The C Word

A bad equestrian word - cribbing.

Maisie has been cribbing for a couple weeks now. I catch her at it in the morning when I go down to feed. This started before she was weaned. I have no idea why she started - she's had no stress in her life, she lives in a big paddock with a good sized pasture. Gets fed lots of quality food and rarely has an empty stomach. She's never been around horses that crib.

I couldn't find much about foals cribbing on the internet, but there's some discussions on the COTH forum about foals cribbing due to ulcers or just being genetically predisposed. We are currently a little over halfway through a course of omeprazole (byeeee money!) but so far nothing has changed. I went ahead and just treated for ulcers because if she has them, foal ulcers like to perforate which is terrifying. Foals also tend to get ulcers very easily for no particular reason.

She's not interested in toys. She has a goat and sheep as companions and horses in the paddocks next to her. She was doing this even when she was with her mom. In the morning, I'll see her outside grazing and by the time I head down to feed her I often find her cribbing on the fence inside her paddock.

It's not the end of the world. I've had a horse that cribs before. My first horse Grady was a relentless cribber. He was never stalled because he got very upset, so he lived in a three acre pasture. He'd stop grazing just to go crib on the fence. We never found a cribbing collar that worked on him and it didn't really bother me so we just let him go for it. It didn't seem to negatively affect him - his teeth were fine, he never colicked, the only thing we attributed to his cribbing was his inability to hold weight in the winter.

I was pretty upset the first time I found her cribbing. While I do plan on keeping her, if my plans ever change, people don't want to buy a cribber and some barns are reluctant to board cribbers. It's just a huge bummer. I'm hoping the omeprazole will make her feel better - the idea being that her tummy doesn't feel good so she's trying to relieve the discomfort through cribbing.

Trying to eat my face

She's just too cute

Anyone have any advice or insight?

In other news, she's almost grown out of her foal blanket! The largest size is a 60" so I need to decide what size to buy her to last her through the rest of winter hopefully! She's also gotten a lot more friendly as she's gotten older. She comes over to greet people and wants to be scratched. She also likes to give kisses! Pretty adorable. I installed a tie ring in her stall so that's the next fun thing that she gets to learn. Baby is growing up!

Let the baby training begin!

Apple a Day

I went to an equine dentistry dinner talk last Wednesday that I thoroughly enjoyed. The speaker is one of the veterinarians that have influenced modern equine dentistry. A lot of the tools that we have now are because of him and his practice is 90% dentistry. The university brings him in to help teach the 4th year equine dentistry class. Between 12 students, they will perform dentals on over 600 horses for the course.

It definitely got me excited about taking this class in a couple years! At this point I have a handful of dentals under my belt so I'm beginning to understand the basic technique for a healthy equine mouth and I can't wait to learn more.

Drunk Jetta after I did her teeth

The speaker, Dr. Greene, was thoroughly engaging and obviously excited to share what he knows. This was a client education presentation, so not as academic as I would have liked, but I really liked what his message was for the general horse owner.

Some general notes from points that stuck with me:

