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Articles: What is Natural Hoof Trimming? How To Feed The Feet Right Off Of Your Horse Tools You Will Need to Perform a Maintenance Trim Looking for Custom Made Farrier Chaps?
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10-16-06 HOW TO FEED THE FEET RIGHT OFF OF YOUR HORSE Compelling title isn't it? You probably think I'm going to start into an expose' on feed supplements or commercially processed feeds, but there is something much more insidious out there, and people don't realize what they are doing to their horses every day they are let out on pasture. The research is being done, the puzzle pieces are coming together, the writing is on the pasture. Up here in northern Minnesota we have an epidemic that few horse owners know about and even fewer are willing to consider, even as a possibility, chronic laminitis. We are seeing it in our own horses, and at the moment we are powerless to do anything about it. The culprit, the foundation, the cause of all of this pain and suffering in our horses is being caused by the most innocuous thing you can imagine. We see pictures of horses grazing in a rich green pasture, casually switching their tails, and it conjures up images of idyllic times under blue skies with white fluffy clouds lazily floating by, while the ugly reality that lies on the surface masks itself as beauty. I'm talking about pasture, green beauty that is literally poisoning our horses and ruining their feet. 2 weeks ago we were at the boarding facility where our horses are kept. Chell was working on our horse, Racer and was performing his 4 week trim. Racer is a mixed Morgan-Arab with white feet and a sweet disposition. He is generally very cooperative and really likes to be around us. He also has a history of being overweight and has chronic laminitis that we have only recently exposed. We have been trimming his feet and working on controlling his diet for most of the summer of 2006.
Racer A touch of history seems in order. Chell acquired Racer when he was a 3 month old foal. She raised and trained him to ride, but due to changing life circumstances, had found herself unable to do much with him for the past 8 years or so, he is now about 17. She finally was able to get a better situation set up and has been able to work with him 2 or 3 times per week, for the past 6 months. He is coming along pretty well, most of the time. We started trimming his feet ourselves about 5 months ago and he has been one of our primary test subjects while we were beginning to learn the art of hoof trimming. We began recognizing the outward signs of laminitis in him shortly after we read Jaime Jackson's and Pete Ramey's books on natural hoof care. As we began to recognize the symptoms; abnormal growth banding on the hoof wall, flaring, flat descended soles, and discoloration in the hoof wall, Chell began to realize that her horse has probably been laminitic for the past 8 to 10 years! Her first question after we came to the laminitis conclusion was, "Why haven't any of my farriers ever told me about this? The only thing they ever said was that my horse needed shoes!" Her horse didn't need shoes... We started performing trimming geared toward the laminitic/foundering horse and observed steady improvement in his feet for a couple of months. We began recognizing that there were occassions when he was surprisingly cooperative, picking up his feet at a light touch request and standing as long as we wanted without fidgeting or trying to pull his foot away. Then, 2 or 3 weeks later, he was like a different horse, wouldn't stand still at all, constantly trying to pull his foot away and set it down, weaving on 3 legs as though he was going to collapse on top of us, laying his ears back now and then, switching his tail angrily...strange. A couple of weeks later he would be cooperative again...this was very odd. We were becoming very curious... Meanwhile we kept studying and learning about our craft, and started trimming other peoples horses too. We saw horse after horse that exhibited the same hoof wall banding, dropped soles and flaring, in addition to stretched white lines, seedy toe, wall cracks, and lots of thrush. This was visible in almost EVERY horse we were trimming from 3 month olds to 33 year olds, with the exception of maybe 2 out of 30! What the heck was going on? The vast majority of these horses also did not want to stand for trimming, even though many of them readily picked up their feet when asked. Were all of these horses having the same problem as Racer? More Evidence The facility we were boarding Racer at had 5 other horses, ranging from a 5 year old to a 33 year old. There was a mother/daughter combination of full blood Arabs at around 14 hands that were 33 (Sarah) and 15(Rosy) respectively, an extremely overweight 8 year old Percheron mare(Roxy) that stood 16.2 hands at over 2000 lbs, another sweet 12 year old 14+ hand Arab mare(Missy), and finally a 5 year old thoroughbred