STEVE arrived relatively on time.
I say “relatively” because the appointment
time given by his wife, who schedules his appointments, was for “about 1:00
pm”.
He was short, had a grey mustache
and long curly beard.
He was polite,
intelligent, and explained things as he went.
AND… he is very kind and patient with the horses.
Roger was a royal jackass the entire time he
was being worked on.
He was slinging his
nose around, and
winging his back feet
as if to say “If you can catch it, you can trim it.”
STEVE arrived with MIKE, a much younger, nice
looking man in his early- to mid-twenties.
He was also kind and patient.
Roger was first out. Poor trimming by THE KID had Roger
toeing out horribly, which according to STEVE, was due to unbalanced trimming
that led to mid-alignment. STEVE started
with the fronts. To my surprise, he
never touched the nippers. He used the
rasp to alter the balance of Roger’s front feet. During the process, he talked about what he
was doing and why. He told me that he
was making tiny changes and that recovery was a slow process. STEVE and MIKE took their time, discussed in
detail each hoof, each angle, what, why, etc.
He would trim, have me walk Roger, shave a little here or there, watch Roger
walk, and finally released me to put him away.
Second out was Texas Chili.
Chili is not mine, but he is safe to turn out with the girls, Angel and
Tally. Chili had platter feet, flared on
the sides. STEVE told me that the reason
this was happening was because THE KID had removed the living sole, and that
the walls were what was supporting Chili’s weight. AND… this was not a good thing for the
horse. The sole, frog, and walls need to
be in balance to each other and work together to function properly. If one or two things are out of balance, it
will be visible in how the rest of the hoof looks and behaves. Chili also had a problem that most people
call “Under-run Heels” or “Under-slung heels”, which is caused, ultimately, by
crushed heels that are unable to support the weight of the horse. Combine this with a careless farrier, a long
toe, and a thin sole (either naturally or farrier-induced) and you get an
under-run heel. To correct this, STEVE
trimmed the walls back so that the sole took more of the weight, and rasped off
the flares. After walking Chili walk, he
declared the horse done.
By now, I was seeing a pattern with STEVE. He nipped very little, and had not yet pulled
out the knife. When I asked him about
it, he told me this: “The sole helps to support the weight of the horse by
working in tandem with the walls. If you
whittle that out of there, then you are left with just the walls, which will
separate and flare. The frog will shed
twice per year. Since it is between the
heels, it is the shock absorber. Take
that away, and now the heel takes all the impact. Over time, you will have a horse that is
navicular. Besides, there IS good
bacteria on the bottom of their feet, not unlike the surface of your skin. Get the bacteria out of balance and instead
of fighting thrush, you are now promoting it.
BING!!! THAT is where
the thrush is coming from! Every single
farrier I had used before STEVE had trimmed the frog. ALL OF THEM!
That was the first thing they did.
Clean the hoof, trim the frog, whittle the sole, and go to nipping the
hoof wall length off.
Next out was Tally.
She was long, but had never been trimmed by THE KID. STEVE did some rasping and shaping and that
was it. Last out was Angel.
Ah… Angel…special in so many ways. Her hind feet are normal. Her fronts are a mess! She is club-footed on the right. Her left is so over-sized that it looks like
it came from another horse. I’ve had one
or two farriers in the past lop off the heel to put her on the same angle as
the other front, rather than “trimming to the hoof”. The result has always been two weeks of
lameness. Imagine slowly, over time,
growing a high heel and walking around on it every day. Then all at once, you switch to a flat
shoe. You are going to hurt. The reason is because Angel’s shoulders grew
slowly off balance. Then in one trim,
the right shoulder dropped. She was sore
in the shoulder, not the hoof. So I
always talked to the farrier, asking them to NOT remove the heel.