• It's important to evaluate the horses mouth in it's natural position, but it is not necessary to perform your dental in a natural position once evaluated if you are proficient enough in how the horse's mouth works
• The horse's mouth moves in an ovoid pattern when chewing
• Unlike humans who have a layer of enamel over the whole of the crown of their (brachydont = short crown) teeth, horses have layers of enamel, dentin, cementum on their (hypsodont = long crown) teeth 
• The cementum is what becomes discolored due to the natural pigments in forage, this is normal
• Tartar can accumulate around the canine teeth (something I hadn't seen before!)
• Something I've heard many times: you NEVER take away all the ridges on the occlusal surface of the teeth, horses need a rough surface for chewing. You level things out so the teeth are better able to move against each other and don't get hung up on each other
• Dentals are necessary because horses are meant to be grazing course forage for 16-18 hours a day which most modern horses do not do, many horses also have poor mouth conformation, and are asked to carry a bit. The natural silica in plants is what helps wear down the teeth
• The purpose of a dental is to ensure the horse has a comfortable chewing pattern in addition to make carrying a bit more comfortable - aka COMFORT is the primary goal
• The horse's tongue occupies the entirety of the space in the mouth at rest. When putting a bit in the mouth, it flattens the tongue and can push it against sharp points on the lingual surface of the mandibular molars (inside bottom teeth). The cavesson can push the cheeks against the points on the buccal maxillary molars (top outside teeth). This is why it's important to remove sharp points
• He puts a bit seat in EVERY horse that is going to be asked to carry a bit. The bit pulls the corners of the lips inwards which can push against the edge of the first molar. While there is no scientific evidence that this improves the horse's comfort, there is also no evidence that it is harmful. He believes that it is important to make every effort to make the horse comfortable
• A bit seat entails taking off a millimeter or two of the leading edge of the first molar (not aggressive, not going to have any negative effect)
• He uses motorized tools in all horses except geriatric horses that can't handle the sound or feel of a motorized tool
• While hand tools are virtually impossible to take off too much tooth (unless you have incredible amounts of muscle) motorized tools have allowed us to not only treat so many more issues in horses that previously went untreated, but horses can also be done much quicker (= less sedation and stress needed) and with less mechanical stress on the veterinarian (in case you didn't know, being a large animal veterinarian is incredibly hard on your body)
• While he thinks it's important for veterinarians to work with Equine Dental practitioners, they cannot legally practice on their own, they must be under supervision of a vet. While they may be very knowledgeable about the mouth of a horse, they are not knowledgeable in other areas, such as the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of anesthetics on the horse which can be very bad if you administer a drug that interacts with another drug that the horse is on or if you have a horse with liver or kidney problems
• Additionally on the topic of equine dentists - since there is no governing body there is no certification program and thus no repercussions on a dentist for doing a bad job, whereas if your vet does a poor job you can report them to the board
• He also mentioned a disease called Equine Odontoclastic Tooth Resorption and Hypercementosis (EOTRH) which I'd never heard of and can happen relatively commonly in the PNW - they do not know what causes it yet and there is no treatment except for tooth extraction. It looks pretty crazy!

Overall, a great talk and I'm really looking forward to taking the Equine Dental 4th year elective!

Awesomeness

Morning rides are best

Not a whole lot of exciting stuff currently happening, but this weekend should be fun! Saturday is a dressage team clinic with KB. I'll be riding Jetta and another girl on the team is going to ride Misty! It will awesome for Misty to have someone else ride her and to get two free lessons on the horses basically (well, I will get to watch someone have a lesson on Misty but I'm sure I'll glean enough info to apply in my own riding).

Then Sunday is a jumping lesson with KO I'll be doing on Jetta. It's usually a group lesson, but this time around I only have one other girl going at the same time, so maybe we'll get to try some bigger jumps/harder questions? We'll see!

Jumping ride Thursday for Jetta, dressage for Misty, then dressage ride for both on Friday. I really hope Jetta will behave herself for our dressage lesson on Saturday. Oh, and then somewhere in there I need to clip Jetta (still haven't done it) so I don't get in trouble with KO. So a busy next few days!

In other news, Misty might have an abscess? My parents told me she had an abscess on her front left leg and that it was oozing pus. Lovely. I went and looked at it and... found nothing. I think it's definitely a little more puffy than normal, but it's on her foot with the big nasty scar so I can't be too sure. But she trotted out perfectly sound and I prodded and poked and picked at it and didn't find anything. She didn't even mind me poking around. So I'm hoping that either 1) it's not an abscess, they're just seeing things or 2) her body's taking care of it and it has drained all by itself. But we'll keep an eye on it just to be sure. 

Hm. Maybe more puffy than normal?

Yeah, definitely puffier, but no abscess to be found...

