Rockley Farm

The Rockley Scholarship

2012-02-13T07:00:00.002Z

Its time to go public with an idea I have been knocking around for a while - the Rockley Scholarship!

Rockley has become steadily busier and busier over the last few years. We are now at the stage where we are full and have a waiting list pretty much year round; as one horse goes home, another is usually on a lorry on the way here ready to take that place.

Its wonderful to be so busy and to have so many horses and owners coming to us, but I am aware that there are owners who aren't able to send their horses here, however much they or their vets might want to. This post is for them and is also my way of trying to say thank you to all of you who have supported us over the years.

Basically, the scholarship is a way of giving one owner the chance to send their horse here for rehab for a nominal charge. The aim, of course, is to give an opportunity to someone who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it.

The scholarship would involve the horse coming here for 12 weeks, with livery and rehabilitation provided at no charge to the owner. There will be a weekly charge of £10 to cover feed and forage but your horse's stay here and all rehabilitation exercise will be free.

I thought the fairest way to choose would give you all a few weeks to send in applications; we will then try and select the horse and owner who best fit the criteria. There is more detail in the bullet points below, so please read them before you apply - we've kept it as straightforward as possible!

There is no "form" for applying - just send in an email BUT you need to include all the information and cover all the details in the bullet points - the better the application, the more likely you are to get the place :-)

If you are interested in applying for the scholarship yourself, then please read to the end of this post and send in your application by email to rockleyfarm@gmail.com before 16th April 2012. Don't forget, you need to include in your application all the information in the bullet points below.

If you know of someone else who might be interested, you can invite them to read this post by sending them this link: http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2012/02/rockley-scholarship.html or sharing this post on Facebook.

Scholarship conditions

The 3 impartial judges (ie: Andy, Edward and I!) will go through all the applications after 16th April 2012 and choose one owner and horse to be the scholarship winner.

We will notify the owner by 5th May 2012 and you will need to be able to transport your horse to Rockley by 3rd June 2012.

The scholarship for your horse will be for 12 weeks and you will need to sign our usual rehabilitation livery agreement (please email us if you want a copy). You will be charged a nominal amount of £10 per week for feed and forage but there will be no other livery or rehabilitation charges. You need to arrange your own transport to and from Rockley.

Your application needs to be supported by 2 references (you need to send these in with your application). One needs to come from your vet - who must provide details of the horse's lameness history and consent to the horse coming to Rockley. The other reference should be given by a professional in the equine field who knows you well and who has read and can support your application. This could be an instructor, yard owner, farrier or other equine professional. Please include contact phone numbers for both referees so we can get in touch with them.

The scholarship is intended for someone who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford to send their horse here, so please give details of why you might be eligible in your application - for instance if your insurers have refused to pay for rehabilitation.

Your application is more likely to succeed if you show you understand the essentials for hoof health. As keeping a horse barefoot is a long-term responsibility, you need to explain how you plan to continue your horse's rehab and hoofcare after he comes home and what your aims are for the future. You don't need special facilities but do need to show that you have time and commitment.

Your horse's age is not particularly important - horses from 5-20yrs old have all been through rehab but this type of rehabilitation is not suitable for horses who would be retired, so the more information you can provide about your horse's potential and your ambitions the better.

Please include your name, address, email address and a contact phone number so we can get back to you!

Two quick updates...

2012-02-12T08:00:00.000Z

I took lots of footage last week but had no chance to post about several horses. One of the ones I missed is Knightley - known to all of you as "Mr Knightley from Dubai" since his arrival here at the end of October!

He has now been here just over 3 months, longer than most horses, but he will remain here for a bit longer as Debbie, his owner, is still over there. He is a very kind horse but now that he has been here a while his mischievous streak has appeared, and he takes great pleasure in taking Edward's cap off as he goes past, sticking his head across the aisle so I can't get past with a feed bucket for another horse and playing slightly rumbustious games with his great mate, Nico.

Clearly, his stride and landing have improved a great deal over the last few weeks; what you can't see on this footage is that his right hind does tend to take a shorter step than his left hind - its more obvious on hills or turns, but is something we will be keeping an eye on, as its historically his weakest leg.

I also had no time last week to post Thomas' final piece of footage, taken just before he went off to live in Dorset on Thursday. Mel posted this nice photo of him and new buddy Oscar, taken yesterday, and you can see how well he has settled in! Here is his footage, a little late but none the worse for that.

As you can see, he has hugely improved in the 12 weeks he has been here. He is making big changes to his medio-lateral balance, particularly on his RF, and it will be another 3-4 months before that change is complete, but I know Mel will do a great job of keeping him going and giving him the best chance to grow the best feet.

Buster's Big Day

2012-02-10T08:00:00.007Z

Buster arrived late on Tuesday and as it was getting dark I couldn't take his photos or footage till Wednesday morning. That meant that his family couldn't be here to see him take his first steps out of shoes so I promised to try and get some footage of him when he went out the next morning.

Fortunately it was a beautiful, sunny day and so, since Buster has a proper coat, unlike my horses, he got to go out in the sunshine with no clothes on :-) Buster has been on box rest for several months and although he has been very well behaved his owners felt that he was becoming increasingly frustrated.

I always turn new horses out in the top yard, initially, with Felix and Charlie for company. I was glad that I had my camcorder with me yesterday because Buster provided a perfect opportunity to show how well my boys know their job of keeping new horses calm and making them feel secure. I am very proud of Felix and Charlie - they are absolutely essential to the smooth running of Rockley. Buster gives a perfect demo of how quickly horses can integrate, even after box rest :-)

For the hoof anoraks, here are Buster's hoof pics, to finish things off.

He arrived in bar shoes with rather long toes and has had remedial farriery to try and improve the collateral ligament damage which was diagnosed on MRI.

Bar shoes hide a lot, but it will be interesting as always to see how his hooves change over the next few weeks.

All go, all good!

2012-02-09T15:52:00.001Z

Hurried, short and late blog today, but there will be a good one up tomorrow, I promise :-)

Its all change round here, as Solar has made it home and has been replaced by Buster, a cob with the thickest tail in the whole wide world - his footage and pics will be here tomorrow so apologies to Jenny and family that I haven't managed to get them up today...

The reason for that was Thomas going home - which was due to happen on Friday but with a severe weather forecast for tonight and the next few days, it had to be brought forward to today. Very unfortunately Sophie, his owner, isn't well so he has gone to stay with Mel and the gorgeous Oscar in very sunny Dorset.

I'd never been to Cattistock before but its the most beautiful place and bathed in winter sunshine looked marvellous. Oscar was keen to show off posh trotting to his new friend and Thomas decided he wouldn't be outdone! Mel and I had a relaxing coffee, watching them get to know each other, then it was hit the road and get back to Exmoor before the snow comes in!

One more bit of nice news - following my update on Ted I had an encouraging email from his vet:

"I agree the angle of growth at the proximal toe area is encouraging.

Although there is still an obvious splaying of his walls I am impressed by the improvement of his medio lateral hoof imbalance. It is also encouraging to see him landing heel first."

A great note on which to finish ;-) More tomorrow...

Ted's updated footage

2012-02-08T08:00:00.000Z

I've posted Ted's updated photos on previous posts...

His photo day one is above, of course, and the most recent comparison below.

It looks peculiar until you look at the angle of new growth in the top of the hoof. Now imagine the whole hoof growing down at that same angle. You can see what a difference that will make to his long toe and underrun heel.

As always, the solar view is the most useful. Above is his LF a couple of days after his shoes came off. The shod photos are also up on this blog but don't give you any idea of how his sole looks because the shoes completely covered his hooves.

Today the same foot to my way of thinking looks healthier - a more robust frog, better balance and a shorter toe (despite how odd it looks on a lateral view).

and I think its clear from these how much his feet are changing, and in what direction.

It won't be as splayed as this once the whole hoof is at the new angle - honest :-)

Finally, the caudal shot. In his bar shoes, with relatively high hoof wall (look at the distance from hairline to the ground on both sides)...

...and today. Comparing the same distance (hairline to the ground) you can actually see the bulge which marks where the new angle of growth begins. You can also see that the lateral wall was a lot longer than the medial wall - again look at the bulge; the new hoof capsule will have a different medio-lateral balance.

I've also put up footage of how he is landing, and its interesting that he has taken a lot longer than many horses to start to land heel first, probably because his foot balance was so compromised and his caudal hoof so weak to start with.

I normally try also to get footage of rehab horses on a circle but the grim weather we have had here over December and January made it difficult to get that footage outside.

I've remedied that now, but when you watch it you need to understand that it was filmed when the arena was partially frozen, so not the best surface(!) and that Ted has always been worse on the left rein, with his LF being the foot with the most damage on MRI.

Jumping to conclusions...

2012-02-07T08:00:00.011Z

"Why you shouldn't try to extrapolate too much from a photo".

I posted last week about a hoof which quite frankly looks very odd.

Most of you regular blog readers, who have seen a succession of hooves (from the totally straightforward to the completely unexpected) in past blog posts were pretty unfazed by this and came up with a variety of interesting and plausible hypotheses for why the hoof might have grown the way it does.

More importantly (which I loved), your first instinct was to listen to the horse and give him credit for not putting effort into growing a bizarre hoof deviation unless he had some need for it.

However the post attracted interest from elsewhere - which is great, although some of those who came to have a look had a rather more - shall we say - unreconstructed view of hoofcare. For them, the deviation was just something which should come off - and quickly. Various posters on a couple of different forums (in the UK and US) stated that if it wasn't trimmed to something more akin to normality, the horse would have problems.

I have no issue with these people disagreeing with me, but I do get concerned when they won't listen to the horse. What these posters tended to do was to comment on the photo and then make big assumptions, usually with little or no evidence.

The initial assumption was that the hooves were simply overgrown and neglected - despite the fact I'd made it clear the horse was in work, despite the dramatic asymmetry of the hoof, and despite the fact that there were no chips in the hoof wall.

One person decided that the horse had muscle wastage in his forearm. Actually, what I said in the post was that the horse had suffered from wastage of specific shoulder muscles which had now improved. A competent bodyworker could identify the weaker leg now just by looking at the shoulder, but I am not sure that anyone else would.

Someone else stated that the horse landed laterally. Au contraire, his landing - with the deviation - is surprisingly balanced, which is what led me to suppose that its required to enhance the stability of that limb.

In fact, its on his other foot (which lacks such a significant deviation) that he lands laterally. I've put some footage up below, but it just goes to show why photos - though interesting - can only tell you so much - though obviously you guys know that already(!)...

Anyway, I'm delighted that others were interested enough to come and have a look at the blog and really the more discussion the merrier, so I hope the additional info I've put up now will help make things a bit clearer.

I'm not saying a hoof capsule like this is ideal - far from it.

In an ideal world this horse would never have developed a deviation, never had an injury, never have had to go through rehab.

In the real world, this horse had a DDFT injury (to this same foot, well before the shoulder injury) and was given a less than 5% chance by 2 leading vets of ever returning to work - and that was in 2007. He came here for rehab in 2008 and since then, despite occasional ups and downs, has competed successfully in dressage, show-jumping and XC, has hunted and has been almost continuously in work.

It ain't perfect, but human ideas of hoof balance haven't historically been much help to this horse and I, for one, am not arrogant enough to insist that I know better than he does how his hooves should work.

White weekend

2012-02-06T08:00:00.012Z

What with ice, snow, slush and rain, not a lot happened at Rockley this weekend - no hunting, too risky to exercise horses, no opportunity for Solar to go home, and no possibility of owners visiting...

Bryan says: "Well, it maybe snowy here, but I got out of Kent just in time - I hear its waist deep there!"

The snow won't stop Georgia from stealing a few magic moments with Felix...

...if only she can find him...

"Dude, is there enough snow for a game yet?"

"I'd rather be hunting..."

Its not fair, because SOME people, to the east of us, had lots of lovely, proper snow yesterday and could go out riding...

...but I don't really mind because its so great to see such lovely photos of Sarah and darling Zan, who went home last year - doesn't he look fantastic?

Obviously, Sarah looks pretty darn elegant as well ;-)

However, I am glad to say that everything here is melting fast. I hope that by later on this morning everything will be back to normal and our previously mild winter will be back on track with only a few more weeks to go - I could do with a change, and so could the horses!

Bryan with one "i"

2012-02-04T08:00:00.002Z

These are the feet belonging to Bryan, whose footage I posted yesterday. My camera is sulking because it doesn't like operating in temperatures below freezing so I only managed to get his photos yesterday.

His shoes came off 3 weeks ago and as is normal, there is some long hoof wall especially at the quarters which will chip and wear off quite quickly without causing any problems. This is his worst foot and he has collateral ligament damage here as well as a diagnosis of pedal osteitis and navicular damage bilaterally.

