One for the hoof nerds

I can't really call this a training day for Kai, as we have stormy weather I didn't think it wise to try to work him- but I did try something with him in his stall. I took the metal step that I use for a mounting block and put it in his stall, then led him over and let him inspect it. I walked him into position next to it, then climbed up on it and leaned over him, petted him on his off side, put my weight on him as I was leaning, patted him all over, then turned him around and did it from the right side. He stood perfectly still for me, both sides. I turned him again, and lay over him, waved my legs around, then slid a little further over so all my weight was on him and I was evenly draped over both sides. He was rock solid. His eye was soft, and he was relaxed. Good boy Kai! I'm so proud of him and I'm really looking forward to all this being done so I can get some riding time in on him.
Here's some stuff for the hoof nerds:
The other day I was working on Beamer's feet and noticed something odd.

 Yes, complete separation of the back of the frog.

Quite deep! Of course, I was quite startled. I knew that it had to be trimmed off to avoid trapping dirt in there but I sure was not comfortable doing it. With some advice from Tara and Shayla, however, I cowgirled up and got my nippers out the next day.

Took out the center that was detached.....

Kinda freaky removing that much frog! But- it had to be done. I cleaned up more of the detached stuff.

That's where I quit on the first trim. The next day, I removed a little more from the sides and central sulcus area. Today, I did a White Lightning soak, and removed more of the detached frog. This is what it looks like now.

The last inch or so is still attached at the apex, but there is detachment still, under what is left. I'll just have to keep it picked clean until the remainder detaches, if it does.
So here is my understanding of what will happen next: This information is kindly supplied by my friend and hoof mentor Tara:
What everyone is seeing after the loose callus of the frog is removed is the "live" frog, this is what grows the frog callus. The live frog is about a 16th of an inch thick and covers the digital cushion. It is pale grey in color as you can see towards the apex of the frog where the old callus still remains. The frog callus tubule's are like little hairs and if you zoom in on a photo you can see what looks like little hairs on this new surface, this is new callus growing. Frog callus is soft and mats down in a accordion like style front to back, front to back with about and 8th of an inch per fold.. Look at the frog callus your farrier trims off next time and you will be able to see all the tubule's matted down in this fashion!
So I will keep taking photos as this develops into new frog. It should be interesting!

Beamer's turn

I've gotta give a hat tip to Shayla here, not only is she my riding companion, she is also my hoofcare provider. Before I found the ABC Hoofcare system, I knew nothing more than the basics about horses hooves, and all I did was pick them and get them trimmed regularly. Thanks to my friend Tara coming to Creston a couple years ago, I got my eyes opened to a whole new understanding of the hoof and what is required to make a truly healthy hoof.
Beamer's feet are a reflection of my- and all my past farriers- lack of understanding . Here are some photos from 2010: These are taken POST trim!

October 2010

October 2010

October 2010
Right front (the above and below photos. )

I will leave the technical comments to those who wish to make them in the comment section. Suffice to say, for me, that at this point ignorance may have been bliss for me, thinking I was a good horse mama, but it was painful for Beamer.
Over the last two years, we have slowly been correcting the angles, the bar pooling, the extended bar, the long toe, the flare, the balance, etc. The last couple of days, Shayla has been working on these feet, and even though we had made a lot of progress, the arches in the hairline still weren't dropping back to level, even with rim notching.
She found bar where it shouldn't be in that right front- growing underneath the frog.

She found bar so deeply embedded that in a normal foot, going this deep to remove bar would have hit the corium.

But! we are gaining. Once all the offending bar is removed over the next couple of trims, and we keep on top of it so it only grows where it is supposed to, these are going to be healthy feet and Beamer will be a happier horse- not that he isn't happy already, he's such a sweetheart, but comfy feet will make him much happier. He was licking and chewing and sighing every time Shayla put his foot down and he could feel that the pressure wasn't there any more.

I think we have conquered the flare, and there isn't much left of those arched hairlines.

After trimming we went for a ride, I rode Rio and figured I could pony Josie, and Shayla rode Beamer. However! Rio was being a pill, acting like a goofy teenager, and Josie wasn't having anything to do with him- so we ended up teaching Beamer to pony for the first time in his life. I walked along side leading Rio and with Josie next to Beamer until he got used to the idea that he was not allowed to act even a tiny bit studdy (good job, Shayla!) and then handed the rope end to Shayla and continued to lead for a minute, then she took over. Please forgive the photos, I still had the little camera set on macro so the photos look too soft).

Such a good boy!

Sorry about the shaky first part of the video- that was part of Rio being a pill! 

I think your Muck Boots must smell good, Shayla!.... well, maybe not.....

All about the Rim Notch

I had enough interest in my remark about rim notching, that I asked for help in explaining it from my hoof care provider, teacher and friend, Tara Wilson. First, I'll show you the photo I gave her of Beamer's foot with the hairline arches that I have been trying unsuccessfully, for the last year, to remedy by relieving the quarters. The remarks below the photo and the drawings are hers.

The rest of this post is provided by Tara, and I thank her for taking the time to put this together for us. Feel free to ask questions in the comments box.