I'm still coming down off my horse show high with Misty. I just love how she's game for anything. Can we count everything that she's done so far? Competitive trail, working ranch horse, ranch sorting, dressage and now hunters! And I still want to do some cross country with her because I think she'd be a great little eventer pony. 

Here's some video stills I took from the weekend:

 

Over jumping much?

Love this one. Now if it was only a real picture it would be so awesome!

Oh, and also I never shared a picture of our one and only ribbon! So here's the proof that my little roany paint pony did indeed place second :)

 

It's Always Something

First off, an update on Misty. She's just been kind of hanging out. Last week her leg was swollen where she got her cut so I wrapped her hind legs for two days and then took the wraps home to wash them and left her bare-legged over night. She wasn't stocked up at all the next day so I left wraps off and lunged her. She looked pretty sound so I left off on the bute and didn't wrap her again. Her cut was still producing pus which was weird (there was no "pocket" it was just the wound itself that had pus in it) and I was a little worried about it but because there was no swelling anymore and no lameness anymore I decided to play wait and see.

Attempting to get some sort of tan by doing barn work in shorts!

It's finally healing now! Since she was a lot better my BO asked if she could get turned out and I said yes. Poor girl was not pleased with me since I was making her stay inside, though I had been taking her outside to graze for a good twenty minutes every day. It's not the same though! She's been outside in one of the individual paddocks (Jetta too, bad ponies who get injured can't go out in a herd!) for the past two days and is doing well. And today, there was no pus! It looks like the cut is finally trying to scab over. I'm a little worried about proud flesh getting out of control, there is a little granulated tissue going on so I am waiting on a call back from my vet friend on what I can put on the wound to help it heal and not let the proud flesh get bad. So, it seems like she's finally getting back to normal and I had a short bareback ride on her the other day just in the halter and then I let her graze for a bit. Hopefully as soon as school is out (next Wednesday!!!) we can do some riding - I want to take her on the trails, haul her to my trainer JF's barn to play on her trail course and work cows... so many plans!

Jetta has had the week off... yet again. This whole school plus cleaning stalls plus three horses is not really working out for me. I finally got to ride her today and while I was tacking her up and doing a once-over on her to look for any new scrapes, bumps or other oddness I noticed her right hind was puffy. Oh, mare. Wasn't sore at all when I palpated it and I couldn't feel any heat or lumps so I lunged her and she looked perfectly fine, so I ended up riding her anyways. I think (and am hoping) it's just from either kicking her stall wall or from stomping around with the flies, or she may have a little scratch that I didn't find that is causing the puffiness. I put extra fly spray on her legs just in case it was due to flies.

Getting a good roll in

We have a week until the dressage league championship so I'm kind of stressing about that. All this time off for Jetta hasn't improved either of us under saddle. I don't think we're necessarily that much worse off for it, but there's still a lot of things I wanted to work on before then. Leg yields seem to be fairly good though there are still moments when Jetta wants to get braced and lift her head up. Those dang 10 m half circles aren't getting any better and neither is our stretchy trot so we really need to figure something out in the next few days. Canter transitions are ok, but we're still dealing with anticipation.

Lots and lots to work on so hopefully we can improve a little in all the necessary areas and put in a respectable test.

Craziness

I had a crazy, busy, wonderful weekend. This is basically just a teaser post, here is what I will post about later:

• Jetta is sound! Misty is also looking rather sound, but her wound is still very angry looking so she's not in the clear yet.
• I went to a photography workshop by one of my favorite equine photographers, Mary Cornelius. I got to take lots of photos of adorable baby warmbloods at one of the fanciest barns I've ever been to!
• I rode Jetta Saturday and she felt awesome and was still sound Sunday morning so we went to a one day horse trial.
• I am officially the worst planner ever, but at least this HT was just for practice.
• I love my horse to death even when we don't do quite as well as we hoped and eventing is still officially my favorite sport ever.
• Aaaand we rocked dressage with our lowest score ever!

