been developing over the last year or so. Here are her embarrassingly long front feet, before I trimmed her. Dont really look that long do they? But she has tiny feet.

And this, she didnt want to put weight on her left hind for very long, hmmmm whats going on here? I didnt find a lump or bump or swelling from the hip down, a little tiny bit of heat maybe in the hoof, hmmm and she is toe pointing when she walks, only putting weight on the toe. Although she would put all her weight on it to rest her other foot for a short time.

Fat pot-bellied old mare LOL, she is 20 now.
You cant really see it in this pic but for some reason last spring her knees just blew up for no reason. She wasnt being ridden and just a pasture pony, she has bursas on both front knees now and is on and off lame on them. What to do with the lame fat old mare LOL I think that it is arthritis and age though. She is starting to show her age.

I was hoping this would show you more than it does, the front of the hoof is rounded, some signs she has been favoring the other foot for awhile. This mare is so stoic about pain, when I went to catch her, she didnt want to be caught, until I got grain LOL and she was not limping when I went out to catch her!

This is how much came off of her front hooves, I took about a quarter inch more from the toe, yes she was really long. A lot longer than I like to let her get .

Jessie with the toe clipping, dogs so love to eat the trimmings LOL.

These round withers are why she has always been difficult to fit with a saddle, she is really wide through the shoulder blades.

She is slicking off really nice though, I didnt get a lot of hair off of her.

The bottom of the right front after the initial trim, still some more work to do here. She has stayed nice and wide in the heels since I have kept her barefoot. She grows a lot of heel in the front, always has. I have been trimming her feet since she was 2. Geez thats a long time LOL 18 years Wow.

And all trimmed, see she does have little tiny feet, she wears a 00 hind shoe on the front.

Everyone always thinks she has cute pretty little feet, I much prefer Emmas big round thick walled feet than these, Mickey has thin walls and like I said grows a lot of heel on the front, although her back feet are pretty good.

This is that right hind again, see the flare on the outside, this tells me she has been really favoring the left hind, there was not much growth on this foot either, she let me pick it up and clean it out, but thats all I wanted her to do. You can see the toe is bulgy and polished too. I just wanted to show you all this so you know what to look for signs in your own horses. I didnt trim this foot at all, it wasnt even a half inch long. She wouldnt have let me hold it up that long anyway.

Now I have to figure out what to do about this sore foot, there is not enough heat or anything to think that break out of the abscess is imminent at all. The only thing I felt maybe was a little tiny bit of squishyness on the coronet on the inside, so I will keep a close watch on her, nature will have to take its course unfortunately. I will soak it and use some icthamol when it does some changes.

She is such a pretty black bay in the spring and she already has dapples, they didnt show up very well, she is always so shiny reflective when I take pics of her in the sun.

Grass! grass! grass! LOL





I shaved her bridle path, ears and legs too while I had her in.

And the aftermath of two horses exploding in the barn LOL



We will wait and watch on Mickeys foot.

And Tuesday we had a friend come down with his big pretty orange Kubota and till up the garden area! So now we have to plant!! I want a garden this year, I missed my Zuchs and squash and I want green beans and so much more LOL But that is another post!