Rim Notching is simply removing the ground pressure on tubules that are being bent. Now that we understand what tubules are and we can see them with our own eyes let's think of them as little individual strings within the wall's structure. Now lets think of a 6 inch long string laying on the table. It's 6 inches long right? Now put a few bends in it, it's no longer 6 inches on the ruler, its 4. So we trim our horses foot, everything looks good, everything is how it should be BUT our strings (tubules) still have bends in them so in reality they are still longer then they should be. (This is one of the things that cause arches in our hairlines at the quarters.) Now we think, "Our bends are above our arch relief so they are not pressured," but they are. As the foot lands the arch relief expands and makes ground contact keeping these tubules from relaxing and hanging straight, and allowing the hairline to travel in a relaxed 30 degree angle towards the heel.

Tubules are not glued together within the wall, they just grow in a very tight knit community creating strength in numbers! They are so individual, we can manipulate a very small number of them and they will move within the wall or "community," up or down, forward or backward.

Rim Notching comes into use when our quarter hairlines won't relax, when we have a contracted foot, when there is FFS (Forward Foot Syndrome) or any time there is a capsule (wall) deformity.

Looking up

Blogger is up to it's antics again, I changed the font on my header when I changed the photo, and sometimes it shows the new font (with a capital A) and sometimes it reverts to the old font. Gah!

I've been taking a lot of sky photos this week, as Big Sky is the subject of this week's Sunday Stills Challenge, and have a couple to share that won't make the Sunday post.

This is straight out of the camera (sooc), no editing. We had a beautiful sunset going on, lovely pastel colours and I kept going back out for just one more shot. The next one is also sooc.

 While I was doing chores a little earlier, I noticed a jet climbing, next to the moon.

We live right under the spot where the jets alter their course for landing in Calgary, so if you are ever flying from Vancouver to Calgary and feel the jet banking left, look down and wave!

The con trail did some interesting things.

And then:

Smoke rings!
Anyway, back on earth here, I touched up Beamer's feet, and still can't get rid of those hairline arches and the dish on the front :0( .

 Tara gave me advice on what to do, but I don't think I'm confident enough yet to do rim notches, I think that will have to wait until May when she comes out for the next barefoot clinic. But I can work on filing the flare down.
The day is set for bringing Nitro here- Sunday afternoon! Can't wait to see him again! Here's a reminder of just how cute he is:

Airborne!

Barefoot hoof care clinic- Part two

Well, this weekend has left me with a lot to think about.
I am humbled.
I am grateful.
I am determined.
I am humbled by horses, who give us so much even though they are in pain and we don't know it.
I am grateful to the people who developed the ABC Hoofcare system that allows the average person to confidently map and trim their own horses, and for those who study in depth with them and bring their knowledge to share with us. I am grateful to Tara for agreeing to travel over 13 hours on winter roads to come to Creston to teach us.
I am determined to learn to recognize problems with my horses feet and to trim them properly to alleviate their discomfort and pain and to prevent escalation into major problems.

We were a diverse group, 7 ladies and one man, but we all wanted the best for our horses.

We worked together in pairs, sharing the tidbits we picked up from our classroom session on Friday; everyone remembered something that helped the other person, and teamwork was the order of the day.

Here, Tara is giving tips on how to use the wrist to get the best action out of the hoof knife.

This is the bay mare that Coyote Belle fell in love with. She was a real sweetheart, as kind and gentle as could be, letting us crawl around under her while she stood patiently for around 5 hours each day.

This is the sole of the black and white Gypsy Vanner horse you can see in the photo above. They had mapped the heels and rasped them down a little to prepare for further mapping. There is a lot of embedded bar, extending even out past the apex of the frog. Gussie had this same problem, but on her, the bar had actually overgrown over the tip of the frog.
The thing that I really took home from this clinic is the importance of trimming the bar. It is made of hard keratin, as compared to the soft keratin of the sole. If left unchecked, it can migrate over the sole, and being harder can push on the internal structures of the foot.

This is the same foot with the excess wall trimmed and some of the bar trimmed away. It's a work in progress, and her owner will keep doing a little at a time until she gets it right.

This is Gussie's foot. The bruising is from the embedded bars, which go all the way around  the toe. This foot had the bar growing on top of the apex of the frog. I wasn't confidant to trim that toe with the hoof knife so Tara did it.( Photo was taken just before she started.) Shortly after she did, the bar material that was left on actually flaked away from the sole in one spot, so tomorrow or Tuesday, I'll get in there and take a little more off where it is volunteering.
We were too busy for me to get a lot of photos. I have plenty of things to try to remember, and just getting in hands on with my horses while it's all fresh in my mind will help.All the mares got their front feet done, but like Tara said, go back in a day or two and check for changes and do touch ups.

We will be hosting another clinic in the late spring, so we have all winter to apply what we learned this weekend.
Hopefully, our horses will have better feet.

Barefoot hoof care clinic-Part one

I am hosting a Barefoot Hoofcare Clinic this weekend with instructor Tara Wilson. Friday afternoon and evening was a classroom session, where we learned about the anatomy of the hoof and the function of the different parts.Now that may sound a little boring, but it was actually quite interesting, and it was presented in a way that was easy to understand and relate to our own horses. We were also shown things to look for when we headed out the next morning to start our hands on. From mapping the hoof to handling tools properly and making those first nips, parings and rasping, we all got to have a go at it, working in pairs with a horse.
I used Coyote Belle, and there was a Gypsy Vanner, a bay mare that Coyote Belle wanted to buddy up to, and another mare. I got to practice how to properly trim bars, and realize that I hadn't been doing it properly at all.

Here my partner was working on the bars; this is Coyote Belle's bad leg and you can see how far under her body we had to work. We only managed to get 2 feet done, and Tara had to help us finish the second one to get it done before dark.

I'll do another post tomorrow- I'm pretty tired!