So yeah, it was a good weekend. Check back soon for all the details :)

How Did I Get So Lucky?

I have been panicking while watching my bank account slowly drain itself this week as my deposit on Misty got withdrawn, then board, and now VET BILLS. I'm officially horse poor.

Yes, out of my three horses that I'm working with right now, only one of them is sound. You thought this was going to be an upbeat post about how I got to be so lucky to have three awesome horses, right? Well wrong.

I think I mentioned that Jetta had a baby cut on her knee. She got it last Monday while turned out and I thought it was healing fine, I've been putting antiseptic ointment on it. Anyways, this Monday she was a little off when I rode, I didn't see her on Tuesday and then Wednesday she was definitely off. I called my vet friend to see if she could come look at her (which would have been awesome because no fee!!) but she was out of town and she told me to have it looked at asap just to make sure it wasn't getting infected though she didn't think it was since her lameness was so slight.

Anyways, I had a local vet out this morning to look at it. Besides trying to develop proud flesh he said it was fine and that it wasn't really hurting her because she didn't mind flexing it. He pinched and whacked her hoof to see if maybe she had a bruise or abscess going on but there was nothing. So, he thought she was just being a baby and it was just a little uncomfortable to her. Typical delicate flower. He gave me some bute and called it a day. I lunged her fully before sticking her in the stall and her lameness seemed less than yesterday, just barely noticable. Still frustrating though.

Then Misty. Yes, my brand new horse is lame. She also has a baby cut, this time on her back leg, just below her hock. Yesterday I saddled her up and lunged her and didn't even notice she was off until we changed direction and she was noticeably limping. I looked at the gimp leg in question and wondered how I HADN'T noticed it. Her whole leg is swollen and had a nice stream of dried blood down the back (though in my defense I thought it was mud). So off to the wash rack we went. I hosed it off and cleaned it up. It's a fairly shallow cut, just like the one on Jetta's knee. I don't understand why she's having such an adverse reaction to it, though I do think it's because she has a cut and (hopefully) not because it's a tendon issue. I put some antiseptic ointment on and called it a night.

Baby cut.

This morning I expected for the swelling to have gone, assuming that it was just a reaction to the trauma the day of getting the cut. But no, it was still swollen and the cut has oozed a little bit so I washed it up again and put more ointment on it before sticking her back in the stall.

So Misty and Jetta are gimpy buddies now. They didn't get to go outside, instead getting a gram of bute each. Tomorrow if the swelling is still going on with Misty's leg I think I'll wrap it, just to give it some support and get rid of the fluid stocking up. I didn't have the vet look at her, so I do hope he won't need to come back out. Because I don't think I could take another farm call and exam fee, even if there is NO DIAGNOSTICS done. Geez, I know I want to be a vet and you don't make that much as one, but as a horse owner it's spendy!

Pretty girl is all decked out. But I can't ride her...

On the plus side though, if there is any, is that I think my dark oil tack all fits Misty. She is so tiny, but Jazz's old bridle is quite adjustable and the semi-QH bars of my saddle seem to be a better fit than the full QH bars on the saddle Queenie's using now. Plus the dark color looks pretty on her, now if I could just actually RIDE her. I'm getting excited to try out cow stuff with her though. Found this picture on Facebook and am stealing it to share with you:

Can't wait to do this

Seriously?

Ugh, looks like my bad show luck from last year may be making a return effort. The show that I just entered on the 20th got canceled :( So bummed, I was really looking forward to seeing this facility. I tried to go to this same show last year but had to scratch because Jetta had a hoof abscess. We are going to sign up for another one on the 27th or 28th, but I'm just not so sure about the facility. I had a lesson there on Tux a while back and there's almost zero parking and I'm not sure there's a warm-up arena... I'm sure that there has to be somewhere. At least the footing in the main arena is super nice (it's beach sand but it's not too deep).

