Lady-Hooves Unveiled

On Sept 7th I began my education in equine founder when Lady arrived from Minnesota. This is a picture of her hoof that day. I had called my trimmer on the Labor Day holiday because it was obvious to my inexperienced eyes that Lady was in crisis. Sally came out & did an emergency trim in the hopes of elevating the pain & pressure Lady was experiencing. We scheduled an appointment for the following weekend & I got on the phone to the vet for x-rays. Sally wanted x-rays before she started trimming to rehabilitate Lady's hooves. X-rays are a crucial tool in rehabbing foundered horses. Without x-rays the trimmer has no idea what can be trimmed away & what must be left. There's no way to know the condition, location, or degree of rotation of the coffin bone without x-rays.

On Sept 13th Sally came out with James, another natural hoof care practitioner. It was amazing & scary watching them cut away layers & layers of Lady's hoof. There was so much dead tissue & without the x-rays to guide their way, it would have been impossible to do as beneficial a trim as Lady got that day. Once Sally was satisfied that they'd trimmed as much as they could without causing harm, Equicasts were applied to Lady's front feet. There was an instant improvement in her quality of movement. Within a couple weeks she was trotting sound across the pasture. It was uplifting to watch her emerge as a spunky, loving life mare. I really couldn't wait to see what her hooves would be like when the casts were removed.

Oct 25th was the day of revealing. Sally came with a student who was hoping to learn not only about founder, but how to use Equicasts to help foundered horses. James also came to see the changes. He had spent a lot of time "fixing" Lady 6 weeks earlier & it was going to be fun to see the results of his handiwork. When everyone had arrived, I was asked if someone else could be called to come to see the success of the Equicasts. This person had a foundered horse & the student was trying to convince her that the casts would help her horse. Of course I would let someone else come. I hope Lady, & her son Maark, can be used as models for people wanting to help & save their foundered & laminitic horses.

It was fun to see the casts taken off so that Lady's hooves were exposed. There was close to an inch of wonderful, healthy, tight growth from the coronet band. Her hooves had grown a lot & there was a lot of dead tissue to be removed.

You can see in the above picture that there's quite a bit of toe that needs to be removed. In the next picture you can see where Sally has lowered the heels & taken back the toe on one of Lady's hooves. The thickness of dead tissue is visible at the toe. This was such an amazing transformation to watch. Once this hoof was trimmed, note the really nice angle that is finally being reached, the student put on a new Equicast. It was then on to the other hoof.

In between trimming hooves, Sally discussed the anatomical effects of founder & explained how the coffin bones rotates. While she was talking Lady was walking around uncast, just as sound as she could be. I'm sure my grin was quite wide.

It's been such an amazing journey in such a short time. Less than 2 months ago I never would have believed Lady could survive her condition, let alone progress to soundness. I'm so glad I've had this chance to learn that founder is NOT a death sentence. I hope that other people & their horses are as fortunate as I've been in having a great trimmer to support me through what can sometimes seem like insurmountable odds. Lady is proof that life can be good.