He hasn't got bad looking feet at all - though his landing shows he is not using them correctly at the moment - but his owner and I are hoping we have caught him early enough to be able to turn them around and perhaps even get him back to jumping big jumps, which is his proper job :-)

Snow, Bryan and Ted

2012-02-03T08:00:00.006Z

For once winter has come late to Rockley. After 2 months of relentless rain (Texans - just 6 days without rain between 30th November and 31st January - count 'em and weep...) we have at last got cold clear weather and winter sunshine but... its bloomin' cold...

Solar and Nico chose to stay in the shelter of the firs, clever boys...

Ted the QH is bemused as to what's happening...

...as is Knightley: "Darlings, we never had to deal with weather like this in Dubai...though actually between you and me its an improvement on 45 degrees of scorching heat."

Felix, Charllie and Georgia brave the fields, but there is an easterly wind.

Yes, its as cold as it looks, but at least the sun is shining and there is ad lib haylage...

Meanwhile, new boy Bryan and his owner braved the inclement weather for a long trip from Kent. Bryan (in the photo above) is a showjumper and obviously dwarfs Felix, though I think they will be mates (if Georgia allows). Bryan has been diagnosed on MRI with collateral ligament damage to his LF and bilateral pedal osteitis and navicular damage.

I've put his footage up but won't get photos till tomorrow. He was recently out of shoes when he arrived but as you can see has a very toe first landing especially on his LF/RH.

For contrast, and because I've been really remiss in posting his updated footage (partly due to rain, snow and darkness making filming difficult), here is Ted the QH's footage. Its taken a while to get him to a better landing but I am pleased with his progress.

Sweet Georgia Brown

2012-02-02T08:00:00.015Z

New girl Georgia arrived yesterday - she's not really called Georgia Brown but as she is bay with an Exmoor pony style mealy muzzle (despite being a TB) the title seems appropriate!

She arrived in wedges and it was quite difficult to see what her feet were really like.

However on MRI she had DDFT damage to the RF - her worst leg (pictured above) - and collateral ligament damage to the LF (pictured below) with bilateral fibrocartilage erosion.

The wedged shoes also make her feet very elongated. To me the LF looks more out of balance, when you compare the shots of the lateral cartilages and digital cushions on both feet, and this would explain the collateral ligament damage which was apparent on the LF.

Georgia has been assessed by her vet as 2-3/10 lame bilaterally and I am hoping we can help her make some good changes to her feet as she is only young and should by rights have a bright future ahead of her.

The shoes and pads had us a bit worried that her frogs would be weak and thrushy, but happily once they came off...

everything was reasonably OK underneath, just a bit weak and flat.

Georgia was finding her shoes very uncomfortable, which was one of the main reasons her owner wanted to try rehab here with her. She was fidgeting constantly from one foot to the other and although the wedges had given her a heel first landing in front, she was walking rather as if she had clogs on and sliding her feet behind. You can just about see in this clip that she is landing laterally on her LF though its more obvious from the front.

Peripheral loading and why its not ideal

2012-02-01T08:00:00.030Z

The phrase "peripheral loading" was - as far as I know - coined by Robert Bowker and the first time I heard him say it was a lightbulb moment for me because it perfectly encapsulated how the shod hoof works and why it can cause problems.

Look at this image of someone trying to balance spinning plates - its hard enough, but its only possible if he has the point of support in the centre of the plate. You won't find any pictures of people balancing plates using a point on the periphery because its not possible - putting weight on the periphery makes the whole thing unbalanced.

With that in mind, have a look at these 2 photos, which many of you will have seen before. Contrast the loading in the shod hoof and the barefoot hoof. Just imagine how much more difficult it is for the peripherally-loaded shod hoof to have correct medio-lateral balance. Even if the farrier gets it absolutely spot on the day the horse is shod, it's quite likely to be spinning out of balance by weeks 4, 5 and 6 of the shoeing cycle.

The reason I started thinking about how best to describe this was because of an interesting link which Wiola sent me when we were brainstorming :-) In this clip, a farrier is describing the importance of correct hoofcare (skip the first 3 and a half minutes which are unedited and mostly feature sky and palm trees!).

http://www.usefnetwork.com/featured/GeorgeMorris2012/#ooid=5ib3A1MzrkQno6433FClbVKQUHTEa5J0,5pcHA1Mzq5P1pD-DpFLszE1BUCdIpxGw,90OG04MzorcE8vFWzOh8cTijAvOds_TX

This farrier is obviously tremendously committed and caring and is passionate about hooves. I mean no criticism of him in this post and there is lots of good in what he says.

However, by minute 11 of the talk, he begins to get into hoof function. He explains how - alone of all animals (his words not mine) - the horse is the only one who loads the outer rim of the hoof, rather than the sole and centre of the foot. But of course this is only possible in a shod horse, as he makes clear.

Interestingly, he doesn't consider whether the shoe is in fact changing how the horse's hoof functions. Although he acknowledges that there are lots of hooved animals in the world, and many of them are domesticated, he confirms that none of them load their feet in the same way as a [shod] horse, without wondering how bizarre this is.

He's not oblivious to how unusual or difficult it is for the horse to load his whole bodyweight on the laminae - in fact he marvels about how extraordinary this is, and how much stress the laminae are under, as they are bearing the whole weight of the horse. He goes on to describe how horses who have done fast work are often lame the next day if they have weak laminae because of the immense load and tearing the laminae are subjected to. He has based his explanation of hoof function on standard farriery texts, which describe how the horse is capable of weightbearing via the laminae in this way.

But since even these texts acknowledge how tremendously unique and difficult it is, from a biomechanical point of view, for the horse to transfer weight through the laminae to the ground, surely there is a next logical step: to question whether the horse really IS an evolutionary anomaly, whether it really IS designed to shock absorb primarily through the hoof wall and whether the laminae really ARE designed to bear the whole weight of the horse? After all its only when horses are shod that these assumptions are required - isn't there a danger we are making the biomechanics fit the shoes, rather than the other way around?

So looking at it logically and looking at the biomechanics of every other [unshod] hoofed animal, isn't it just possible that the shock-absorbing structures of the heels, frog/pad and digital cushion might be better suited to taking the weight of the horse, as they do in every other hoofed animal? Leaving the laminae to do the protective job of hoof wall or fingernail, as they do in every other animal? It also makes maintaining correct medio-lateral balance a whole lot easier...

Back to spinning plates...

As the saying goes (thanks to Sez for this!): "The wood is over there, by the trees..."

Paddy and perversity

2012-01-31T08:00:00.026Z

After what seems like the biggest rollercoaster ride of them all, Paddy is going home tomorrow.

Regular blog readers will know that he arrived in bar shoes way back in August and made good progress over his first few weeks. He had had a recurrent DDFT injury which was the most serious problem and a nasty abscess in July had blown a chunk out of his LF.

Both of these took some time to improve, of course, but by the end of October his owner and I were feeling quite pleased with his progress. He was scheduled to go home when - literally days before he was due to get on the lorry and head back to Suffolk - he was rushed into our local equine hospital and had colic surgery to remove a tumour which had wrapped itself round a section of his intestine.

The good vibes and support from the blog readers here were fantastic and I am sure contributed to Paddy's remarkable recovery over the next 8 weeks. Unfortunately the surgery meant he was confined to his box for most of that time and although he was hand-walked out to graze several times a day his feet were not getting much stimulation and he was certainly not allowed to do more than a short amble out to grass.

Inevitably this meant that we had to start with only the most gentle exercise when he came back into work at the beginning of this month and it soon became apparent that instead of coming out of box-rest more or less as sound as he had gone into it, he'd developed a bizarre new lameness.

Its particularly bizarre because its totally unlike any other lameness I've seen before. When he arrived he landed badly and this rapidly improved, and he is still landing heel first today, as you can see below, so it seems unlikely that his original DDFT injury is still causing problems. The lameness shows up very clearly on a gradient and is specific to his LF but is invisible on a level surface and he is also able to trot evenly on the roads. You would automatically think it was a recurrence of a collateral ligament injury except that he didn't have one when he was MRI-ed earlier this year.

The vet and I are mystified and to be honest it seems very unfair after all Paddy and Debbie have been through :-( The only thing different about Paddy's rehabilitation is the weeks of box rest he had after surgery and at the moment all I can think is that an adhesion might have formed while he was on such restricted movement and that he tweaked it once he came off box rest.

Obviously we have been careful to try and restrict him from wild hooleying but with the best will in the world he will have the odd trot and canter, not to mention the odd rear and spin when he is with his mates on the track.

Anyway, I need more good vibes now that he is off home, please, to try and ensure he makes a rapid recovery from this latest setback - I know I can count on you lot :-)

The puzzling hoof...

2012-01-30T08:00:00.015Z

So on Friday I left you with this to look at...

and you came up with some really interesting comments - you guys are good :-) I'll answer them as best I can although of course there are elements of speculation as well (I'll try and make clear what is known for definite and what is guess work).

Obviously you all pointed out the medial flare and that it was too extreme and specific to be simply a long hoof - which you'd expect to be much less one-sided. As Val pointed out, if a hoof was just over-long it would normally split off rather than deviating as its done in this photo. Most of you were suspicious that it was the result of an injury or conformation problem - and of course you were right!

Most of you also spotted that on this view the digital cushion on the lateral (left hand) side of hoof appears more robust than the medial side; it certainly seems to be the case that this foot has a tendency to overload laterally.

Taking that into account, it seems likely that the "flare" on the medial side is acting a bit like an outrigger - if the flare weren't there, the hoof would be even more unstable and less able to load evenly. As it is, the load isn't perfect even with the "outrigger" because deviated hoof wall is a compromise and not as strong as a properly supported hoof capsule. As C says, there is a crack in the wall because hoof wall alone isn't really designed to take this sort of load but the crack is actually only superficial.

Overall, the leg is fairly straight - not sure, Deered, whether the lean you saw is the slope or the red wine :-) - and the hairline at the coronet is fairly level - if you look at the concrete ground line in the first photo it gives you a better idea of what is truly horizontal than the borders of the shot.

This particular horse has a mild medial wall deviation on both front feet which appeared once he was sound and working barefoot but the dramatic wall deviation in the photo appeared after he had a shoulder injury.

I don't have photos from then, unfortunately, but he had quite severe atrophy of the deltoid and supraspinatus muscles (the visible muscles on the outside of the shoulder) at the time. That has improved but there is no doubt that this is still his weaker leg and its the one which is most prone to injury, though he is sound and in work.

For me this hoof is a good example of how resourceful horses and hooves are at stabilising, compromising and carrying on as best they can even after injury. I'll let you know if the wall deviation ever disappears :-)

Ups and downs...

2012-01-29T10:02:00.000Z

I love this photo! Sarah Farnsworth, who is an ace hunting photographer, came out with us and has just posted the photos on her Facebook page. I'm going to order a copy of this one because it really captures the terrain :-)

Its always more relaxing going down somewhere like this when you aren't on a young horse(!) - luckily for me I had Felix out - he is the first bay horse in the top group - who thinks nothing of it :-)

A hoof for you to ponder...

2012-01-27T08:00:00.001Z

Here is a Friday puzzle for the hoof anoraks out there :-)

What do you think about this hoof - why it looks as it does, whether its a good thing or a bad thing and whether you would want to do anything to change it?

Answers on a postcard, or in the comments section for the technologically able, and have a lovely weekend :-)

Personally I am hoping it stops raining and that I get the chance of a dry day's hunting on Saturday...I've stopped counting how many inches of rain we have had this year because its just too depressing - and its still not even February...

PS: Oh all right - bonus points straightaway for anyone who has already said that you can't comment usefully on a photo without seeing the whole horse - you are all too clever by half...With that caveat, feel free to say what you think ;-)

Hoof boots and why I don't use them(!)

2012-01-26T08:00:00.003Z

Someone emailed me recently asking what sort of hoof boots and pads I use for rehabilitation and I am afraid the answer is none :-)

Before I go further, I should say that I have nothing against (proper!) hoof boots, and there are of course situations when they are very useful BUT I think they need to be used with care and (as with everything) with awareness of their drawbacks, and thats the reason for this post.

When not to use boots

When rehabilitating a horse who has had long term lameness, I need to know precisely what that horse's feet are capable of. If I simply slap a pair of boots on a horse with weak feet it would be easy to over-estimate how sound they are and therefore over-estimate what work is appropriate. Without boots I can see and feel if a horse is genuinely comfortable and landing correctly or not, and adjust what we are doing accordingly.

There are also several practical reasons behind my dislike of boots. They don't always fit terribly well - and some of the ones which DO fit well are difficult to get on and off. Boots have a tendency to twist on horses who don't move perfectly straight and can rub if they aren't a good design and a close fit. Some designs, particularly the older ones, have poor traction and can be downright dangerous on the sort of wet, slippery ground which is common with us.