Sigh. So bummed. And Queenie is lame. I'm not worried about it really since she just got her feet trimmed, I think she's just sore because she's getting used to having her toes so short since they were long for such a long time. I went to ride her yesterday and she was noticeably lame on her right front, so I put some Keratex on it (love that stuff! except for the $) and today she was almost 100% fine, maybe still a little short when I lunged her to the right, but just in case I rode her lightly around bareback and then reapplied the Keratex. I'm hoping she'll be back in action by tomorrow!

Jetta has been fairly good for riding, it's back to pouring down rain (gotta love spring!) so she doesn't get turned out, so she's been a busybody under saddle but we've had some very lovely moments. Her trot work, except for lengthenings which suck right now, has been awesome. Her left lead canter transition is fairly amazing if I do say so myself, but we're still struggling with that right lead. Someday we'll get it.

Pretty girl

On a happier note, the BO got a new puppy and I'm in love! While they have two French bulldogs that they plan to breed (also love them, even though I'm not a fan of brachiocephalic dogs theirs are quite adorable) they randomly decided to get an Akita puppy.

Is she not adorable? Her name is Pie

She's so cute and fluffy! Like a teddy bear. While I haven't necessarily heard good things about this breed (I have no personal experience with them, so I can't judge) they're already taking her to a puppy training class and I have to say this is a gorgeous breed. I especially like her color. She "talks" too. I may be forced to steal her...

Four on the Floor

Update on Tux: He made it to his new home safely. M called me to tell me that he had arrived and today I saw some FB photos of him in his new, all-body coat. I think she has the right idea, but I have to say it's a losing battle in keeping him clean!

Shamelessly stolen from FB. Isn't he cute! Miss him already.

Anyways, today was fun. I headed out to the barn to see Jetta - I haven't seen her since Friday morning because I went and hung out at the beach this weekend. It was beautiful! Almost felt like it was spring or summer it was so nice, which of course made me wish that I had brought Jetta to go galloping!



I decided to ride bareback since I was being so lazy and after lunging her breifly hopped on and walk/trotted around. I think it was a combination of someone hauling in to ride with an unfamiliar horse and the fact that I was making Jetta jog instead of letting her trot out, but she leaped up into the air TWICE, rearing straight up almost to full height.

I was pretty sure I was going to come off, but somehow managed to cling on and once I got her to have all four hooves on the floor (always a good thing...) I slid off and lunged her again.

She was so hyper! She was definitely showing off for the other horse and was prancing around spooking at everything. I just let her run, and run, and run until she decided she was done. She was super sweaty so I let her have a good roll then walked her around to cool out.

Probably not the best idea to ride bareback after having a couple days off...

In other exciting news, my dad finally finished my Christmas  present - a slow hay feeder box! It still needs a few tweaks, but so far so good. Usually Jetta finishes her hay in about an hour or two, but now it lasts about 5 hours. Much better! I think this will make her a lot happier and hopefully prevent any ulcer issues, plus she's getting an extra snack flake of hay in the afternoon.

Week 5

It's week 5 out of the 11 weeks of school this term. And I'm ready for summer. I don't want to study any more! I have a huge amount of tests and homework and presentations due both this week and next. Yuck.

I rode Jetta today and she was ok. Started off pretty awful, though I couldn't blame her too much with how little I've been riding her. All she wanted to do was hang on that left rein and zoom around on her forehand at the trot so we did lots of circles and transitions to get her to lighten up. She ended up doing very well by the end. Her canter was super nice, though still a work in progress.