gelding at a bit over 15 hands(Peanut). We began trimming all of these horses, except for Peanut, a couple of months after we began trimming Racer. Sarah, the 33 year old was suffering from founder in all 4 feet and had dropped pasterns in the rear. She was constantly thrushy, soles flat on the ground and clearly had difficulty walking, probably as much from age as founder. She was losing a lot of weight and was very bony looking. Her daughter Rosy, the 15 year old, was seriously foundered. She was planted in a founder stance every time we saw her, was horribly flared and could not stand on 3 feet at all for more than a few seconds at a time. She was also very cooperative and would immediately pick up a foot every time she was asked...was she was simply unable, or unwilling to stand? She was also steadily losing weight and her ribs were showing prominently. The Percheron, Roxy, was the alpha mare in the herd and did not get handled much by the owner except to drive a sled in the wintertime. She was not cooperative at all when trying to get her to pick up her feet. The few seconds we were able able to get to see her feet showed her front soles flat on the ground and her hoof walls badly misshapen, with flaring, wall cracks, broken out sections, and growth banding. We were told she had been trimmed 6 weeks before we looked at her the first time...could have fooled us! We could see no indication that she had been trimmed at all. We sight estimated, along with the owner, that she was probably overweight by 400 pounds! She was generally a very sweet, gentle horse, but you couldn't do anything with her. Missy the mare, seemed to be in the best condition of all of them. For some reason her hoof walls were fairly smooth and straight without flaring or cracking, despite the fact that she was living in exactly the same conditions as 4 of her herdmates who had visible problems. We were not asked to work with Peanut, so we didn't spend any time looking at him. The common thread that tied all of these horses together was food and environment. The owner had previously been a cattle man, who now grows and cuts his own hay every year, part of which he sells to other horse owners, and part of which he keeps to feed his own herd. When he retired, he got rid of the cows and kept horses instead, but the fields he had planted were geared toward a cattle operation and were rich with alfalfa, clover and other very rich grasses. Chell told me that, in the past, she and other horse people she knew of, considered his hay the best in the area. It was well dried, not dusty or moldy, and was rich in color and odor. The horses LOVED it! They simply couldn't get enough! It was the equivalent of feeding them candy bars... The owners' horses were also being kept 24/7 on green pasture... lush green pasture. Take a look at the picture below of these horses on his pasture...beautiful isn't it? |
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Let us continue... The first horse we trimmed was Sarah the 33 year old. She would be put down 3 months after we started trimming her because her teeth were so bad that she couldn't get enough nutrition out of her food to keep weight on, and we were on the doorstep of winter, 200lbs underweight. It was for the best, due to her advanced age and physical condition there was really nothing we could do but try to make her comfortable. She had thrush and laminitis in the feet and rain rot on her back, forehead and chest. The fungi living on her were healthier than the horse. We trimmed to make her more comfortable, knowing that we would not see any improvement in her feet. Rosy, Sarah's daughter, was in full-on founder and had been in that condition for some time before we met her. When I started looking at her she was in a traditional founder stance and, as mentioned earlier, could only stand on 3 legs for mere seconds at a time before threatening to fall over. She was not moving and not eating...probably 150 pounds underweight at that time. Her front hooves soles were flat on the ground with no solar concavity. The hoof walls were overgrown and flared out to the point where they were providing no hoof wall support. The white line was stretched to 1/2" long. Something needed to be done and she was the owners favorite riding horse...he had no idea what was wrong with her. Once we suspected what the problem was (founder), we acquired a copy of Jaime Jackson's book - Founder, as well as the companion video. After studying the book and video for a week we approached the owner and made our case. "Sir, your horse has foundered and is still foundering..." He stared in disbelief and stated, "That can't be true. I've had horses for 30 years and have never had a problem!" Our response, " You never had a problem that you knew about, but the problem is there just the same." We proceeded to tell him what needed to be done to save his horse, and he reluctantly agreed to try our program, after we provided him with a copy of Founder.
