I posted this video because it is an excellent example of a young stallion’s free swinging walk. The video is mostly in slow motion so you can easily see the beautiful extension of the front legs, the hoof hitting the ground heel first to flat and the huge over track from behind. You don’t get a walk like that only through excellent conformation. You also have to have excellent hoof mechanics. Most horses I encounter, of every breed, walk toe first which indicates a desire to avoid contacting the back half of the hoof area due to discomfort/pain if the full weight is applied there first, as it should be. His owner says “He self trims in this country. It’s been a few months. We sanded out some rock chips but didn’t even trim him before nationals…” With time and an eye for detail you don’t need slow motion to detect a heel first/flat footed landing vs a toe first landing. It is amazing what getting the hoof mechanics correct can do to promote the individual horse’s natural stride. IMHO this stride has never been altered by poor farrier work and/or injury. Now to keep it this way throughout his…
This is the 3rd trim since Thalia joined my barn around the first of the year. An improved connection of her hoof capsule to the coffin bone (P3), which you can see in the “Right Front” photo, has grown down from the coronary band enough for me to feel comfortable with REALLY backing her toe up. I used my nippers laying flat on the barn floor to clip away dead hoof. This is the rough cut before rasping smooth. Saves me lots of rasping! What you see in the picture is all dead hoof, called the Lamellar Wedge . The lamellar wedge is what forms in between the live structures of the inner hoof and the hoof capsule. In other words the “white line”. That thin yellow/whitish line between the hoof wall and the sole. This is what happens to the white line when the coffin bone loses its connection to the hoof capsule. The white line in the area where separation has occurred stretches. And the more it stretches the more severe the rotation. The more severe the rotation the larger the lamellar wedge will be. The “Left Front” picture shows how Thalia’s coffin bones have become “sinkers”. “Sinkers” are…
The top picture is Thalia in early January right after I brought her to my place from Virginia for Edouard. The bottom picture was taken yesterday, March 20, 2016. I want you to notice how the fat pat from her croup to her tail head has evaporated. She no long has a rear-end that looks like a Percheron. She has been shedding her excessively thick and long haired coat since January. As of now she is down to a normal winter coat. The crest of her neck has slimmed down. We had blood work done, glucose and insulin from the same draw, and ACTH to test for PPID (Pituitary Pars Intermedia Disfunction aka Cushings). Thalia came back positive for both conditions though fortunately only slightly high in both. (See note below) This is the best scenario we could have hoped for given what her external symptoms were telling us. Getting her metabolic system back under control is obviously much easier and bodes better in terms of breeding her for a preservation foal. The physical changes that have occurred include appropriate supplementation to balance the major and trace mineral content of the hay she consumes. She gets almost no concentrated feed…
Elegance had her third dental visit and second power tool dental procedure on March 1, 2016. She was ready for another adjustment as I saw her starting to avoid the long stem hay and searching for the fine stuff that falls out during their selecting what hay to eat. Also, washing her mouth out every 3 or 4 days showed more packing between her left upper dental arcade and her cheek. My equine dentist sent me a mouth washing tool, bless his heart. What is used is called a “drencher” for sheep and cattle if you care to look up what those look like. Here is what her mouth looks like after he finished. Please note how “short” her right side lower molars are. This is from years of over grinding on the right side. What he told both myself and my veterinarian, who was present for the special sedation she needs for this type of dentistry, is he isn’t trying to make both sides of her mouth look the same. He is balancing each side to itself. The two sides will never look “equal”. He said if this problem had been caught when she was young it could have…
These photos illustrate how the horse grows a new hoof with correct mechanics if it is set up by the trimmer to heal itself. Thalia’s front hooves were first trimmed by me 2 weeks ago on January 12. I waited 2 weeks and did a touch-up trim on those front hooves today and took new photos. I am very pleased with her progress. She has a long way to go but good stuff is happening. Of particular note please notice how the hairline is starting to achieve a smooth straight slope to the ground if viewed laterally (from the outside). The bulge in the hairlines in both the right and left front heels will not disappear until a tighter laminae connection is made further down the hoof wall as it grows out. This tighter connection will “lift” the coffin bone back into the correct position within the hoof capsule , lowering the now elevated back wings of the coffin bone and leveling the bottom of the coffin bone, and she will achieve concavity and straight hairlines in her front hooves as this happens. A couple of things in her favor for a sooner rather than later recovery, she has…