With rehab horses particularly, their feet often have angle changes and wall deviations which are not factored into the design of the average boot. Most boots are made with a symmetrical hoof in mind but many rehab horses simply do not have this type of hoof, making well-fitting boots nearly impossible.

There are physiological drawbacks too, as working horses in boots results in less stimulation to the hoof. Stimulus is essential for strengthening the feet so working without boots will tend to result in a stronger hoof. Its essential with rehab horses for the frog and caudal hoof to remain as strong as possible and roadwork without boots is a good way to ensure this.

Last but not least, boots (in both horses and humans) reduce proprioception but actually do not provide much additional shock absorption. Without awareness of a hard surface (ie: proprioception) stride length increases and so does concussion. Using boots on a hard surface can therefore increase concussion without increasing shock absorption - trotting on tarmac is not necessarily a better idea just because your horse has boots on.

When boots can be a good idea

By using the tracks and surfaces here, I can usually ensure that horses can move comfortably even when they have weak feet and I don't need to work them on tougher surfaces until they are ready. However if you have no choice but to work on tough surfaces but you have a horse whose feet aren't able to cope with that, then booting is a better option than not working at all.

Similarly, if you have a horse with hooves which are weak because of circumstances outside your control (for instance a metabolic problem or illness or simply being on a yard where there is too much grass) then boots are a good way of boosting what that horse's feet are capable of even when you can't improve the overall health of the hoof.

Hoof balance - essentials

2012-01-25T10:49:00.000Z

This is a follow on from the Movement - essentials post and from the post on balance and its effect on tendons and ligaments, last week. Its really just bullet points but it just crystallises what for me are the key elements.

Balance is NOT necessarily the same as symmetry. Feet can be balanced for the limb but appear asymmetric when viewed from the top.

The frog will normally be fairly central in a balanced front limb and the sole will be fairly symmetrical. Comparing these photos of Ted, one of the current rehabs, taken a few weeks apart, you can see that the foot is now more evenly loading - a sign that his medio-lateral balance is improving.

Collateral groove depth will be fairly symmetrical in a balanced front limb. If one side is shallow and one side deep its a fair bet that the foot is unbalanced. This is the x-ray of a horse who had very uneven collateral groove depth when he arrived. Again, this evened up as the foot became more balanced.

Solar, Nico and the new forum lives!

2012-01-24T08:00:00.002Z

We spent some time this weekend updating the footage on Solar and Nico so this post is all about their progress.

Solar goes first. He has been here slightly longer than Nico and has also been out of shoes for much longer so is understandably further ahead than his mate, though I am pleased with them both.

Solar has made some dramatic changes, most importantly to his RF which he pointed continuously when he first arrived. Now he stands and - even better - lands properly, as you can see from the footage.

Nico started with more disadvantages than Solar - major hind limb problems as well as front limb issues, and a weaker digital cushion - so his currently weaker landing should definitely not be held against him, nor taken as a measure of how he may improve in the future :-)

At the moment his hind limb placement are much better and he is just about landing heel first in front though with less confidence than Solar.

Meanwhile, thanks to everyone who has joined the RR forum - its alive and you can put whatever you want on there - no holds barred :-) Rehab owners are some of the nicest people on the planet so it should be a good place!

So much going on, and lots of rehab news...

2012-01-23T08:00:00.002Z

A busy weekend, with Flynn the Second going home after a last minute change of transportation...(though it worried Stacy more than it worried Flynn), and he arrived back in Essex in style last night

Flynn has made great progress while he has been here and I am really pleased with how his hooves are changing. He has been back in work for many weeks now, instead of still being on box rest, and has gone from strength to strength...

...and today he has functioning hooves, though he still has several months of improvement to go.

Then we had visits from Sarah (visiting Solar) and Emma (visiting Nico). They have been here in fog, in rain, in gales and today...finally...in sunshine - or partial sunshine, which is the best we can usually do...

I have footage to upload but it will be a few days before I manage to do that, probably, though you will see it here first :-)

In the meantime, I had an idea...

The owners who have had horses here are fantastically supportive of each other, whether on Facebook, HHO or elsewhere and have been wonderful in the past in sharing information and incredibly generous with their help for other owners too.

But there are people who aren't on Facebook or don't want to post online on a big public forum, so I though it might be useful to start a small, private forum just for rehab owners. I've just set it up and you can find it here, so owners past and present, feel free to jump in - its only us ;-)

http://rockleyrehabs.proboards.com

I hope it will be useful not just for sharing news but for arranging get-togethers, passing on helpful info and having a moan about the rehab rollercoaster - as well as getting inspiration when its all going well. I will email everyone over the next few days and let me know if you have any problems joining.

And talking of inspiration, how about these clips from Hannah and Patsy, who was here as a rehab last year...

Hannah has made a tremendous commitment to Patsy and its wonderful to see that dedication paying off, and how good she looks now, a year later, in Hannah's latest video...

Blog topics for the future...

2012-01-20T12:48:00.000Z

Quick question for you all - I am going to do some more on medio-lateral balance for the blog for next week to answer Jen's comment from yesterday, plus a post on wall deviations and limb stability, plus a post on peripheral loading.

Someone else has emailed me a question about hoof boots and wraps, so that will also go on the list for future, and Amanda has asked about wall ripples.

Are there other topics you want to see discussed? If so, get your requests in here :-)

Hoof imbalance - how it affects the parts you can't see

2012-01-19T08:00:00.067Z

I've been trying to come up with a way to illustrate what happens when hooves get out of balance, but I haven't been able to find any pictures that do what I need.

The problem is that I have therefore had to get out my crayons and start drawing - which as you can see is not my strong point. Needs must, however, and I just hope you can make out enough for these to be useful(!) - you can click on them to enlarge.

This is a fairly familiar side (lateral) view of a hoof showing P2, P3 and the distal sesamoid (navicular) bones with the collateral ligaments which connect them in blue and orange. These ligaments, plus the deep digital flexor tendon (in green) commonly show up on MRI as the problem areas in horses who have caudal hoof pain or navicular bone damage on x-ray.

From the palmar view (ie: as if you were behind the hoof and looking towards the toe) it becomes more obvious why the medio-lateral balance of the hoof is crucial and why those ligaments have to be evenly loaded and balanced for the horse to be comfortable.

Although ligaments and tendons can't be seen on x-ray, it is possible to see how poor medio-lateral balance affects the hoof. The blue lines show the angle of the old hoof capsule. The green lines show the ground line compared to the alignment of P3 and you can see that they aren't parallel.

This has led to strain on the collateral ligaments which was confirmed on MRI. In this horse, the problem was caught very early but if this sort of imbalance continues for more than a short while it can lead to ligament damage (and eventually bone damage) as well - of course - as long-term lameness.

This isn't primarily a trimming problem - in this horse's case the foot was already short and any attempt to trim or shoe the foot level would have been invasive.

However, when the shoe was taken off and the horse came for rehab, she started to grow a hoof capsule (the red lines) which followed her bone alignment. Over time, this has corrected the medio-lateral imbalance internally, as you can see here now that the whole hoof capsule has grown in.

Nico's last 8 weeks

2012-01-18T08:00:00.000Z

Yikes, can't believe how the time has flown but Nico has been here for 8 weeks! He arrived last November and had a slew of stuff going on both with front limbs and hind limbs and I first blogged about him here as there were a lot of changes happening with his feet in the first few days.

By contrast, here are his feet the day he arrived...

And a month later.

Even more importantly, contrast his caudal hoof on the day he arrived...

four days after his shoes came off...

and today...

And last but not least his sole shots. again the day he arrived...

His sole shots on the day he arrived...

...four days after his shoes came off...

...and today.

Nico is definitely not out of the woods yet, and he is actually a good example of how misleading photos can be! His feet look lovely but (in the case of his RF, anyway) are not yet functioning as well as they could do, although he is in work and making good progress. More on Nico soon!

Movement - essentials

2012-01-17T08:00:00.000Z

I wanted to put together some occasional blog posts with bullet points - really basic but which I hope will be useful as quick summaries or reminders of the essentials in some key areas.

It seems sensible to start with movement - its what I obsess about with the rehab horses - how are they moving, how can I help them improve, what are the causes of unsound movement and so on.

So here are the essentials, as far as I am concerned:

Landing: hooves should land heel first on a flat, level surface. This is clearly visible in a healthy hoof and becomes more pronounced when the horse walks down a slope. Conversely a toe first landing is normal when a horse walks uphill but is a sign of potential caudal hoof pain on a flat surface.

Loading:

front limb hooves should load evenly (medio-laterally) when walking on a flat, level surface

hind limb hooves will normally land laterally (this can usually only be seen in slowed down footage)

Surfaces: a healthy hoof has good proprioception so stride length will normally adjust slightly as a horse crosses different surfaces (there is a reason dressage is not done on concrete). However, a horse should not look pottery or restricted on a hard surface.

Gait: horses will, of course, alter their movement in response to pain, or its removal - a heel first landing can change to toe first, and vice versa. Equally, stride length can increase as hooves load in a more balanced way or develop a better ability to shock absorb. It can be useful (and interesting) to film your horse's movement regularly to monitor changes and give you reference points.

"Dillon with the wedges" and more from H&H

2012-01-16T08:00:00.002Z

A quick update on last week's H&H post - Nadia sent me a link to the H&H online gallery, and there I found the photos that didn't make it into the magazine ;-)

Charlie quite focussed - hounds were hunting a trail just in front of us!

This is the photo I think they should have used - wild riders in the snow!

More importantly, I know many of you fondly remember "Dillon with the wedges", who made a minor blog sensation when he arrived here last summer in these...

Well, the time has flown since he went home - and an email from Nicky over the weekend confirms its now more than 6 months since he came out of his wedges:

"I have realised its been over 3 months since Dillon came home and it would be a good time to give you an update. This is also coupled with the fact that today I had the best ride since I brought him home and I am grinning from ear to ear!

There continued to be a few up and down moments in November/early Dec...realistically I think I was stuggling to do enough work with winter and lack of daylight hours...but I hope to be able to do a bit more work, especially when the clocks go back (yes I am counting down the weeks). He still has a small amount of flare but not so much now as his old hoof is almost grown out.

I was quite conservative on what we did and as I was limited to how often I rode kept mainly to roadwork as I thought this would be best for self trimming. In hindsight I was over cautious and around Christmas time I decided he was doing well and used the opportunity of a bit of time off to start doing a bit more. Consequently he found it all very exciting, especially out on our boxing day yard ride with the 4 others from the yard which stopped off at a pub - lets just say he was keen to get there! (although the drink for me was helpful dutch courage for the ride home!) Just after that on a ride round some fields my nerves took a bit of a knock as he was leaping about and ready to take off at the slightest hint of a bird flying out of a bush and on the way home we cavorted down the road in canter.

I think he was telling me something - that he wanted to do more and was bored. So between me, the YM and another friend we have continued the increased workload over the last few weeks and he has been hacked 5 times a week rather than 3 sometimes 4. So far he has remained sound with the increase in workload and it has improved his behaviour and overall demenour, very small things but I notice them - he is standing much quieter when tied up, less fidgeting while waiting for others to tack up/get on etc. So the reason I am so happy today is because I was brave and we went on our longest ride since we came home and over some quite stoney tracks (for Kent anyway, we generally only have roads or fields/grass tracks!) - he coped fantastically and I was really pleased, whats more we had several canters at my request and without prancing for the rest of the ride, whats even better was he also felt great!
I feel like today we turned another corner, in me realising he really can do it and our time at Rockley really was only the beginning and it will last. (I hope that makes sense - I do fundamentally understand barefoot is a long term solution to the underlying problem so it should last but I was convinced it would all go wrong when I got home as I'm not knowledgable enough or with the set up to maintain it) Here's hoping that we are onto the next stage of our journey now. "

All I can say is very well done Nicky - fantastic news :-)

Charlie and I made it to Horse and Hound!

2012-01-13T07:52:00.003Z

Only 3 years (I think) after the editor first rode him** for a day with the Exmoor Foxhounds, finally there he is (with me) in the hunting report in this week's edition! They even managed a photo!

Not only that, but we get a mention (thank you to authors Paul Scott and Simon Derby) for hunting all our horses without shoes :-)

It was a very exclusive day, with only about 6 of us out (we are all in the photo!) in the snow before Christmas, but none the less magical for that.

Thanks to Lainey and Nadia for telling me where to look :-)

**Actually I've looked back and it was October 2008(!) - here's the post: http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2008/10/gales-and-suchlike.html

A couple of encouraging conversations

2012-01-12T08:00:00.000Z

It was good yesterday to have a conversation with a vet about a new horse, who should be coming down at the end of the month, and she was very positive about sending him down. This is partly because she had also been to see one of the rehab "old boys", Ginger, who was here this time last year.