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Rosy in founder stance |
Rosy left front foot |
Rosy right front foot |
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Roxy, the Percheron had developed the attitude that she didn't have to cooperate with anyone...she was alpha, after all and, due to her size alone, was virtually unchallenged, even by the owner. Since she was such an unagressive horse, she got her way by merely planting her feet and refusing to move. As mentioned earlier, we estimated her weight around 2000 pounds...if she didn't want to move, there wasn't much anyone could do to force the issue. She tended to walk slowly, but a huge draft horse does that by nature, so it was hard to tell whether she was experiencing discomfort or not. Since it appeared that much of her lack of cooperation was a respect issue, Skyler began working her in a round pen to establish a trust relationship and set some ground rules for the horse. This went phenomenally well, and over the course of a couple of months he was able to finally get her to trust him enough to lift her feet and let him work on them a bit. His findings were no surprise...the front feet were flat, sole on the ground, hoof wall flared, broken and cracked hoof walls, and thrushy frogs that were smashed flat. Fortunately for Roxy, her soles were pretty well calloused,which had probably saved her from being in worse condition than she was. Typically, draft horses have pretty flat front feet anyway, due to weight and the fact that their feet are the size of dinner plates. But if the hooves are healthy there is still some concavity to the sole, which was completely missing in her case. She would only allow Skyler to work on each foot for a couple of minutes at a time at first, and he didn't try to force her to do anything, in the hope that her cooperation would become more willing as she realized he wasn't going to harm her. Over the next couple of weeks he was able to work with her feet on several occassions for an hour or two, slowly and gently, and she was beginning to relax and allow him to spend longer on each foot. He was able to remove large sections of flared hoof wall and get the hooves picked out, but the thrush was making her a bit tender around the frog clefts. He figured it would just be a matter of time to get to everything, but the chronic laminitis was as plain as the nose on your face. Missy was worked primarily by Chell, and for some reason she didn't exhibit any outward signs of hoof problems, although she was a bit overweight. More Research We were seeing a pattern among all of the horses we were visiting, and their owners. Each new client we picked up had a collection of several horses and the vast majority of them were exhibiting the same signs we were seeing on our own herd. When we discussed what we were seeing on their horses with our clients we were met with everything from disbelief, to anger, to outright denial. Many of them chanted the same mantra that Chell had uttered when we began this road to discovery, "I've had horses for XX years and no farrier has ever told be about this! You must be wrong!" We would point out symptoms, show them pictures we had taken of foundered and laminitic horses we had seen. They could not deny that their horses feet looked like the other horses we were seeing, but there was still an aura of disbelief. When the clients asked what they needed to do, we gave them the same answer we have given to everyone and were met with the same responses...there is no way they could make the changes we were recommending. They either didn't have the money, facilities, or time to provide the necessary changes. Add to that the fact that the majority of horse owners seem to recognize the body of the horse more than the feet. They have been taught that the feet are the realm of the farrier, and that if the farrier says, "Do this..", meaning shoes, that's what they did. We were torn...we knew what we were seeing was real, but we had nothing but some books, articles and intelligence to make our case...nobody in our region was taking the approach we were to horse care. Skyler went back into research mode and started finding recent research that was showing connections between chronic laminitis, white line disease, seedy toe and thrush infections. In addition, there were indications that insulin resistance in horses that had dramatic similarities to diabetes in humans, was being discovered and that all of these problems were manifesting in the feet with the symptoms we were seeing. Amazingly, all of this data and research are leading to the same conclusions...that it's all about FOOD! The simple fact that is becoming overwhelmingly apparent, is that fresh green pasture and high protein grains and feed are poison to your horses feet! Rich hay full of alfalfa and clover, grain, sweet feeds, processed horse feeds...all of them are contributing to the problems that lead to the diseases of the hoof which we are observing. This rich food is the equivalent of feeding your horse chocolate eclairs...and is causing the aforementioned hoof issues, as well as promoting obesity in your horse. Obesity in the horse is also looking more and more like just another symptom, or indicator, in the syndrome that leads to chronic laminitis and founder. Let's face the simple facts...hoof problems like laminitis/founder are not the disease...they are the symptom. The real problems are happening in your horses gut. We have also learned that there is a genetic link in horses that have a tendency toward these diseases. This explains why Missy displayed no outward signs of hoof disease, while all but one of her herdmates ranged from chronic laminitis to flat-footed founder. In our observations we have seen horses that ranged from the mildest visible symptoms to full blown founder. The range of disease in these horses could be seen among members of the same herd, where all were out on pasture 24/7 under identical conditions. So, it becomes obvious that certain horses are more susceptible than others to the conditions that can cause problems. Research has also proven that horses that have foundered in the past are far more sensitive to conditions than other horses and run a much higher