Thalia’s hooves. Where do I begin? I knew she’d had laminitis (active) in mid-October 2015 due to eyewitness reports. What I’ve discovered, now that she is with me, is she has been having laminitis attacks, off and on, for at least a year. And without supportive care. The coffin bones (P3) in her front hooves have descended so close to the ground that if the compacted sole on the bottom of her hooves were removed (which I’d normally do) her coffin bone would penetrate right through the live sole. What this means is that she has had attack after attack after attack of laminitis and her laminae have torn apart all the way up to just short of the coronary band. Laminae are much like velcro in the way the sensitive tissue adheres to the insensitive horn of the hoof wall. This happens over time, a slow insidious degenerative process. How am I so sure of this? The state of her hoof tells me this. First lets look at the outer wall. Each one of those rings represents a laminitis attack. Rings in and of themselves don’t necessarily say “laminitis”, however this clue, along with the angle of her…
Meet Thalia CF, a 23yo 100% Davenport mare of very old lines whom Edouard stepped up to give a home to and also hopes to get a foal from in the future. He officially became her owner when I recently picked her up in Virginia and brought her to my place for “rehabilitation”. All Edouard and I knew about the mare aside from her pedigree, before picking her up, was her age and that she’d had laminitis (founder) in the early fall of 2015. We had seen a couple of pictures of her taken by friends who visited the farm where she lived with her then owner. They had noted Thalia, at that time, resting in a laminitic stance. This resting stance is recognized by the front legs being extended out in front of the body to take weight off the toes, and the hind legs camped under the body to support the weight of the body. This was in mid-October 2015. Thalia had recovered from that laminitic episode enough to be safely trailered by the time I picked her up on December 28, 2015. What I saw when she was led out to the trailer, for her trip to…
Above on the left is the relevant portion of the output provided you by Equi-Analytical for their (601) Equi-Tech hay analysis. For purposes of education I also added a test for Selenium (not part of the Equi-Tech analysis). I already know I live, and my hay comes from, a selenium deficient area of the United States (and Canada where this hay came from). On the right side is a portion of the spreadsheet I have for analyzing the diet in total,including all feeds and supplements. I’ve selected just the hay portion for the purposes of this post. It shows what 20lbs of hay/day provides the horse. 20lbs/9kg per day is what you would feed a 1000lb/454kg horse if feeding at 2% of desired body weight. As you can note from the analysis on the right, this hay provides way too much Iron (Fe) and Manganese(Mn) at a gram each and not near enough Copper (Cu) or Zinc (Zn) to combat excessive uptake of those two potentially toxic minerals. How do I know there is too much Fe and Mn and not enough Cu or Zn? I’ve used the National Research Council Nutrient Requirements of Horses, 6th Edition to create my spreadsheet with modifications suggested by…
What a difference a dental visit makes! Before I show pictures of Elegance’s teeth before and after her dental work, let me first show an equine dental numbering chart : The Triadan system in the horse. Based on an image supplied by David Crossley My previous post showed Elegance’s upper left premolars and molars having a 45 degree wear angle. Now, with her sedated and her head supported by a padded “Y” stand, I can show you pictures of her mouth before the equine dentist, Ron Panarelli EqDP, began his work. N Her condition is called “Shear Mouth”. This is a condition that develops over years. They are not born with this and it is preventable. Notice all the chewed hay stuck between her teeth on the left side and her cheek. Also notice how swollen the tissues on the inside of her left cheek look. This picture was taken AFTER a thorough rinsing of her mouth. Here is what her lower jaw on the left side looked at before Ron began his work. As you can see the angle of her lower molars and premolars is the mirror image of her upper molars and premolars. Because the teeth on the left had…