Her practice looks after both horses and she had been to see Ginger to give him his vaccinations. In the Project Dexter table, Ginger doesn't have a formal veterinary assessment because the vet who diagnosed his lameness wasn't the same vet who saw him before he came here, and the current vet is different again.

[There is an interesting piece of research which shows that vets are very consistent at spotting lameness BUT its not so easy to get consistency between individual vets, which is why, for Project Dexter, the same vet has to see the horse at each stage].

What was lovely was that this vet told me that Ginger had "fabulous" feet, looked wonderful and was perfectly sound - brilliant news even if we can't include it in the project :-)

Only a few hours later, just to cheer me up even more, I had an email from Nicky's owner to say that her vet had come to see her because of an ongoing issue with her hock - she had spavins before she came here and though they have improved they haven't completely fused, according to the surgeon - a matter of time, and continuing work.

The good news is that her vet had re-assessed her front limb soundness and was impressed with her, especially as she is working 5-6 days per week when the vet, before she came, thought she would struggle to stay paddock-sound.

Useful things: really, truly waterproof jods!

2012-01-11T08:00:00.009Z

Admittedly these are unlikely to be useful for those of you who do your riding in Texas, Essex, Suffolk, Kent etc but for those of us in less blessed climates, these are the business.

Andy gave me a pair of cream ones for Christmas and I've tried them out in some truly disgusting weather out hunting and they do absolutely what it says on the tin. They are quite warm anyway but if you stick a pair of thermal leggings underneath then you have serious comfort and insulation :-)

I've come across so-called waterproof jods before but no others have actually done what they promised so I've always relied on overtrousers instead but these look much better and are much more comfortable.

They are manufactured by Townend and are made of softshell - full details here for the ladies' version: http://www.townendonline.co.uk/products/Townend-Shower-Proof-Fleece-Lined-Ladies-Breeches-.html
and here for the men's: http://www.townendonline.co.uk/products/Townend-Shower-Proof-Fleece-Lined-Mens-Breeches.html

They aren't cheap but if you spend a lot of time riding horses in the rain then I highly recommend them. Obviously you have to be a bit careful washing them - the label says you can use detergent but I don't trust that so I use Nikwax TechWash, which doesn't destroy the waterproofing.

I've now thown caution to the winds and bought myself a black pair for everyday. I got mine from this place, who were delightful to deal with and had one of the best prices at the time: http://clippityclobber.co.uk/shopping/mall/clippityclobber/Product/imp-softshell-ladies-winter-breeches-from-townend-ot5772-1239248

The only thing to beware of, if you are buying online, is that the legs are cut very narrow and the material isn't terribly elastic so unless you have very skinny legs you will need to buy a size bigger than normal, particularly if you want to wear thermals underneath. Alternatively, of course, just don't ride in terrible weather...(!)

Nothing is quite as simple as it seems

2012-01-10T08:00:00.001Z

I read an interesting post on Wiola's blog the other day. She was reflecting on whether horses prefer being in or out, and her post includes a link to another blog by a writer who obviously believes horses shouldn't be kept inside for most of the time.

Well, fair enough - I think most of us are aware that horses aren't at their best, either mentally or physically, when they are kept stabled for too long. However, as Wiola says in her post, it can work for some horses particularly if they are in a very busy routine with lots of out-of-the-box activity for much of the day.

She also highlights how incredibly adaptable horses are: they commonly tolerate being kept in different extremes - from 24/7 turnout with no shelter to 24/7 stabling - and adjust surprisingly well in most cases to less than ideal domestic environments - its one of the secrets of their success, after all.

With the horses here, I am fortunate to be able to give them lots of choice most of the time. One of the joys of having tracks is that you don't have to choose between stables or turnout.

On a track, horses can get the benefits of turnout - foraging, movement and social interaction - even when the weather is too wet or grass too sugary for access to fields to be a good idea but you can also provide some of the benefits of stabling - shelter, dry footing and hay or haylage (with the downside of having to muck out, of course - nothing is all upsides!).

The interesting thing, though, is that once you give horses these choices, their decision-making appears more complex. As Wiola says, there are constants which horses always want - food, water, companionship - but if these are available both inside and outside, then things become more interesting.

Horses (at Rockley at least) don't always prefer being outside. Last Tuesday, when we had severe storms, most of the horses spent most of the night in the barn. During the summer, on hot days when the flies are bothersome, they will also spend as much time as they can inside. Conversely, on a bright moonlit night they will spend as much time as possible outside. They aren't overly bothered by rain - its wind, and light, which determines where they want to be.

If you are used to horses being stabled individually at night, its interesting to observe that horses actually are happiest in groups, whether inside or outside. After all, in a field they tend to sleep in groups so why should it be any different inside?

Our barn is set up traditionally, with large boxes, but when I open these up at night in the winter its not uncommon to find 3 horses all resting in one box when I go in last thing.

So when you are asking if your horses prefer being in or out, there are other questions you need to take into account - the answer is unlikely to be a simple yes or no :-)

Do they have companionship, whether in or out (horses will not use shelters if they are being bullied but some also hate being inside alone)?

Do they have access to forage, whether in or out (in the winter lots of horses appear to "prefer" coming off the fields simply because grazing is poor or non-existent)?

Do they have the ability to get out of the wind (a shelter which is facing into the wind will never be popular)?

What is the footing like? Horses will often avoid boggy, poached land out of preference whether its a field or a track, so provide well-drained, dry areas if you can.

Is there enough space for horses to get inside without feeling threatened (there is no point having a 12ft shelter and expecting 3 or 4 horses to be able to use it)?

And even if you think you know the answers, they can surprise you! On Tuesday morning the weather here was so grim and wild that I was prepared to leave the horses in, if they wanted, after they had been fed - they had clearly been inside most of the night sheltering from the storm, the winds were gusting at 60-70mph and we had horizontal rain sheeting in from the west, inches and inches of it.

After breakfast, though, they made it pretty obvious that they wanted to be allowed out, even though the weather to me looked horrendous. Sure enough, about half an hour later the rain had stopped and the wind was dropping - as the horses obviously knew it would...

Progressing in the fog...

2012-01-09T08:00:00.000Z

...or the further adventures of the Rockley Pony Club, in session for the first time in 2012...

Present were Stacy and Flynn (officially the Old Stagers, as Flynn is going home soon), Emma and Nico (aka the Bouncing Bomb), Sarah and Solar (who impressed me no end with his bravery through floods which he hadn't encountered before) and last but by no means least - since they were in front the whole way - Sophie and Thomas ("I am the smallest but clearly I have to be in the lead AT ALL TIMES and NO-ONE is passing me!).

Sophie, Thomas, Stacy and Flynn braving the weather

Sarah and Solar, heading in the right direction

Emma making essential pre-flight checks :-)

None of these horses are at the end of their rehab - even Flynn has at least 2-3 months to go before his feet are as good as they can be, but every step they take now is a step forward rather than a step back.

The barefoot college

2012-01-08T08:00:00.000Z

This caught my eye - for obvious reasons - on Facebook but after I had clicked on the link and started the video I was hooked :-)

The speaker, who has a great sense of humour and is obviously an incredibly ground-breaking thinker, is talking about giving people solutions and enabling them to share skills and educate each other. At his Barefoot College there are no certificates given out. Instead, he believes that you should be "certified by the community you serve". Fantastic!

http://www.ted.com/talks/bunker_roy.html#.TwfPMO2BSoB.facebook

Yesterday 6 weeks, today 7 weeks...

2012-01-06T08:00:00.007Z

Today's rehab update focusses on Mr Knightley - he likes a decent kip as much as the next horse but luckily this hasn't stopped him improving his hooves.

Mr Knightley has been here for 7 weeks, so he is a week ahead of Ted, whom I blogged about yesterday.

Mr Knightley had been unshod for a long time before he arrived but, as you guys already know, although that can often be a step forward it doesn't guarantee healthy hooves. Mr K came from a dry, hot environment but as his owner had spotted, he had quite a bad central sulcus infection in 3 out of 4 feet as well as poor hoof balance which had led to hind limb problems as well as front limb problems.

Knightley's frogs still aren't perfect but his hooves are in much better proportion than they were when he arrived and have healthier soles as well.

Knightley's hooves from the side give a clue as to how much his feet are changing. The top photo shows him on the day he arrived and the lower photo is the same hoof today - a clear angle change and rapid growth over the last few weeks.

Of course, not all of the hoof growth has happened over the last 7 weeks but its great to see his hooves rapidly strengthening.

These photos give the clearest indications of why barefoot isn't the whole story. Out of shoes on day 1 - above - Knightley still had high heels and a weak frog which wasn't strong enough to allow for a heel first landing. You can also see the central sulcus split, or sheared heel.

After 7 weeks, the hoof wall is lower, the frog and caudal hoof is much stronger and he is definitely getting there, even though he has a way to go.

More updates to follow!

Nearly 6 weeks

2012-01-05T08:00:00.013Z

Ted has now been here nearly 6 weeks and is the first update of 2012 - I have masses to put up so bear with me and I will try to get updates on all the rehab horses posted in the next few days. Unfortunately the weather has made photos difficult - its dark even in the barn, even during so-called daylight hours, so I apologise for the lighting issues(!).

Flash isn't an option, as it distorts hoof angles, which is the last thing Ted needs - he has enough going on already! Here are his feet at day one, which you may recall from the last update...

Here he is a few days afterwards - you can see how the foot initially looks collapsed without the wedges. The angles are actually pretty much the same but without being jacked up behind the whole foot appears longer.

Its interesting that the wedge makes the hoof pastern axis appear better, but without actually building up the internal structures of the foot at all.

Below is the same foot taken yesterday - and if you look at the line of new growth, you can see that Ted is already determined to grow a hoof at a healthier angle - and one which will improve the whole hoof, from the inside out.

He has the most dramatic angle change I've seen since Zan started growing a new hoof capsule - it makes his toe look even longer but - as you can see from the sole shots - there is nothing to be done from a trimming point of view without being excessively invasive.

Once the new angle is complete, his toe will be shorter and his heel in the right place - without the need for wedges or fillers. More importantly, a stronger caudal hoof will allow him to land better: heel first instead of toe first.

Here is his LF - the worst foot - in his remedial shoe and today. As is usually the case, the shoe was providing stability but not allowing the hoof to strengthen - that only happens when it can actually start to work. Look at how long his hoof wall was in shoes - even though his foot still looks long at the toe, its much shorter and stronger than it was in bar shoes.

And for completeness, his sole shot from a few days out of shoes...

and today...

...a much better frog and a hoof which is starting to get back to correct medio-lateral balance.

Over a thousand miles...

2012-01-04T08:00:00.002Z

Its only the first week of January, but on Exmoor we're more than halfway through our hunting season and - incredibly (especially as I have been busier than ever and not able to get out as often as I would like) - our own 4 horses have already covered more than 1,000 hunting miles barefoot this season.

As usual, Felix and Charlie lead the way - both have more than 300 miles under their hooves and together they have clocked up more than 700 miles so far. They should, with luck, and if their other seasons are any guide, have many more miles to go.

Bailey and Dexter don't get out as frequently but have nevertheless done well, especially as Dex is only in his first season and Exmoor is a tough test for any horse.

For me, their mileage is even more impressive because for the last couple of months the whole of Exmoor has been saturated. We get a lot of rain at the best of times but this winter is something else - even farmers who have been here for decades are saying they haven't seen it as wet.

For the horses, who are already dealing with steep hills and sharp descents, this means that every mile is even harder work, through deep, slippery ground which is a drag on muscles and tendons. Here's to some drier ground in the next few weeks...!

Progress and the healthy hoof

2012-01-02T08:00:00.002Z

Its that odd time of year - the hiatus before the New Year really gets under way. My inclination is to look forward and be optimistic but its still midwinter, the days are short and the weather is unkind and its a time when you can't avoid being realistic.

Over the last year, more horses than ever have come here for rehab and more and more owners have educated themselves about hoof health and lameness.

But will this be the year that vets start educating themselves about hooves?

Of course I've been fortunate enough to meet some brilliant vets - sceptical but open-minded, which is the best combination. But I've also met complete indifference and sadly this is the more common reaction.

As I said last year, I'd understand completely if the view was "we're interested but we need more research". I would be ecstatic if someone was intrigued enough to use the research results I've got and analyse them further, or develop more research - which is something I don't have the skills to do.

I find indifference frustrating, though, particularly when for many of these horses everything else has been tried and has failed.

This is a post I seem to write in one form or another most years; maybe next year I will be writing a different post.