risk of foundering again than a horse that has never foundered. Looking inside the horse, we can presume that the original founder episode caused long term damage to the horses digestive tract and feet, which weakened it's ability to compensate for the conditions that set founder off in the horse. Therefore it takes a smaller exposure to set off the chain reaction of founder the second time, due to previously compromised health. Back to Racer Two months prior we had approached the owner of the boarding facility we were keeping Racer at and told him that we were certain that Racer was laminitic and that we wanted to take him off of pasture. The owner had a dry paddock in which he was keeping Rosy (the founder case) at our request. We had told him that the only way his horse would heal was if she was taken off of pasture and was only being fed dry grass hay. Within two weeks of removing her from pasture her inflammation had gone down enough to perform a founder trim and remove all of the flared hoof wall that was causing her constant pain as it was being leveraged away from the sole while she stood or walked. It took a couple of doses of Bute and about 8 hours to get her trim done, since she required frequent breaks from the pain she was still experiencing. Just a week after the founder trim and 3 weeks after being taken of pasture, she was beginning to stand and walk more normally and within 6 weeks we saw that she was gaining weight! The pain from founder had been causing her so much discomfort that she couldn't even eat! We moved Racer into the dry paddock that week and were able to keep him in there for about 4 weeks. During that time we saw the same types of changes that we had seen with Rosy. A reduction of apparent pain in the feet, more cooperative standing for hoof picking and trimming and, in Racers' case, improved cooperation when being ridden. This was another factor that we hadn't realized previously...that painful hooves were affecting how the horse would ride. Earlier, Chell had tried to take Racer out for training rides and he would end up taking her for a ride instead. She would ask for basic moves and he would simply refuse to take the cues. At first, she thought he was just being stubborn, and decided to do some work in the round pen with him to establish herd dominance and build trust. This was a very productive excercise and as the month progressed he became more sound, and more cooperative, both on the ground and under saddle. Things were going along quite well until the boarding owner notified us that Racer had begun to bully Rosy and prevent her from getting to food or water. After he left a nasty bite on her rear, we were forced to put let him back on pasture, much to our dismay. The weather locally had been fairly dry and warm, but this is northern Minnesota and that ends quickly around the end of September...and so it did. We had made steady and noticeable improvement to Racers' feet and they actually were looking like a normal hoof again after only 3 months of trimming and 1 month in a dry paddock. He had lost a little weight and during excercise sessions was now cantering with suspension and collecting when riding. Prior to our short rehab, it had been nearly impossible to get him to do anything more than a choppy trot. That was all to end quickly. 2 weeks after reintroducing Racer to pasture, the weather turned. We had a string of nights with freezing temps and sunny days...a perfect recipe for raising the fructan levels of pasture grass. We went out to work Racer last weekend and perform a 4 week maintenance trim. Chell was having trouble with him...he was fidgety, didn't want to pick up his feet, was weaving around on 3 legs, yanking the hoof away from her. She managed to get through the trim and saddled him up... Chell tried taking Racer out to an open pasture to do some basic riding training. While I watched, she continually tried to get him to move out into the field and he just planted his feet and refused to move further away from the barn. She told me later that she used every trick she knew to get him to move and he simply would not cooperate. So, she turned him around and brought him back to the dry paddock to work him in there. This seemed to be OK with him, he walked back with Chell mounted and went into the dry paddock, which has a base of about 4 inches of sand, nice soft sand. She worked him in the paddock and he was doing OK, until she asked for a canter. He would move into a canter for a few steps and would then fall right back into a trot. This was so strange, 3 weeks prior he was cantering, head and tail up, great collection and suspension. What happened? I was watching from the fence and began to notice a limp developing in the right rear. I mentioned this to Chell as she rode by and she acknowledged that something didn't feel right, but she couldn't quite tell what it was. She brought him to a halt and dismounted. Both of us started checking his feet and talking about it. I mentioned to her that when we first arrived that day I had been looking at his feet and thought that I was seeing some blushing in the hoof wall (remember, he has white feet), and while we were looking at him together we both acknowledged that we were seeing the same thing. He was blushing in the hoof wall on 3 out of 4 feet, Racer was laminitic again... As we discussed what we remembered about the past several months, with all of the horses we had worked and all of the conditions, and behaviors we had seen it became even more clear that we knew what we were talking about. A week prior to this event, we had seen Rosy have an episode of diarrhea, which the owner attributed to worms. We thought that it was odd that it had come on so suddenly, until the owner threw her a couple of leaves of his hay. This was the richest, greenest hay I had ever seen and Chell confirmed that it was chock full of alfalfa, clover and rich, rich fodder...this was food for cows, not horses! The owner wormed her anyway and the diahrrea stopped. But we were not convinced that this was a worm problem, no other horses in the herd were having similar problems, they were all still on pasture. We checked Rosy's feet the next time we were out...she was laminitic