Horses feet and shoes

We have been feeding the horses copper and zinc supliment for about a month now as well as treating their feet with a copper and zinc paste every day to start with and then every other day. Both horses feet are improving, although this could also be down to it having been the driest weather of the year. 

Daisy's white line which is between the hoof wall and the inside of the foot is much tighter and not crumbly. You can see here where the farrier had to cut away the bottom of the hoof because the whiteline had been eaten away and she needed to get back to healthy tissue. Before when she has done the the fungus has just continued eating away higher, but this time it has stopped - for now!

Here you can see an absess that came out at the top and then the damaged hoof is growing down. Again the hoof trimmer had to cut away where there was infection behind the hoof to allow treatment. It is looking a lot better now and seems to be growing out well

The hoof trimmer feels that stones from the road are what causes the infection by opening a gap for fungus to get in and wanted us to have Daisy shod to protect the whiteline. However we had significant problems with shoes coming off before and are not keen to go down that road again. We think there is an element of Daisy having a weak whiteline for some reason and that is part of the reason the shoes wouldn't stay nailed on. So if we can fix the root of the problem she should be fine without shoes - which is what we hope the copper and zinc will do.

In the meantime, and particularly while her feet are all cut up, she has a very natty pair of horse trainers. Wearing these she won't wear her feet naturally on the road so we will have to have the trimmer a bit more often than usual.

Owen's problem probably has a similar cause, but is different. His frog is being eaten away by thrush which then gives him very sore and swollen heels. The frog is the triangular bit. At the heel (top of the picture) it should not be all cracked with deep grooves in it like that, it should just have a smooth dip (called the sulcus). Here it is looking a lot better than it has been and he is much less sensitive when a hoof pick is stuck in it (their feet are not very sensitive when health and you should be able to prod anywhere pretty hard with a hoof pick without them reacting) 

He now also has some scabs on his heel above the hoof which is probably a different infection of some sort. Probably the same as he had on his back in the winter. On feet it is called greasy heel and on the back it is rain scald. It is never ending! We might get him a waterproof jacket this winter for when it is very wet - altough you have to be careful not to leave it on too long as sweating inside it causes other issues!