I think for that to happen, though, vets would need to become familiar with something which I think most of them have never seen: a healthy, hard-working unshod hoof.

I know many of you will have read the following quote before, but its so good that I make no apologies for posting it again. It still sends a chill down my spine whenever I read it. It was written by David Wootton in his excellent book, "Bad Medicine"; if you don't know it, do read it if you've got a minute, because its an incredible piece of writing:

"Think for a moment what surgery was like before the invention of anaesthesia in 1842... Imagine taking pride above all in the speed with which you wield the knife - speed was essential, for the shock of an operation could itself be a major factor in bringing about the patient's death.

Now think about this: in 1795 a doctor discovered that inhaling nitrous oxide killed pain..yet no surgeon experimented with this. The use of anaesthetics was pioneered not by surgeons but by humble dentists.

One of the first practitioners of painless dentistry, Horace Wells, was driven to suicide by the hostility of the medical profession.

When anaesthesia was first employed in London in 1846 it was called a "Yankee dodge". In other words, practising anaesthesia felt like cheating. Most of the characteristics that the surgeon had developed - the indifference, the strength, the pride, the sheer speed - were suddenly irrelevant.

Why did it take 50 years to invent anaesthesia? Any answer has to recognise the emotional investment that surgeons had made in becoming a certain sort of person with a certain sort of skills, and the difficulty of abandoning that self-image.

If we turn to other discoveries we find that they too have the puzzling feature of unnecessary delay...if we start looking at progress we find we actually need to tell a story of delay as well as a story of discovery, and in order to make sense of these delays we need to turn away from the inflexible logic of discovery and look at other factors: the role of emotions, the limits of imagination, the conservatism of institutions.

If you want to think about what progress really means, then you need to imagine what it was like to have become so accustomed to the screams of patients that they seemed perfectly natural and normal...you must first understand what stands in the way of progress"

2011

2011-12-31T08:00:00.006Z

So how did you find this past year?

Looking back and looking forward

2011-12-30T14:18:00.000Z

I've had a few updates in on former rehab horses, so by way of a "Happy New Year" to them and all the other rehabs, here is their news...

Lea sent me this lovely photos of Taz; we nicknamed him the Police Horse when she rode out here with double reins and full high viz and here they are looking the part - since the Houston mounted police are barefoot, perhaps Taz is blazing a new UK trail!

I've also heard from Tiffany that Oscar's feet are doing well, but unfortunately no action shots of him because he has developed gastric ulcers but fingers crossed that he will be out and about again early next year.

Lenny and owner Aileen have also emailed - this time its Aileen who has been under the weather but she has nevertheless valiantly managed to keep Lenny in work!

"Just a quick e mail to let you know that Lenny is still doing well. He has had a bit of an easy time of it over the last couple of weeks as I have had flu followed by a chest infection, but I have managed to keep him ticking over. Despite the lack of work his feet are looking fairly good. Hopefully now that I am feeling better I can

get his work levels up again.

His back is changing shape so fast that I can't keep up with him! He had another saddle fitting a few of weeks
ago and the saddler said she was very pleased with how much it had changed since he got his new saddle, since then his back has changed again and I need to book another fitting!. He is standing much better now, his front legs are straighter rather than under him and his back has risen up and his shoulders widened out. All in all he looks a much better shape. "

Great news, and Happy New Year to you all :-)

The hoof as a magnifying glass

2011-12-29T08:00:00.003Z

Wiola posted a great comment on my Christmas message post and I wanted to highlight it here.

"I totally agree with "leave alone if horse gets worse with trimming" as duly taught by Kingsley.

Just a random thought - seeing hooves are always changing in response to work the horse does...and seeing the shape and sensitivity is dynamic and changes in response to biomechanics and diet etc....

Seeing all that, I wonder if leaving hooves without shoes AND corrective trimming would make us all pay more attention to how we school/train/compete our horses.

If, let's say, schooling/dressage a horse with weak back muscle at a level it is not ready for, in hollow outline and by a rider with underdeveloped seat would cause the horse degree of back pain that would quickly lead to more limb strain that would then lead to sensitivity in bare feet/lameness then perhaps the whole training would become wiser.

As it is, so many issues in the horses' bodies that are the results of uneducated riding can go on and on for a year or longer. These issues are "treated" and "cured" for a moment only to resurface with greater force and show up as lameness.

Perhaps having horses barefoot and largely self-trimming, a horse that shows any issues in weeks or days rather than years, we would grow more sensitive to training the whole horse and be more tune in to their needs and body issues."

This is sentiment I completely agree with and for me its one of the biggest benefits - and biggest trials - of having a barefoot horse: it is much, much more difficult to overlook a problem when a horse is barefoot.

This is true whether the issue is lack of training or a biomechanical issue, as Wiola's post demonstrates, or whether its a more general health concern like a nutritional imbalance or metabolic problem.

In a lecture I went to last year, Prof. Jean Marie Denoix (talking about shod horses) made the point that a "sudden" injury or lameness is rarely that"; in fact, the precursor of most injuries is months or even years of fatigue and progressive stress on tendons. As he said: "a tendon injury is rarely a primary cause" - and if you don't identify and solve the source of the injury, it will inevitably recur.

But imagine if you had an incredibly sensitive early warning system which could detect and alert you to these early signs of stress, fatigue or malfunction. In a barefoot horse, this is exactly what you get.

Hooves are an unbelievably accurate barometer of the overall health and fitness of the horse and will usually provide early warning of potential problems which can often then be nipped in the bud - dietary changes can be made, overworked soft tissue can be rested, weaknesses strengthened.

However, in many shod horses, this barometer simply can't be read because the hooves are no longer capable of providing subtle feedback - wear patterns cannot be seen, proprioception is reduced and, even if limb-loading changes, deviations in the hoof capsule are removed by trimming and shoeing.

The level of detailed information a bare hoof provides can be uncomfortably immediate and uncompromising, but on the other hand, if you have a very sound, robust hoof then you can be pretty confident that you have a sound, robust horse.

Solar flares

2011-12-28T08:00:00.002Z

A quick update on Solar, whose owner is coming down to see him on Thursday. When he arrived he had been lame for some time - his worst foot was his RF which he pointed continually.

His owner had been told that he was simply pointing out of habit but her gut instinct was that it was a symptom of a bigger problem - and of course she was right.

Solar has now been here for 6 weeks and I am glad to say that his stance is much improved.

This was his problem foot - RF - on day one with some interesting medio-lateral balance issues and event lines.

This is still a pretty strange looking hoof but its improving and as you can see from the lines, the changes are happening quite quickly. More importantly, his landing is significantly better than it was when he arrived. He has been helped by the fact that his caudal hoof was already robust so it was relatively easy for him to start to land better.

Happy Christmas from all at Rockley!

2011-12-24T19:52:00.000Z

Dexter was rather astonished to go to the Christmas Eve meet...

...but he was a really good boy :-)

I think we can now call him a seasoned hunter! Happy Christmas to you all, but especially to Kelly and Yvonne, and Mr Dexterity looks forward to taking Kelly hunting in the New Year :-)

Glad tidings of great joy!

2011-12-23T15:50:00.000Z

...have arrived from Hannah and Patsy, who emailed me these great photos today!

Patsy was here earlier in the year and had not only front limb problems but also had issues with kissing spine. Her full rehab has taken a long time and a huge amount of dedication from Hannah, particularly as Patsy didn't always want to take things gently and steadily, even when she needed to.

She is now looking wonderful and is full of beans, and they hope to be out competing in the spring - brilliant!

Happy Christmas Patsy, and all the other rehab horses...

and here's to an action packed 2012 for all of you :-)

Rehab roll-call

2011-12-22T08:00:00.005Z

The last year has been an exciting and busy one at Rockley and I wanted to devote one blog post before Christmas to all the fabulous rehab horses who have come and gone during 2011. I miss them all when they leave, but the RRR last September was a wonderful chance to catch up with everyone - perhaps we will do it again in 2012...!

So, let's start with a suitably snowy picture of the cheeky boys...

Kingsley...

and Solomon (butter wouldn't melt, of course, in either case)

The very beautiful Isha

Dear old Ginger, looking gorgeous in his summer coat

Patsy, posing among the trees

Dilly, naturally right next to...

the glamorous Oscar

Zan, our long-stayer, now doing well back home in Herts

Lucy, the aspiring event horse

Harvey, the first of this year's quarter horses

Saffy, big, beautiful and bouncy, the second KWPN of the year

The Mighty - and the Original - Flynn

Lenny..ssh, don't disturb

Dillon - forever known as "Dillon with the wedges"

Pocholo, our smart Spanish visitor

Gorgeous George aka Black Beauty

Nicky, another QH and a very elegant one - the smallest rehab horse to date, together with the biggest one...

Taz, the ex-showjumper (on the left in this pic) who stands a full up 17.2hh

Lovely Paul, who made a short return visit in the autumn

Paddy - who caused me serious sleepless nights by having colic surgery in November...

Flynn the Second, another eventer to be - here learning about water!

Mr Knightley, who flew in all the way from Dubai and who hasn't let the weather put him off

Thomas, another pocket rocket but with potentially great feet...

Solar, who I am glad to say rarely stands like this after being here for 4 weeks!

Ted, our most recent QH arrival, who came with particularly special shoes on...

and last but not least, Nico, who beneath all this has a really nice set of hooves.

Its been a privilege to be involved with such lovely horses and such dedicated owners for the last year - if 2012 is anything like as good, it will be something to look forward to!

Christmas message?

2011-12-21T08:00:00.013Z

Well, here is the best shot at a Christmas message from Rockley - make of it what you like, but compare and contrast the following emails from 2 different owners about 2 different horses. Both horses have (or had) asymmetric hooves and have had "issues" in the past.

Email 1, from an owner whose horse who has not been trimmed for nearly 4 months although his hoof health has been carefully monitored. He is in regular work.

"Big thumbs up from the physio, he's not 100% but she said he's like a completely different horse -much better :-) You'll probably find this funny, the physio said his feet weren't very pretty - I took it as a compliment."

The second email is from someone whose horses' hooves I used to look after but can't get to now. Actually the horse she is talking about is one I never, ever trimmed, even though I saw him every 6 weeks, because he had compensations in his feet which were necessary in order for him to be comfortable and load evenly. His owner often asked me if I should make his feet look "prettier" but each time I saw him we talked about his comfort levels, how he was moving and his improving capability on tough terrain and decided he did better left alone.

I handed the horses over to someone else nearly a year ago.

"When you came to see my boys, you never touched [him] but every time [???] has come he has been trimmed and gradually over time he has become more and more footsore, whereas before, he could walk over anything. [???] is due to visit us soon and [his] front feet, as usual, have worn on the outside but not on the inside. My question is, should his feet be trimmed bearing in mind they are now so sore?"

What do you think?

Christmas, snow and hunting

2011-12-19T08:00:00.042Z

The big problem with my job is that Christmas can easily end up just like any other day - get up, feed horses, muck out, groom horses, muck out, turn out horses, muck out, bring in horses, muck out, feed horses, muck out - well, you all know what its like.

So this week even if the yard is staying the same, I am going to try and make the blog a little bit Christmassy to try and get us all in the mood - though it may also end up including footage of rehab horses with tinsel round their necks or something...(!).

For today, here are some wonderful photos taken last week when Charlie and I went hunting in the snow - thanks to Adrian for these and there are more brilliant pics from him, as well as some of mine, on the Exmoor Foxhounds page on Facebook.

I love this one, which was taken by Hamish Mitchell, who was out shooting for Horse and Hound - more fantastic pics on his Facebook page...

...and he was then snapped by Adrian...

but there is no doubt that Hamish was in the right place at the right time!

Useful things: Mud-buster-thingy!

2011-12-17T08:00:00.002Z

A quick useful thing for you - and although I don't know its real name or who makes them...(!), Cristina found it online! Thanks Cristina :-)

You can get them at our local Mole Valley Farmers store in South Molton or online here: http://www.oakfield-direct.co.uk/super-groomer.ir?cName=for-the-horse-grooming-scrapers

(which is also cheaper than the link in the comments section) and after seeing how brilliant they are, quite a few of the rehab owners stock up on them and give them as Xmas pressies to all their horsey friends.

They are made of bendy squiggles of rubbery plastic and there is nothing so good at removing mud. The really great bit is that because they are soft and flexible even horses who are very ticklish or thin-skinned are happy for you to use them AND you can use them on legs and on heads and even the fussiest TB doesn't object to them.

They have the added bonus of being cheap and cheerful enough to have several on the yard, which is essential because once you have one, if you lose it you will be REALLY cross!

Paddy power!

2011-12-16T08:00:00.008Z

Today's post celebrates a milestone - yesterday marked 6 weeks since Paddy's colic surgery and after 6 weeks of box-rest and in hand grazing he is finally allowed to be turned loose! So here he is with Felix in our smallest paddock, a tiny triangle of grass below the barn.

