Tuesday 4 December 2012

Barefoot Beano

New boy Beano, a Trakehner, arrived yesterday. He has been diagnosed with navicular syndrome on the basis of x-rays and he is particularly interesting because he has been barefoot for a number of years. 
It used to be the case that all the horses coming here were shod - often in remedial shoes - but though we still have a lot of those, its increasingly common for horses to arrive already out of shoes as owners try taking their horse barefoot following the onset of lameness in the hope that it will help. 

Beano is unusual because he has been successfully barefoot in the past - though his owner reports that he was never totally happy on hard, stony ground and she (understandably) used boots for him to keep him comfortable. 
His lameness is fairly recent and though his feet are a lot better than some he has a tell-tale weak palamr hoof and long toe. I suspect that - like most horses who have been long term without shoes and working barefoot - he will develop those weak structures more quickly than a horse just out of shoes but time will tell!

7 comments:

Molly's hoof blog said...

I'll be very curious to see if this horse will manage to attain the hoof form that I think would benefit him with the navicular: a much shorter toe. The hoof dimensions are currently 1/2 - 1/2 (in front and behind the apex of the frog) instead of 1/3 - 2/3. I really honestly cannot imagine that you can get there with just self-trimming, but I for sure would like to see if you can!

cptrayes said...

What I feel we need to know is what happens to these sound barefoot horses which makes them get lameness issues that are more commonly found in shod horses.

For the one that I sold, George, who you sorted out in no time, it appeared to be a winter with little turnout, little exercise, and feet allowed to grow to remove the frog from ground contact.

I'll be interested to see Beano's back of hoof shots.

I'll bet your tracks sort him in no time.

C

Nic Barker said...

I agree about the proportions, Molly - its really not the shape of a healthy bare foot. However, as Beano builds the palmar hoof his toe will shorten - have faith :-)

Nic Barker said...

I think the mechanisms are the same, shoes or no shoes, C - the foot lacks stimulus (as you've described - George is very much in my mind here as he was similar) and weakens and then you have a similar scenario to what you have in shoes - disengaged palmar hoof, peripheral loading and consequent weakness.

Its just that its MUCH more common in shod horses because shoes pre-dispose to it - that's my feeling anyway :-)

Molly's hoof blog said...

absolutely can't wait to see how he will develop. Please keep us updated! How long will this horse stay?

Nic Barker said...

I'll post an update in probably a couple of weeks, Molly. He is likely to be here about 12 weeks so there should be updates throughout.

Nic Barker said...

I'll post an update in probably a couple of weeks, Molly. He is likely to be here about 12 weeks so there should be updates throughout.