I was distracted and when I pulled my head out of my ass,
the heel on Angel’s club foot had been nipped off. STEVE apparently heard my gasp. He set her foot down and came around to talk
to me. He explained in detail what he
had done, why he had done it, and what the end result would be. He had indeed, trimmed off the heel. However, the bottom of her foot was not
flat. He had a bit of a “rocker” in
there, with the hoof higher across the middle and shorter on the heel and
toe. He said that this would allow her
heel to hit first, rather than the forward third of her hoof, which it had been
doing. It would put pressure in a
different area, which would cause the hoof to grow normally, which would
correct the club foot and in a year, it would look normal. He pointed out, using calibers, the coronet
band was the same on both feet…identical.
The growth came out of the coronet band normally, then was clubbed. He showed me that the measurements on both
feet, from the coronet band down the hoof wall about ¼ of an inch, were
completely identical.
He told me that he thought that she had been born with
completely normal feet, and that from the get-go, bad trimming followed by bad
trimming, had shaped her feet to what they are today. He said he also knew how to correct it. The bigger foot, on the left, was bearing
more weight, therefore it had spread out and become enlarged. STEVE told me that he had corrected hundreds
of clubbed feet and asked me to trust him.
I stood there scowling and processing what he told me, then said “If my
mare can walk in the morning without being three-legged lame, you got a deal.” He did warn me that in six months, as the
newer, wider hoof grew out, it would be very noticeable and not to panic. It made sense so I promised not to. I took pictures so I can show the progression
a year from now. By the way, Angel is
still sound.
At this point, I would like to address the frog and thrush
and STEVE. Everyone knows that you can
get thrush in damp environments, right?
The fungus is in the ground and if it takes hold in the foot, it’s hard
to get rid of. STEVE was a Registered
Nurse for twenty years before switching over to being a farrier. He knows about physiology, and germs, and has
educated himself on not only HOW the hoof works, but WHY it does what it does.
Have you ever put on a latex glove and worn it for a
while? What happens to your hand? It sweats, right? Well, that dirty hard hoof, sole, and frog
will “sweat” also. WHO KNEW??? So the thrush takes hold in the newly cleaned
and carved frog, which has been stripped of the beneficial bacteria, then the
horse steps in mud or poo which “protects” the growing thrush. And with no beneficial bacteria to help fight
it, it flourishes. The perfect hoof will
clean itself, with “new” dirt coming in at the toes, and “flushing” out the
back between the heel bars. By leaving
the frog to slough naturally, it protects the living frog and the beneficial
bacteria. And as I stated before, I have sand. I live in the desert. The horses are never locked in a stall. I simply do not have a ground moisture
problem.
Angel has ALWAYS had thrush to some degree in her club
foot. After trimming her, STEVE showed
me where the frog was in the process of sloughing, being attached at the
forward point of the frog, and at the heels.
He said to clean the foot out, DO NOT use a pick except on the very
outside. He prefers to use a stiff
bristle brush or a steel wire brush. He
explanation is this – with a pick, you can gouge the frog and/or the sole,
which give thrush and other bacteria a foothold.
Then he told me something else, which I’m sure you have all
heard before. If not, you’ll read it
here first. PEA GRAVEL. STEVE said to put in some pea gravel, at
least four inches deep, and six feet wide, where the horses have to walk
through it every day. Pea gravel has
many benefits… a) it creates drainage, putting the walking surface above the
standing water, b) it massages the sole of the hoof, c) it promotes
circulation, which causes sole growth (by the way, the sole protects the bottom
of the hoof and helps prevent wall flare), d) it will toughen the sole, e) it
will round the edges of the hoof wall preventing chipping. And because it’s rounded, it won’t become
embedded in the sole or lodged into the frog.
He warned though that it needs to be deep enough so that it doesn’t feel
like they’re walking on marbles - there really is a difference.
One of the stories that STEVE told me was that a kind
hearted woman had bought a crippled foal at the auction for $10. The foal’s breeder, rather than fixing the
foal, or euthanizing him, had run him through the auction. (We all know of
these asshats!) The problem with the
foal? He was knuckled over and was walking
on the front of his hooves. The woman
gave the little guy to STEVE, who fixed the foal and still has the gelding and
STEVE said that he is his favorite saddle horse. I asked to see pictures. I’ll let you know if I ever see them.
Stay tuned for Part III (Oh yes… there is more!)