Paddy being Paddy, he fortunately wasn't interested in flinging himself about - and of course Felix is a very steadying influence at times like these - and I'd introduced him to the paddock before by bringing him in there to graze, so when I eventually took his head-collar off he barely noticed the change.

Its a huge step forward and means he can now be gradually introduced back onto the tracks and the rest of the gang. They've been able to chat to him over his door all the way through, which I think has helped keep him calm and cheerful, but it will be nice for him to mix with them properly again.

Of course this also means that Paddy is rejoining the world of work...shhhhh...we are breaking the news to him gently.... ;-)

What do you do on Exmoor...

2011-12-15T08:00:00.017Z

...in the middle of winter on a day when the rehab horses aren't being exercised and it starts snowing, hailing and then there is a thunderstorm...Go inside and do the books?

No - you grab Charlie and go hunting of course :-)

Look at those boys go!

Although the snow was lying, the ground wasn't frozen, the dog hounds were on blinding form and we had a brilliant, fast few hours which Charlie absolutely loved. I haven't hunted him for ages - he's mostly been Andy's horse this season and Andy was supposed to take him today, and I was supposed to stay at home - but Andy stayed behind and I lucked out...

...and as always, despite the ground being sodden and the hail lashing our faces, it was a privilege to be out and the beauty of Exmoor was undeniable - if a little wintry.

PS: Texans, I can understand that this may not appeal quite so much to you guys :-)

Shifting balance

2011-12-14T08:00:00.002Z

Ted, the latest quarter horse to come to Rockley, has now been here 3 weeks and its time for an update. On MRI Ted was diagnosed as having core DDFT lesions and navicular damage bilaterally, although his LF was the worse limb.

This is his RF on arrival and it looked to me as though he had a fairly significant loading imbalance as well as his caudal hoof problems. In this photo, you can see that it looks as if the lateral side of the hoof capsule is flaring outwards and the medial side is collapsing inwards.

His initial blog post and photos are here: http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2011/11/ted-and-his-bar-shoes.html.

Today his foot is shorter and you can already see a small band of growth at the top of the hoof wall which is at a better angle. In Ted's case, as well as shortening his toe it will shift his hoof balance medially which should improve the flare/collapse and allow him to load his hoof more evenly.

The same foot (RF) again, a few days after the shoes came off. The lateral flare is clearer from this view and if you compare today's photo, the shift in balance is more obvious, as is the much healthier frog.

Back to the LF, and here are his bar shoes on day one.

Below, a few days after shoes came off and you can see a weak frog and contracted heels.

The bar shoes pretty effectively obscure the entire solar view, but again, a few days after the shoes came off things are a bit clearer.

As with the RF, there is a lateral flare in this foot too and the typical weak frog and contracted heels.

Three weeks later and things are improving. I haven't managed to upload footage for Ted yet but I will do that as soon as I can.

Finally, a reminder of his under-run heels and long toes - on day one and (below) a few days after the shoes came off. Its interesting to chart the progress of the nail holes!

Three weeks later and a bit more hoof growth but more importantly growth at a better, stronger angle.

The whole horse

2011-12-12T08:00:00.002Z

This is a post which will be obvious to many of you, but since you know that the horses here all come with foot problems, I thought it might be interesting for me to highlighting some of the related problem areas within the body which are inevitable consequences of lameness in front.

When horses come here its because they have a long standing problem, usually a lameness which has its source within the hoof - often the caudal (back) of the hoof, although other structures can be involved in the veterinary diagnosis.

However, it will come as no surprise to any of you that problems in the hoof are never insulated or self-contained and in any animal, especially a four-legged one, inability to use one leg properly affects the rest of the body.

There are inevitable knock on effects when a horse is unable to load its feet comfortably and correctly. These aren't sudden, catastrophic injuries but small, niggling discomforts which step by step, day by day, can accumulate and increase.

The arrows point to the sites of the most common problems:

The big muscles surrounding the shoulders are almost inevitably sore when horses are lame in front. It may seem obvious, but this can lead to horses being "sharp" when saddled or mounted. The problem will usually be worse on one side than the other which will be particularly apparent to equine chiropractors, osteopaths and masseurs.

Horses can suffer from restricted neck flexion as they brace to take weight off the worst leg. They will be one-sided on turns, of course, and again the problem will usually be obvious to a bodyworker.

Lumbar and sacro-iliac problems are common because most horses are lamer on one front leg than the other. Inevitably, front limb problems affect hind limbs and restricted movement in - for example - the left front will lead to a shorter stride on the right hind. Over time, an unequal thrust in the hind limbs will lead to discomfort as one hind leg pushes harder than the other, resulting in a twist in this area.

Hooves with a medio-lateral imbalance can strain check ligaments, particularly in faster work or on uneven ground.

If front limbs aren't loading correctly, there are often knock-on problems behind - the most common are hock spavins or hind suspensory problems.

What I tend to see in the horses here is that as the front limbs become stronger and sounder the related problems also improve - as you'd expect. But of course, where body issues are secondary to the front limb problem, then if you haven't sorted out the limb first, the other issues will keep recurring, no matter how many times a vet or bodyworker attempts to "fix" them.

Weather...

2011-12-09T16:54:00.001Z

They are moaning in Texas about the fact that its raining... truly - have a look at Jen's blog if you don't believe me :-)

Even worse, the temperature there has got down to only the mid 50s fahrenheit (that's still in double figures when you convert it to celsius, folks). So here is something for the Texans, those in Dubai, and anyone else who reads this blog from somewhere other than the west coast of the UK...

...and we are getting much better weather than lots of the UK (hard to believe, sometimes, but of course hail just bounces off)... Oh, what fun it is putting miles on hooves in December...

PS: They were lying about it not raining on Friday - what a surprise...

Time for Thomas and a Paddy update

2011-12-09T08:00:00.001Z

Thomas has now been here for a month - a month which has shot by but has seen him change from toe first to a heel first landing and to start working properly again. He has now been in work for just over 2 weeks and so far all is going well.

Thomas' feet looked pretty good when he arrived but if you compare the same foot today you can see that already he has a shorter toe and I am sure this is one of the factors that has helped to improve his landing.

You can also see on the more recent photo above that he is beginning to grow in a better hoof capsule. I've got to get some better sole shots as the ones I've taken are too dark to see anything (well thats Exmoor in winter for you) but I'll get those up as soon as I can.

Meanwhile Tom is very happy to be out and about again and although we are building his work up slowly, as he has been a very long time out of work, he is making good progress so far.

The last month has also, as you know, been a very eventful one for Paddy, who had his colic surgery 5 weeks ago. He has made a fantastic recovery and has coped with his ongoing box rest extremely happily. His opinion seems to be that - since box rest consists of ad lib haylage, no exercise and numerous opportunities to graze on the front lawn in hand - why is there anything to complain about?

It has made his recovery much less stressful for all of us and when his vet came to see him yesterday she was delighted with how well he had done. He now has the all clear to come back into very gentle work and can come off box rest next week - well done Paddy!

"You didn't mention work did you?! I'm an invalid..."

Calling all owners...

2011-12-08T08:00:00.004Z

I'm looking for feedback from you guys on an idea that's been bubbling away since the Rehab Reunion last September...(this photo is nothing to do with that, but Adrian posted it on Facebook and I love it - Felix, Charlie, Stacy and me on Saturday!).

It seemed to me that one of the aspects of the RRR which was most rewarding and useful was the chance to talk to other owners, compare how your horses are getting on, swap tips and advice and give each other encouragement and support.

So, I was wondering whether you would you be interested in having the odd weekend "get-together" - without horses but with other owners - when you could do just that?

It would be a good chance to go into some of the most important aspects (like nutrition and biomechanics) in more detail and to brainstorm about how to improve things. If you were up for it, I would try and get an interesting speaker to come - there would be a charge but I would keep it as low as possible.

I'd love your thoughts and if it seems like a good idea I'll try to put something together for 2012...

Quarter Horses can do it too (I know some of you knew that already!)

2011-12-07T08:00:00.003Z

I've got to just post a couple of lovely updates that have come in over the last few days about Harvey and Nicky - both Quarter horses - who were rehabs here recently.

QHs (like TBs) are a breed that is "known" for having less than perfect feet so its nice to be able to show that even after navicular/DDFT injuries have been diagnosed they can improve when given the chance to grow better feet.

Harvey (above) went home in the summer and Nicky went home just 3 weeks ago but they have both been hard at work since then.

Nicky obviously has the most changes still to make in her feet but as you can see from the photos (above on arrival and below the day she left) she has made good progress over the time she was here.

She has already been out to a QH show - not a competitive outing of course but still everyone was pleased to see her:

"We took her up to Oakridge in Lincoln for the Christmas show and my goodness she felt fantastic.

I rode in the indoor arena (with the lovely loose reining surface) on Saturday for about 50 mins mostly in walk but I did lope (thats canter to you) a little. She absolutely loved it. Everyone was asking me if that was my new horse and the ones that knew Nicky couldn't believe it was her. Her trainer didn't think she looked any different to how she looked when she was in full time training.

Also, when I brought her out of the barn on Sunday to take her home we had to negotiate a very rocky area to get to the trailer as the carpark was so busy and I said to Chris I cant take her over those rocks and he said I bet she can do it and she did - she barely noticed the rocks!!

So thats where we are - onwards and upwards!!"

Harvey and Kate have been working equally hard and have been doing lots of miles on all terrain which has meant Harvey's hooves continuing to improve and strengthen. Both Kate and Terri are under strict instructions to ensure photos are taken next time :-)

12 weeks of progress: from box rest to performance

2011-12-06T06:00:00.000Z

Flynn the Second arrived just before the Rehab Reunion in September and though that seems only yesterday he has - incredibly - been here for nearly 12 weeks. When he arrived he came straight from box rest so he has had a steep learning curve from then to now.

Stacy, his owner, came to see him this weekend and we had a couple of great rides out (although both he and Dexter were feeling a little too full of beans on the second day, and we had a job keeping a lid on their enthusiasm). Although his rehab is far from over, Flynn is now capable of canter work, hill work and is doing about 12-15 miles of road work each week.

Flynn is doing a great job of growing himself new hooves and you can see the dramatic difference in his hooves in the photos I posted last week. There is no point in growing better hooves, however, unless they are also allowing Flynn to move better and to be sounder.

This is a still from his original footage where you can clearly see his long toes and the fact that his landing is incorrect - you can even see the stress that is put onto the rest of the limb when a hoof doesn't land heel first.

What a contrast in this still from yesterday - a heel first landing and a much more stable limb. Of course he has a long way still to go and more improvement will come, but Flynn the Second is on track and looking good and both Stacy and I are very pleased with him.

Hunting hooves

2011-12-04T09:10:00.001Z

We managed to get out hunting yesterday - Charlie, Felix and Bailey all went, thanks to Stacy who was Charlie's partner for the day.

We did just over 18 miles, as always on a variety of terrain, from deep wet ground to roads and rocky tracks. Stacy loved the fact that bare hooves are non-slip, no matter how bad the ground or how fast you go on the roads :-)

Felix and Charlie, ready for the off.

Who says clipped horses don't shine?

Charlie says: This is what its all about!

Stacy captures the moment!

The curate's egg

2011-12-02T08:00:00.007Z

As you know, Zan went home last week and it was exciting to hear from his owner that he'd been seen by his vet.

The ideal, as far as Project Dexter is concerned, is for horses to be re-assessed once they are home by the same vets who performed the original lameness assessment but we live in the real world and its often not practical for this to happen - sometimes horses have moved, sometimes vets have moved and sometimes it just doesn't happen because the logistics are too complex. But it remains the only way of getting an objective comparison done.

When Zan left here, I was pretty happ y with his soundness overall, and to me he looked ok on a circle - this is his footage from just before he went home and he had been at this level for a while.

However, when his vet assessed him he concluded that Zan was 1/10 lame on a circle in trot. Although I would normally find this incredibly disheartening, there is more to the story - which explains why I'm really quite pleased...Sarah sent this email:

"He came to the conclusion he is 1/10 lame. However, I do feel his lameness test was unfair. The concrete at my yard is awful, uneven, potholes you name it! and he had me trot him in
straight line then lunge him in a 10m circle. I would never, ever trot my horse on that ground let alone in a tight circle! so I am not surprised he found it hard...

He didn't however check him in the school on soft surface which I think he is fine on. He did comment he had more heel though.

Took him out for a hack with Cristina and Frankie yesterday and he felt fine. We stayed at walk but he handled the gravel paths and tarmac on roads brilliantly.