It was difficult to tell whether she was lame or not. When I brought her out of the pasture and trotted her down the aisle she was definitely lame. The aisle is packed dirt so it's a lot harder than the arena. Once in the arena I lunged her but it was difficult to see any lameness at all, though I do believe she looked just the tiniest bit off. Once on, I couldn't tell if she was limping or what because our tempo was so erratic and rushy and lean-y all at once. By the end when I finally got a nice smooth and light trot out of her, she felt absolutely fine. Hm. I wonder if it's more musculo-skeletal soreness from compensating for her hurt hoof? Something that she works out of? Anyways, I think she's feeling a bit better. Still don't know if I'm going to ride her on the trails on Friday or not, but if I do I will boot her and I bought a gel pad to go in the boots. I just wonder how long it's going to take for her hooves to harden back up again.


Here's the videos. The one to the right is super shaky at first, but it gets better! Sorry, I'm just an awful videographer, especially with a cell phone camera :) What do you see, if anything? Personally, I got nada.

Anyways, I have time to ride Jetta tomorrow but probably not on Thursday. Then Friday I'm skipping out of class early to go on a trail ride! I'm so excited, I haven't been on a real trail ride in too long.

Happening Stuff

Well, it's not really happening over here. Nothing's really going on unfortunately. Sorry I've been so bad at blogging! I just have a bit of writer's block I guess. Well, make that a block for everything, I've just been struggling to find motivation for pretty much everything. Here's a bit of an update though.

While this term is certainly easier than last term, my schedule is way crazier so I feel like I have zero time, especially with the huge amount of homework on top. I don't feel like I have that much time to spend with Jetta, but I end up having to make time to go see her which then infringes on homework time. I've been having to go out more often than I would like (not that I don't want to see Jetta!) but because I need to go out.

On Sunday I got a text from the BO that Jetta was limping again. Ugh. I thought we were done with this whole thing. I finally got to the barn on Tuesday and she was just slightly off, but enough that I didn't feel like riding her. Today, was better but still just a little off so we just lunged in side reins and worked up a bit of a sweat.

I think there's probably bruising going on but I'm not sure because there haven't been any events for bruising unless it's just residual soreness from the abscess. But the abscess ruptured two weeks ago. I have called my farrier for her opinion and am waiting to hear back since I know there is such a spectrum of opinions on this matter. As it is right now, Jetta is getting turned out, worked on soft surfaces only, thrush treatment and I'm applying some of the Hooflex all natural dressing which contains arnica (that I won from Kristen!) as well as some coconut oil to see if we can't get this bruising to go away if that's what this is. We'll have to see what ideas my farrier has to offer too.

It's amazing how dry the pastures have gotten recently after a week with no rain. Jetta's pasture which was absolutely liquid soup all winter has almost completely dried except for a little bit around the gate. Plus the BO made some huge mangers for hay to keep it off of the mud and prevent the ponies from spreading it around, so the pastures are looking pretty great right now! I really do like my BO because she really is helpful and thinks of the horses first. But I have to say that I'm looking for a new barn right now. This winter was really rough with the soupy pastures, no washrack (still not working), no cross ties, a dirt aisle that got muddy and an arena that got slightly flooded. Not enough to make me immediately move out or never consider boarding here again, but I'd prefer a slightly nicer barn. But this barn is definitely better than the other barn I was at. At least Jetta gets turned out, she never has to stay in a filthy stall, her water is always sparkling clean among other awesome things.

Hoping to go on a trail ride sometime next week. The new vet that I work with Dr. P (I may have mentioned her before) is super nice and she's leasing her baby warmblood to ML. She invited us both over for a trail ride so either I'm going to take Jetta if she's feeling up to it or ride Dr. P's fat and out-of-shape yet completely adorable drafty horse, Bubba. I'm very excited since I haven't done anything "fun", horse-related or not, for what seems like ages. Plus I've been dying to get out of the arena.