again, too...setback...with no possible good outcome. The owner now acknowledges that Rosy has foundered, but refuses to believe, despite the evidence that we have provided, that it is related to diet. Over the weekend I went out to work on Roxy the Percheron's feet some more. They are so bad and have been neglected for so long, I realized early on that it would take several sessions to complete an initial trim on her to try to steer her feet in the right healing direction. I found Roxy to be far less cooperative than she had been in the previous 2 weeks. She was having trouble standing on 3 feet, was weaving her body around and was very sensitive while just picking out her feet. Roxy was actively laminitic again now, too. I had to stop working on her, there was no purpose in putting her through the ordeal while she was actively laminitic. She tried to tell me, but it took a bit for me to get it through my thick skull that she was hurting and simply couldn't help me out. I will have to let her go until the grass is frozen out and the temps drop enough to slow down this episode. Unfortunately, she has a barn full of cow feed to go through this winter, and no amount of trimming will prevent her from continuing on the chronic laminitis cycle. Two weeks ago when Chell was out working with Racers' feet he was very cooperative and stood well while she picked his feet out. Now he cannot be ridden, and is actively laminitic again...we have had to come up with another plan, because as we know now, he too will spend the winter eating cow feed and will remain laminitic all winter...then spring will come and the pasture will come alive with poison again. We can never win there. We have decided to move him to a boarding facility that will keep him in a dry paddock with dry grass hay only...no grain...just hay, salt, minerals and water. In the spring we expect to see his feet in the best shape ever and anticipate that he will lose the extra 100 to 150 pounds he is carrying. We will have access to an indoor arena all winter and plan on working with him 2 to 3 days per week. The combination of diet and exercise should do the trick and we will have a sound horse for the first time in 10 years....with many years of soundness to come. Winter/Spring 2006-2007 Racer was moved to his new boarding facility as planned and we talked with the owners about his health needs. We put him into the dryest paddock they had, which still had some grass growing in it...we were wary, but didn't have much choice. Within a couple of weeks Racer had adapted to the routine there, but some things had changed since his move. He no longer had access to pasture grass all day long and he was now being fed on a schedule twice per day. Racer quickly turned into a food-driven horse...this was a mixed situation for us. The positive side of the year he spent there would be a loss of a couple hundred pounds of fat, the negative side was that he spent most of the day hungry after gobbling down his hay ration. This resulted in some behavior issues, which we weren't too pleased with. Horses have a small stomach which can only hold 2 to 4 gallons of food at a time. Horses normally graze all day long to keep some food in the stomach at all times. A chronically empty stomach on a horse can cause all kinds of problems including ulcers and colic, not to mention that our Arab mix got kind of crazy when he was hungry. If he hadn't been fed by the time we got to the ranch to work him, we could pretty much forget any productive training. His mind was only on food. The ranch owners were also feeding all of the horses grain and while they did have a processed feed that they were giving a couple of horses, it was still not good for Racer. We made convincing arguments to the owners to increase his hay and give him minimal grain...we are not sure they listened to us. By the end of winter Racer was looking pretty good and his feet were pretty stable. Then came spring...and we had to speak with the owners again about the dangers of the fresh grass that was awakening in the paddocks. Once again we made a case for getting him onto a dry lot with NO grass in it, but the owners were not going to cooperate...giving us the impression that they thought we were some kind of nutballs for being so concerned with our horse. And then it happened. We had seen blush coming through his hoof walls again, and in an appeal to the owners, Chell went with one of them and inspected several horses on the ranch. They were all showing blush in the hoof walls and soles...at which point the owners figured we were blowing smoke. They no longer showed any interest in our appeals, and two weeks later during a workout in the round pen Racer foundered again.
Summer 2007 follow up: Racer was moved as planned and we left the herd behind to whatever fate they would meet. We were unable to convince the owner of the seriousness of his horses problems and subsequently had to stop working with his horses. It was a no-win situation for both of us... Over the course of winter '06/07 Racer was kept in a dry lot and was fed nothing but grass hay and about a cup of grain every day. The result was a loss of over 200lbs. of fat and the return of his feet to a non-laminitic condition. We have continued to apply corrective trims and are happy to report that he is moving better than Chell has ever seen him. There is a bit of grass growing in his paddock and we occasionally see some blush in his hoof walls, but nothing like we had seen in his previous boarding environment. We realize that Racer will never be able to freely eat pasture grass without risking a laminitis episode that will set his feet back for months. He is so sensitive to grass now that just a few days on pasture could send him into a mild founder. As far as we're concerned it's just not worth the risk to let him graze...how about your horse?
Articles to read: Laminitis Update by Pete Ramey The End of White Line Disease by Pete Ramey Thoughts on the Cause of White Line Disease by James R. Rooney DVM Treating Founder (Chronic Laminitis) Without Horseshoes What Kind of Forage is Safer? - www.safergrass.org Managing Grazing for "At Risk" Horses - www.safergrass.org
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