Have also been working him in school doing short durations on 20m circles in trot and canter and he has moved so nicely. Won't be letting his comments put off how much better he is now... Grrrr that has
really annoyed me today!!"

Now, the vet has a perfect right to test a horse on any surface he feels appropriate, and if the original lameness assessment was done on uneven concrete (though I don't think it was!) then its only fair to reprise the test on a similar surface.

I will say though that Zan - only a few months ago - had soles so thin that even walking on our smooth concrete lane made him hobble, and treading on a tiny piece of (rounded) gravel was enough, in the early days, to puncture his sole and draw blood. So all in all, if he trotted a 10m circle on lumpy pot-holed concrete and was 1/10 lame, I still reckon thats an enormous leap forward in his soundness - I hope you agree. Its a shame, as the Project Dexter results will now record Zan as 1/10 lame, but the vet's word is law.

Of course, if Sarah was hoping to compete in high level dressage on a lumpy concrete surface with potholes then we might have concerns, but since she is happy to school on a good surface, on which he is sound, I don't think it will cause a functional problem for Zan's future career.

Meanwhile I've had good updates from Lea, on Taz:

"We do 3-4 miles of roads each day with another 2-3 miles of grass and tracks" and, courtesy of his new trailer, rides on the beach: "Taz went on his first trip to the beach on Tuesday, what a good boy he was too. I don't think he's ever been to a beach before, the big open space with noisy wet stuff - very exciting. He managed a controlled walk along the beach for about a mile and half then we went to the waters edge. So funny, he's watch the tiny wave lapping at the beach and as soon as the water looked like touching him we'd dance sideways or backwards whichever was appropriate! He would happily paddle in the pools and streams as the tide went out but the moving stuff was a different matter. Then we did a bit more walking followed by posh trotting, especially when he had an audiance of dog walkers! "

and Matt on the Original Flynn, who has also had a conversation with his vet:

"I told Duncan [the vet] that I thought vets should actively encourage owners with horses with Navicular/DDFT to, at least, consider barefoot rehab!

Anyway, on a more important note, Flynn is still getting better. He is very happy on the roads and I can now even take him into the woods (the ground is quite challenging here - quite hard, rocky and uneven in places, the scourge of "navicular" horses). I am also doing bit on the lunge and he's looking the best he has done for 18 months or more. He's level on both reins in a circle on all strides.

He's still out 24/7 at the moment. The ground is getting wetter and the shorter days inevitably mean less road work, so I'm half-expecting a few issues over winter. Having said that I am also half-expecting everything to be OK. That speaks volumes about how well his rehab has gone, and is going, so far! I'll send you a full update soon. "

I have a huge smile on my face reading these emails and a warm glow despite the nasty weather and Zan's lumpy concrete assessment - I don't think either he or Sarah will let it put them off!

All about hay and haylage

2011-11-30T08:00:00.005Z

This is a rather mundane post, I am afraid, but recently there seems to have been quite a lot of discussion about hay vs haylage - apologies to everyone for whom this is grannies sucking eggs and oh-so-been-there-done-that... Just duck out and do something more exciting and come back and tell us all about it later ;-)

I've read some quite out of date information online and I've also had several queries from owners. Altogether it sounds as if there is quite a bit of confusion out there so I thought a post about the differences, pros and cons might be useful. FWIW, this is not stuff that I've made up but it comes from either the NRC 2007 "bible" of equine nutrition or good UK farming practice (since the NRC isn't really au fait with a climate like Exmoor and lots of US peeps still view with incredulity a climate where you really, honestly, truly can't make good hay!).

Basics first - you can make the same grass into either hay or haylage. Which it becomes simply depends on the process, not what sort of grass it is. There is a common preconception that haylage is always "richer" than hay but this isn't actually true. It depends whether you are looking at protein, energy or sugar levels and it depends on what types of grasses your hay or haylage was made from.

So, here are the nuts and bolts.

Hay

has a lower moisture content than haylage (should be 80% DM or higher);
needs several days of continuously hot, dry weather to be properly made;
MUST be correctly stored as humid, damp conditions can make it mouldy;
has more spores/dust than haylage so should be soaked or steamed before feeding;
can be high in sugar/starch (water soluble sugars can also be reduced by soaking);
is lower in digestible energy and protein than haylage made from the same grass.

Haylage

should have a higher moisture content than hay but lower than silage; 40-65% DM is necessary for it to be suitable for horses;
is partially dried (as if for hay) but is baled earlier and immediately wrapped. Good haylage can therefore be made where weather conditions are too precarious to make good hay (like Exmoor!);
does not contain the level of spores/dust found in hay;
has a lower level of non structural carbohydrate than hay made from the same grass; this is because the fermentation process converts sugars into fatty acids. Haylage need not be soaked because (a) high levels of water soluble sugars are not present and (b) once wet, it goes off and becomes unpalatable extremely quickly;
provides more digestible energy and protein than hay made from the same grass;
bales can be stored outside for months at a time but must NOT be punctured.

As always, your own horses are the best judges of what is "safe" forage but don't automatically discount haylage - it can be fantastic stuff ;-)

Hoof balance - Flynn's take on the subject

2011-11-29T08:00:00.005Z

There is no better expert than a horse when it comes to hoof balance and they are by far the best instructors as well. So here is a quick tutorial from Flynn the Second about the hooves he wants for Christmas...

This is a photo I took a couple of days ago. The hoof always gives you a lot of clues about the balance it is trying to achieve but one of the most obvious is the band of new growth at the top of a healthy hoof. Flynn has been here for just over 10 weeks and there is lots of good growth visible.

The new growth makes it easier to see the balanced hoof Flyn is trying to grow and putting lines on the photo gives a clue as to the imbalances that have occurred in the past. If you look carefully, you can see that the new hoof growth won't be perfectly symmetrical and will have a shallower angle on the medial side, which is quite common especially in horses who've had past lameness issues.

Looking at this photo from September, you can see that his long toe and under-run heel were contributing to his toe first landing and therefore stressing his DDFT and contributing to his lameness.

This is the same foot at 10 weeks - a completely different profile and a completely different way of loading. The heel and caudal hoof are going the right way although there is still lots of work to do.

The sole shot of the RF - again comparing when he arrived in September with today. On arrival his hoof didn't look too bad but if you compare the proportions of his frog, toe and heel the development is obvious. Don't ignore the bars, either - in the first photo they are longer and provide stability to a weak frog and sole. Now, they are much shorter because the foot is stronger.

Hoof balance is not about the perfect looking hoof, its not about set angles, its not about making a hoof fit into a mould or even my preconceived idea of what it should look like.

Its about one thing only - the most supportive, well developed, robust and effective hoof for the horse.

And guess what? They normally know exactly what they need to do.

Who'd have thought it?

2011-11-28T08:00:00.027Z

These hooves belong to Nico, a 6 year old TB x Polish warmblood who arrived last Wednesday, thanks to the commitment of his owner (as always!) and the support of his vets and his insurers (AND their external veterinary consultant, which I think is a first!).

He is only 6 years old but has had a complicated lameness history, beginning with problems on his hind suspensories and ending up with bilateral front limb problems, which blocked to the heel/caudal hoof.

He'd been shod with remedial half shoes and a gel filler behind and his owner says these have improved his heels and his soundness. I can believe it, since they are allowing for more caudal expansion and contraction than full bar shoes and are also supporting his frogs. She has however made the brave decision to try to rehab him barefoot in the hope of improving his lameness at a more fundamental level.

Although the gel had helped Nico, when I took the shoes off his soles and frogs absolutely stank - they were black, soft, thrushy and smelling to high heaven. I thought he had quite thin soles and his owner and I discussed the fact that he might be quite uncomfortable out of shoes. Turned out I was wrong on both counts...

Here are his feet 4 days later - and the plateau at the toe is the last that is left of the dead sole that was lining his feet.

Its so soft you can lift and peel it back and of course its wearing away rapidly (I haven't trimmed it, though in a different environment he might be a candidate for a trim!).

Despite the long hoof wall that is still there at his quarters, the hoof is looking different already. This is the sort of hoof that many would say is "too short", and "needs shoes". But the sole view gives a different interpretation: despite the cracking, there is no damage to any sensitive structures and you can see the chips and splits are only where hoof wall is long, especially on the lateral (RH) side.

In fact this isn't a foot which is too short - its way too long, especially given the dead sole you can still see at the toe. What is brilliant is that the farrier has not over-trimmed either sole or frog, and its this, plus his gel inserts which gave some stimulus to the caudal hoof, which I suspect has helped Nico to remain comfortable out of shoes.

Looking at the same foot from the front, the fact that its long becomes more obvious. The tilt in the hairline (as well as the orientation of the frog and heels above) is a clue that his medio-lateral balance may be off but there is masses to like about these hooves even after only a few days, and the length, as you can see, is sorting itself out quickly and easily.

Thirty-nine!

2011-11-27T13:42:00.001Z

I'm just in the throes of updating the Project Dexter info - the details on horses who have been diagnosed with navicular/DDFT/collateral ligament damage and assessed by their vets against the project's standard lameness assessment since 2008.

The exciting news is that there are now 39 horses within the project - of course some are still undergoing rehab but its encouraging that the majority are all back in work. Most are working at the same level or higher than before they went lame; there are 2 who did not come back into work, though they improved and one who still has intermittent issues.

It will take me a few days to get the results completely updated but let me know if you'd like a copy by email. I can't post it on the blog unfortunately because it has too many tables...

Big thanks to all the owners, vets and even the odd insurance company who have helped make the project a reality. I'll carry on collecting the info and it will also go out to the vets as soon as I've finished the current update.

"Balanced" hooves in action and feel good Friday

2011-11-25T08:00:00.016Z

I posted yesterday a little bit about hoof balance - its a massively complex subject which is hard to do justice to in 2 dimensions but I hope the first instalment was useful and I will post follow-ups soon, as there are lots of other visual clues which can help you assess how well (or not) a hoof is balanced.

On the subject of hoof balance, Zan is a very interesting example. I have put lots of posts up about him before and you can see an example of how his hooves have changed here and the effect its had on his limbs here.

Zan is a good example of how dynamic hoof balance has to be. His limb conformation means that if you impose a symmetrical hoof on him, he can't land properly.

Conversely, if you allow him a hoof on which he CAN land properly, its asymmetric and looks odd when he is standing in front of you. He is much sounder this way, however, so (in his case) you have to take your pick: pretty hooves and lame horse or strange hooves and much sounder horse.

I know which I prefer and - more importantly - which Zan prefers. The footage here gives you an idea of how much twist there is in his front limbs.

I took this a couple of days ago, just before Zan went home and although its lovely that Sarah has now found a perfect new yard for him, I must say we will all really miss him - he's been here such a long time that he's become part of the family. Good luck Zan and Sarah, and hope we will hear from you soon!

Finally, for the promised chunk of Friday feel-good-ness, how about this fun update which Lainey posted about Bailey:

"Osteo to see Bailey yesterday, she was very pleased with him and said it was the best she had seen him move ever. Sounder than a sound thing.lol. Was tight behind his ears, that's why we had no connection last week. So all sorted and very pleased that he strutted his stuff so well. Bless him. Long may it continue.x"

All about a balanced hoof

2011-11-24T08:00:00.002Z

This is a post I've been wanting to put up for a while but - like a lot of things - its taken quite a long time to put what is very nice and clear when looking at a horse into words that make sense when there are no visual aids other than a few photos. So here goes, and if you want clarification on anything that I haven't made clear, just shout ;-)

First off, what IS a balanced hoof? Well (within this blog, at least!), a balanced hoof means only one thing: a hoof which is balanced for that particular limb on that particular horse. This means of course that hoof balance is unlikely to be the same for 2 horses - in fact its unlikely to be the same for 2 limbs on the same horse, given that horses, like people, are asymmetric.

There is (IMO) no way of evaluating hoof balance by using reference points or angles which are external to the horse. I explained a bit more about why this is the case in an earlier post: http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2011/09/more-than-one-sort-of-table.html

You can however get a very good idea of whether the hoof is balanced for the horse by assessing the horse's conformation, particularly the limbs, and by looking at the hoof capsule.

This is obviously a hoof which is under inappropriate stress and which cannot currently support the horse correctly.

Its important to remember that although the hoof wall looks solid and unyielding, its actually quite a malleable, plastic material. Think of a glacier - looks like a dense wall of ice but is constantly moving and responding to pressure - and a hoof is similar - always trying to support the limb in the most effective way.

The same hoof from the sole gives us more of a clue as to what is happening. Drawing a line down the hoof highlights the fact that each half is completely different. The lateral side (on the right of the photo) has a shallow central sulcus and the sole is level with the hoof wall. On the medial side there is a much deeper collateral groove and long hoof wall above the sole. Basically this is a hoof which - internally - is on a tilt, hence the distortions in the hoof capsule. It wants to be level, and the hoof capsule wants to be supportive but at the moment there are too many stresses between the internal and external structures.