The problem is of course whether Jetta will be too sore on rocks. Which I still can't believe I'm saying about my Thoroughbred's formerly rock-crunching hooves. Yes, I have my Old Macs, but they're just so clunky that I feel bad making Jetta trot or canter in them. Yes, she can do it and doesn't fuss about it, but I still feel bad. I was planning on ordering some Easyboot gloves since I found out they now come in wide sizes making them almost perfect for Jetta's big ol' feet, but the place I was going to order them through at a considerable discount only carries them up to size 2.5. I need a size 3. Phooey. My other option is to order them in another style that I don't like as well, but they probably wouldn't get here by the time our trail ride happens :(

So that's life right now! I'll try to get back on track with posting, but honestly nothing interesting enough is happening to post abouy right now. But I will prevail over this slump! I hope :)

Dare I say it?

Should I? Well, I guess it can't hurt: Jetta looked completely sound today. *Knock on wood and any other superstitious preventative against disaster tomorrow*

I'm being very (very) cautiously optimistic about the show this weekend, so we'll see how all of this goes.

I lunged Jetta on the lunge line today in the freshly dragged arena. I know I'm not alone when I say that I love it when I'm the first person to ride (or at least in my case, lunge) in the fresh and smooth dirt. Silly horse people :)

So nice.

 Jetta didn't seem too bothered by her big ol' boots, though to me it looked like she had to work a little harder in the canter not to trip, but then again she can be such a klutz. She looked good though. Yay for the Sugardine poultice!

After briefly lunging and then letting her sniff around, flirt with the gelding outside and then roll, I soaked her hoof again for 20 minutes and then cleaned out her boot and reapplied the poultice. She is such a good girl for getting her hoof soaked. Just plop down some hay in front of her and she won't budge!

I'm afraid that's it for news in my neck of the woods. Tomorrow I hope to do the same, maybe if I'm lucky I might do a short ride, then work on pulling Jetta's mane and clean some tack. Such is life with horses - they might drive us crazy and cause us endless worry, but I wouldn't trade them for anything :)

Hoof Drama

Poor ML. The horse that she is leasing this year has pulled off his shoes several times in the past month, yanking them off with a whole chunk of hoof. And now he's lame. The vet came out yesterday and not only does he have slight rotation in his LF, but he also has a spur on his coffin bone. And in addition to that, he has an abscess in his RF and has strained his tendon in that leg because of his ridiculously long toes.

When ML got this horse, she found out that he had a case of laminitis in his past, something that hadn't been completely corrected since he still had a stretched white line and slight rotation in his LF. ML asked me about what I would recommend about feed, since she knows that I'm obsessed with learning things like that. I told her she should feed a low NSC and low sugar grain because of the laminitis and increased sensitivity. Then she moved him to a new barn where the owner feeds cow feed - basically wet cob. Not only does that contain oats (high in NSC's) but also lots of molasses. Not an ideal feed.

Anyways, the vet that I use is also a farrier and so he came out and took a look at ML's horse's hooves. He's going to speak to ML's farrier (which is obviously doing an awful job) and see if they can't fix up his hooves. Right now he's got clips to keep the shoes on, but whenever he pulls a shoe off there goes a chunk of the hoof wall. He also has pads on because he has such thin soles. The vet said that the thin soles are causing calcium to be leached from the coffin bone. I'll be interested in seeing how he wants to remedy this problem of a thin sole, since without that sole touching the ground, I don't see how it can be built up.

Not ML's horse's hooves, but remarkably similar, save for ML's horse has a taller heel and has some caulk-like stuff to cover up the chunks missing from the hoof wall...

.

Thoughts? I've tried to talk to her about trying barefoot, but she won't consider it (though all of my 4+ horses that she's met and ridden have always been barefoot with zero problems. Go figure.) I'm not even sure he would be able to go barefoot with the bone spur... TS, the vet the dressage team had a lesson with, recommended half round shoes, which from the internet seems to be a good recommendation, but we'll just have to see what this vet recommends. What will help him build up sole? Has anyone heard of a horse with a bone spur on the coffin bone and how were they managed?

Some research on the internet found that injecting the coffin was good for short-term soundness, but also supplementation of magnesium and ? There are a couple supplements out there that I've seen for improving bone quality.