More on horses hooves

Our latest theory about what is wrong with the horses is that their hooves are flaring because we hav't kept them short enough, and because in the damp the hoof can flare more easily.

http://www.barefoothorse.com/barefoot_Flares.html

The theory is that this weakens the white line allowing the fungus in.

You can see on this picture if Daisy's front right that the hoof is not straight like the white line is.

You can also see the amount we have cut off the off so only the sole touches the ground - this hopefully will stop the bottom of the hoof being pushed out and allow the hoof to straighten up.

This is the bottom of Owens front right, We have been doing the drastic cutting shown on Daisy's foot above, for about 3 weeks now. You can see here the white line looking good and solid instead of eaten away and crumbly and black (see following photo). The white line (which is grey) is where the red dash green dash shows the wateline and the blue the hoof wall. The orange circles bits that are still a mess.

This is one of Owen's back feet showing what the white line looks like when it has been eaten away by fungus - the black bit particularly is fungal.

This is the whole of the above back foot.

This is the same foot after the drastic cut. You can still see the black bit at the right of the picture but I have cut away all the hoof outside it.

This is where an absses came out on Owens front right a few months ago. It makes it hard to see whether the hoof is flared or not as it is a bit messy.

You can kind of see in this picture if you stare really closely that the other hoof is flared.

This is one of his rear feet showing a little flare too.

Overall Owen has better feet than Daisy. The hoof is a lot harder and they crack less often. However he has had a tendancy to have absseses which is not so good.

It is a big worry cutting them ourselves that we will do them some damage. Their is a lot on the internet about how impossible it is to do it yourself and how much damage you can do to joints etc. I have read about it very thoroughly and we just can't have someone come every week to so it - plus every farrier has different theories about what will fix them - and nothing has worked out so far!

It takes an hour or more every weekend for us to keep their feet this short, so here's hoping that this theory works out and all the hard work really does make them better. Assuming it does we can stop keeping them so drastically short once the flare goes but will need to keep them shortish to stop it happening again.