This is what Fancy's foot looked like as of May 28th. It is hard for me to
believe that she made this much progress since March 30th. 2 months from
bloody mess to totally sound. Only 2 months. Wow. There are no cracks in
the new growth, only one spot on the side that is from the accident but it
is less every week as I continually rasp off a little here and a little
there to simulate wear. After doing this last trim I turned her out to see
how she moves. She likes to move!
I think I am going to start ponying her out on the trails next week. I will
probably put an Epic Easy Boot on her for protection.
We are so close to riding again!
Lisa
Lisa and Fancy!
Hi Lisa,
In looking at Fancy's hoof pictures, her sole has the appearance of dead sole material, a hard plastic, waxy texture to it. So I would guess that the sole you are seeing now, is dead and will slough off as soon as her hoof as generated enough new sole to replace it and well connected wall to support it.
When you see the side vies of her hoof, at the top you see an angle that she is trying to grow out. It's about an inch long from what I can see in the picture. That is healthy well connected angle of growth. Below that is all flare and you need to grow that flare out and trim it off as you guide that well connected wall down which will virtually change her angle of growth and she will have healthy well connected wall all the way to the ground.
While that is happening she will slough that waxy sole and you may need to help her by trimming some of it out - when it appears ready to go, though, and not before.
If all her hooves are at the same angle as this one, then you'll need to change the angles on all four feet. Not change, but grow out the well connected wall to the ground.
So she still has nearly an entire new hoof capsule to grow out and replace that damaged one, but it sounds like she may not even end up with a scar from the accident, which is really unusual.
Even with small injuries where a horse barely scrapes his coronet stepping into the feed shed to get into the grain (that would be my gelding, Danny) and that little scrape left a small seam in his hoof that will spread open at the toe of his hoof if I let his trims go out past 4 or 5 weeks.
The Hoof is an amazing thing! A hoof knows what to do to help the horse its attached to survive. That is, as long as we humans don't get in its way. Which is something we typically do. We just can't help ourselves.
So, we'll see how it goes!
Thanks for the update!
Pat