The equine dentist I have been using for the past 4 years, Ron (he was recommended by my previous dentist, Larry, when he retired), visited Elegance yesterday October 9, 2015. He palpated her entire jaw line on both sides, checked how much chewing motion she had, and checked her TMJ area before he looked inside her mouth. And what he found when he did made me gasp as I looked over his shoulder. Her left upper side molars were worn at about a 45 degree angle from the inside edge of the tooth to the outside edge of the tooth. You can see all the hay packed between her molars and her cheek because she can’t move her jaw cleanly to the left without running into those upper teeth. She lacks a level chewing surface so she gets very little masticated correctly and she gives up eating sooner than a normal horse because of the pain associated with eating. Needless to say the other molars, both lower left and right side upper and lower are affected. So you know what a normal left side molar area should look like here is the same picture of Fin DeSiecle CF 1999cm taken…
Now that we know Elegance has metabolic imbalances, as well as toxicities, the question becomes how best to supplement her to detox the toxic level of Aluminum and the overload of Iron? The first step is to have either hay and/or pasture tested for what the horse is consuming as the bulk of their diet. In Elegance’s case, it is definitely hay. And it just so happens I received 6 ton of hay a couple of days ago which will last until next summer. Therefore I will describe the process of testing your hay and where to get it analyzed. I use Equi-Analytical for analysis. They are a leader in testing hay, first for dairy cattle and now for horses too. Therefore they have analysis packages geared toward what the horse owner needs to know. In addition they offer free postage paid mailers for your sample. The test I use is 601 – Equi Tech. It gives a great comprehensive package of information at a great price. What it doesn’t test, by default, is Selenium for example. To add that particular result to your report is an additional dollars. I don’t normally add Se because I know, here in the Northeast, we have…
I received the Hair Mineral Analysis results for Elegance yesterday. It is very revealing. She is over the top in Fe(Iron), Li(Lithium) and Al (Aluminum). She is below normal for Ca(Calcium), P(Phosphorus), Mg(Magnesium), Mo(Molybendum) and Se(Selenium). The low Se is not uncommon in the US. Even when the USGS Soil Selenium Map shows adequate soil selenium levels. I’ve zoomed the map in on the Eastern Central States. To see Frederick County’s level (where Elegance has lived most of her life) move your pointer up to north east Maryland. It is very enlightening to read the comments about her analysis and note how vitamins and minerals all interact with each other. Her analysis is a case in point about the need to balance what our horses eat. Excess in one area can cause a deficiency in another and the opposite is true too. Here is a a look at how only a few of the major and trace minerals interact with each other:
Meet the newest member of my little herd: Elegance CF 2001gm Darlene Summers graciously allowed me to acquired this mare from her after I fell head over heels for her the first time I met her in August of 2015. These pictures were taken the morning after I’d brought her to my place in September 2015. She looks pretty good in the left photo. She doesn’t look underweight to me based on the amount of fat (just right) covering her ribs. But the picture on the right shows a backbone that is somewhat prominent and hips that aren’t nicely rounded. You might think this is just an angular mare, however when you see her in person you are struck by the fact that she has no muscling anywhere except the underside of her neck (she’s big on the “listening horse” stance). And she is 100% Davenport and they tend to be nicely rounded Arabians. Elegance has been trained to ride and was ridden more than just occasionally before she delivered her first foal in May 2012. She has been ridden sporadically since and not at all in the last year. Still, she should have more muscle that she does. If she’s…
Edouard asked if I would write a series of posts explaining how I provide optimum nutrition for horses in my care. What is Optimum Nutrition? It is about feeding what the horse requires not just in the way of calories but equally important the major and trace minerals they require in the proportions they require, and the vitamins that are missing from their diet. That is optimum nutrition. Sounds like a lot of work right? Nope! The learning took time because I was part of the leading edge of owners trying to solve metabolic issues via diet. The actual implementation is very easy! I always find case studies with before and after pictures interesting you will be following with the case of my most recently acquired asil Arabian. But before I do that I will show you some before and after pictures of another asil Arabian to find its way into my care. So you can see what the “restored” horse looks like. This is the completed case of the tail female *Hadba mare RL Bilquis 2006cm. RL Bilquis time with me lasted from November 2012 until September 2014when I delivered her to her new home in Ohio to be part…