Case Studies

Our Cases Studies are updated regularly, please drop by regularly to read the latest stories.

LACHIE the DONKEY

Donkey’s feet are different from horse’s hooves. Donkeys seem more prone to laminitis and less able to thrive in Australia where the pastures are too rich in sugars.

Donkey pre trim

Donkey pre trim....

Donkey post trim

Donkey post trim.......

KATIE

Katie Initial Injury

Five Months Later..

Katie caught her hoof in a fence in January 2010. I was called to trim the hoof by the attending vet. Here are the pix of her progress. She was initially lame but only in the first week and thereafter never exhibited any lamness whatsoever from the injury. The approach was to keep the hoof wall relieved so there was no pressure on the injured coronet band area, as the new hoof grew in.

Several months later….

Nine Months after accident

HOLLY

Holly before the trim

Holly came to me in late October 2006 with chronic laminitis. She’s been like this since her new owners bought her six months previously. I chucked her straight on the float and together with my friend, semi-retired equine vet Dr Alan Newman, took her down to the local vet clinic to have her X-rayed. Where WAS the pedal bone in this? It wasn’t quite sticking through the sole but it wasn’t that far away. I didn’t want to touch her til I knew what I was dealing with.

This is what Holly’s hoof looked like from the top. Very underrun heels and long toe. The hoof was probably about five centimetres or so (2 inches) ahead of where it should have been. Holly was very tentative on her feet. It looked like they were hurting her when she moved.

Holly's XRAY

And this is what the XRAY revealed about Holly’s hoof. Rotation of the pedal bone of between 12 and 14 degrees with separation of up to 20mm from the dorsal wall. That meant the pedal bone had dropped away from the hoof wall by 20 mm. OUCH! The vet who did the XRAYS confirmed Holly had chronic laminitis.

What the XRAY doesn’t show is that Holly has wafer thin soles. I should have organised the radiograph from a slightly different angle, which would have given me a view of the sole depth. But I know the soles are thin (a) because they are verging on convex as a result of the pedal bone pushing into the sole and (b) because the collateral grooves (the valleys at either side of the frog) are totally non-existent.

After I pulled the shoes from Holly and trimmed her

This is Holly’s hoof after I pulled the shoes and trimmed her. It looks a lot better. But it’s not. All I have done is BEGIN to get the hoof back to where it should be. I was very limited in how much I could take off the bottom because her sole was so thin. I pulled her heels back quite a bit but didn’t touch anywhere around her frog. This is a bit of a trick. Hooves like this look OK to the inexperienced eye, because they are roughly the shape we think hooves should be. But what you can’t see is the rotation and separation which are just as bad now, as they were before the trim. Only now I’ve taken some of the pressures off the hoof and put it in a position to start healing itself. That’s not cosmic talk. By healing itself I mean that Holly has to start to grow in a new healthy and firm laminar connection from the coronet band. She needs to grow herself a healthy new hoof. I’ve simply paved the way for her to start her rehabilitation.

Holly in the boots

Booting Holly was essential. We chose Easyboot Epics. She wore them in the paddock for a few days after she was trimmed, and always over the next month or so, when she was exercised. She was still very tender on her tootsies. But her new family gave her the best living conditions. She roamed an 8 acre paddock 24/7 with a companion horse. Her 12 yr old owner gave her regular exercise, taking into account that she needed time to heal.

But over the next few months while the hooves started to develop some signs of concavity, Holly was still not moving freely. She was—however—much better in the boots than barefoot.

GUINNESS

This is Guinness. He’s had this crack for many years and his owner despaired of every getting rid of it. She had previously kept him shod because of the crack. Notice in the left hand pic, how long in the foot he is? The crack is a direct result of this horse being too long in the toe and too high in the heels. I was trimming him every five weeks but it was simply too long between trims and we didn’t make any progress until I started doing a two or three week touch-up job on his fronts. Then we managed to keep the pressure off the crack and it started to grow out. The photo on the right is taken a few months later. The crack is growing down. The foot is shorter. It is also developing a nice concavity underneath. Stay tuned for further improvement.

BEFORE

AFTER

BADGER

This is Badger. Soon after birth her hooves went AWOL and were never corrected. She never had the chance to wear her own hooves and ended up in a bit of a mess. However, we are hoping with regular and ongoing hoof care to make her comfortable and paddock sound.

BEFORE

Badger before her first trim

AFTER

Badger after her first trim