I'll be posting more on hoof balance soon - there is masses to put up and this is only the first instalment!

Useful things: CCTV [Warning - this one is expensive!]

2011-11-23T08:00:00.004Z

I am in the throes of doing a LONG post on medio-lateral balance for the hoof anoraks out there - it should be up later this week but its not finished yet...partly because I have been spending a few hours setting up the latest Useful Thing to hit Rockley.

Its something I've had in mind for a while but when I last looked at it (nearly 2 years ago) the exorbitant expense ruled it out, especially for a remote location where wiring everything up wasn't an option. I investigated it again a couple of weeks ago, partly because with Paddy in the barn, needing regular check ups, I was looking for a way of monitoring him without having to be stomping up there in the middle of the night!

At the same time, the idea of having better security and monitoring was appealing and I found a company who specialise in wireless technology for locations which are off the beaten track. It's still relatively expensive but a whole lot cheaper than it used to be.

Admittedly I had to psych myself up for a few days before opening all the boxes and connecting all the bits and pieces but after a few phone calls to the company its now up and running and I think will make a BIG difference to my peace of mind. Its particularly cool that it films in the dark - this is a huge novelty for me - so I may even treat you to some fuzzy infra-red footage one day ;-)

Ted and his bar shoes

2011-11-22T08:00:00.000Z

Ted is a quarter horse who arrived on Saturday - in a nice piece of synchronicity he was brought down by Nicky's owners (she is another quarter horse) who took her home on Sunday.

As you can see, he was shod in remedial shoes with gel filler and a wedge and he had also been on 5 weeks of box rest. Ted was diagnosed on MRI with bilateral DDFT damage, worse on his LF, and he has undergone surgical treatment as well as the farriery.

He is on a fairly strict regime of limited exercise, as horses often are when they first arrive, but he is allowed out on the tracks and to mix with the other horses which he seems to enjoy. With the rest of the horses being very relaxed there is no great incentive for him to dash about and I hope he can now (literally!) start finding his feet.

Ted has an underrun heel and the focus out of shoes will be to improve that, and the whole caudal hoof. I suspect (as you can see from this photo) he also has some issues with medio-lateral balance but it will be easier to assess that when I have photos of him out of his shoes...

Busy weekend and more on Thomas

2011-11-21T08:00:00.008Z

Its been a very busy weekend here, with Nicky going home and another quarter horse, Ted, arriving - there will be more on both of them later in the week but I've had an email from Terri to say that Nicky arrived home safe and sound and stomped across the stony carpark (which she used not to like!) so I'm hoping she goes from strength to strength.

As well as that, Debbie came to visit Paddy and was delighted to see him so chipper; as she said, its hard to believe that he has just undergone massive surgery. He was on such good form and it was such beautiful weather that she had to work quite hard to restrain her enthusiasm and keep his daily outings to no more than the permitted ambles out to graze...We are both desperate to let him do more, which would be better for his hooves, but he can't be too active until his muscles have re-knitted after the wound has healed.

Last but definitely not least, Sophie and her Dad came to visit Thomas and were pleased to see him looking - in their words - "sparkly", though Sophie didn't entirely approve of the fact that I had trimmed a few inches off his tail. I never normally trim manes and tails but his was dragging in the mud - it will grow back, honestly ;-)

As you can see from his initial photo (above) he had a weak frog and high heels, like so many horses, and its changing that which is the key for him, as he otherwise has good hooves.

More importantly, even in the 2 weeks that he has been here his landing has improved, as you can see from the footage. There is a long way to go before his front feet land as well as his back feet but he is getting on track and the improvement means that he can start proper work.

Thomas has a huge work ethic and wants nothing more than to be busy, so I think he will be thrilled to have a proper job once more.

Solar power

2011-11-18T10:36:00.001Z

The latest horse to arrive at Rockley is Solar, who made the trip from Berkshire with his owner Sarah last Sunday. Sarah has known him for several years and recalls that he has had periodic lameness, usually when the ground is hard, but it was only once she owned him that she was in a position to do something about it.

As you can see, there is a pretty clear issue with his medio-lateral balance especially on this - his worst - foot. There are also lots of growth rings and evidence of times when fairly dramatic shifts in his hoof loading have occurred.

He is reluctant to load his RF and Sarah correctly assumed that this was because of ongoing discomfort even when some people were telling her is was just habit or that he was being awkward. As always, you rarely go wrong if you listen to your horse(!).

Solar's farrier was well aware of the balance issues and the fact that he was loading incorrectly and was doing his best to correct it, as you can see by the fact that he has left the medial wall on both hooves much higher. However it does seem to be extremely difficult to rebalance feet this way, whereas if you aim to centrally load the foot through the frog, the hoof capsule usually has a better chance or adjusting.

Despite the balance issues, there is a lot to like about Solar's hooves, and he has a fantastic frog and a pretty good digital cushion, so I am very hopeful that he will be much more comfortable soon. Footage to follow...!

Yesterday and a hundred years ago

2011-11-17T08:00:00.013Z

Last weekend I couldn't hunt on horseback (much to the irritation of Felix and Dexter!) but it was such a stunning day that I went on foot to the meet and took my camcorder. Hounds met in the Brendon valley and - if you overlook the presence of the odd car and quad bike - it was a scene which could have been last week or a hundred years ago.

Charlie and Andy had a lovely day, of course, as I think everyone did.

I've compressed a lavish 45 minute meet into 3 minutes of film but I hope you enjoy the clip - it makes for a fun Thursday film anyway - not much action but a timeless occasion when Exmoor and the foxhounds looked fantastic.

Four weeks with Mr Knightley

2011-11-16T08:00:00.000Z

I had a visit from Kate, Deborah and Mel - my lovely former students - last week, as they were keen to catch up on the progress of the rehab horses they already knew and meet the new guys.

They always get roped in to helping me photograph and film the horses and this time was no exception. We started off with Mr Knightley who had at that stage been here for 3 weeks.

An improved landing, going from toe first and intermittently flat to flat/heel first. Its still early days for him and he still has weak frogs so I would not expect a more definite heel first landing until he has a lot more good mileage under his belt.

For good measure here are his hooves, above on arrival and below at 4 weeks. They bear out the changes you can see on landing and of course the healthier the hoof becomes, the better the landing should be.

Although we are still fighting the central sulcus infection in his frogs, there is are also progress here, along with his high heels.

No trimming required, of course...

Its interesting to see from this angle how high heels and long hoof wall were actually causing a medio-lateral imbalance, shunting the hoof capsule sideways and reinforcing the vicious circle of weak frog/caudal hoof pain - and of course putting strain on internal ligaments. With a healthier frog - or the beginnings of one, as we have a long way to go before that central sulcus infection will really be a thing of the past - the balance improves as well as the rest of the caudal hoof.

Finally, I also have some footage of him on a circle - at just under 4 weeks into his rehab - so that Debbie his owner, who is in Dubai, can see the virtual Knightley even when she can't see the real one.

As you can see, he was struggling with the fact that there was a howling easterly wind and the dogs of course chose the moment we started filming to have a wild, fast and extremely noisy game round the arena which he found rather alarming.

Over time I would want to see a much more relaxed frame and better straightness and suppleness but the important thing for now is that he is happy to extend in front and land heel first, which is a crucial precursor to any sort of rehabilitative work. The rest will come with time and work.

Widescreen tv for horses

2011-11-15T08:00:00.002Z

The foxhounds met up the road this morning and by the middle of the day they were hunting round and round Rockley :-) Its always lovely to hear them even if I am not on horseback.

Charlie, Dexter and Felix were a little bit miffed not to be in the thick of it but they and the rehab horses all enjoyed the chance to watch the action from the track.

L to R: Charlie, Nicky, Thomas, Felix, Solar, Flynn, Knightley, Dexter

Hounds coming through is just like widescreen tv for our horses - they don't gallop about, they just put their feet up and enjoy watching someone else doing the work. I am delighted, because the rehab horses are just where they should be - stomping on the pea gravel track and getting the best possible movement.

Of course, Paddy (who is on box rest) and Zan (who was keeping him company today) had to stay in the barn but so they didn't realise they were missing out, they had Radio 2 on very loud with Satus Quo to drown out the bitches...

The rollercoaster rolls on...

2011-11-14T08:00:00.003Z

Talk about a weekend of ups and downs...

On the plus side, the weather was glorious and the autumn colours are spectacular so when Andy took Charlie hunting on Saturday they were both very happy and it was an incredibly beautiful day.

As I went to the meet on foot I took my camcorder and I am glad I did as it was one of the most picturesque on our calendar. I have some fun footage (quintissentially English, for all you Texans!) which I will upload later in the week.

On the downside, much more seriously, Paddy had a bout of spasmodic colic late on Saturday, which has thankfully now resolved but which entailed another emergency vet call out and of course masses more worry for Debbie and the rest of us.

There is a high chance for horses to colic post surgery - not surprisingly, as having your guts opened up, bits cut out, stuck back together and everything being stuffed back in leaves inflammation and adhesions which can cause issues over the subsequent weeks. For now, Paddy is feeling fine again, but please keep sending those good wishes because we all still need them(!).

Taz and Paul went home yesterday (Edward said the barn is half empty without Taz -at 17.2hh - to fill up the space!) and a new horse, Solar, arrived so there will be lots more footage and updates on all of them over the coming week.

Its been a rather tiring few days, as I am sure you can appreciate, and I know you will excuse the short post today - more soon :-)

He's back, he's bad...

2011-11-12T08:00:00.005Z

...well, not bad exactly, but certainly on exuberant form(!).

The veterinary hospital are extremely pleased with the progress Paddy has made since his colic surgery last week and as you can see he is a whole lot perkier than he was this time last week! So yesterday he had the all-clear to come back to Rockley, which is fantastic but rather nerve-wracking(!).

He is looking - and clearly feeling - terribly well and it will be interesting to see how well he tolerates the 4 weeks of box rest he needs for his surgery wound to heal fully. Fortunately he will be allowed out to graze in hand several times a day but he won't be allowed to do any "proper" work, even led from another horse, for the next month.

Having taken him out in hand yesterday, I suspect that we will all find the next few weeks rather trying but still its a big improvement from this time last week, when Paddy was in a much less happy situation. He is now back in a box in the barn where the others can all come in and chat to him so he is getting lots of grooming from Taz and making faces at new boy Thomas, whom he regards as an alien intruder. I never thought shovelling sh*t for Paddy again would make me so happy!

Thanks so much to all of you for your good wishes and thoughts, which I know both Paddy and Debbie (and I) appreciated enormously. I am sure they were a big factor in getting Paddy through the last week :-)

A quick sort out

2011-11-11T08:00:00.009Z

Glory be, and thanks to some bright little satellite whizzing around the earth's orbit, we are back online - yippee!! So far, so good, but I am really hoping that this new provider will be a whole lot more reliable than the previous bunch. We shall see.

Anyway, that means that a whole load of stuff which has been sitting on my computer can now make it up onto the blog. First up is Paul, who will be going home on Sunday, 4 weeks after he came back. He was a rehab here almost exactly 2 years ago; more on him here.

When he returned it was clear that - despite 2 years of being successfully barefoot - several things had recently gone wrong with his feet, possibly due to an injury he suffered, possibly due to trimming, possibly due to some other factor we may never identify.

Although he has a robust caudal hoof and excellent hoof capsule, his landing had shifted in less than a month to being flat/toe first and his medio-lateral balance was off, resulting in lameness on his LF. As a result his frog had weakened - his heels may look high but in fact its his frogs which have atrophied.

For me, there were 2 alarm bells when I saw his feet in October. He had laid down a ridge of sole and his feet were loading unevenly, weak on the medial side and overloaded laterally.

Comparing his LF over the last 4 weeks, you can see how much rebalancing has gone on. His frog is now working properly again and is developing rapidly. You can also see from this photo that at this stage, his bars and the ridge on his sole are absolutely crucial to the stability of his hooves - to trim these would be madness!

Its interesting to see how much change can happen in a short time - particularly in his frog and his medial hoof (on the right in these photos). The speed of the change is at least partly due to the fact that Paul already had strong feet which were used to hard work - he just needed to be allowed to sort them out.

Now look at the difference in his frogs - this is why - with him at least - it was a case of building frog, not lowering heel. I have not touched his feet with a rasp or nippers or a hoof knife.

As his landing improves, his frog responds - these photos are just over 2 weeks apart...

and the photo below is today. It doesn't take long if there is a good foundation in place.

Both his owner and I thought that he would be quick to turn himself round and put himself back on the "virtuous circle" of a good landing which in turn will allow his medio-lateral balance to rectify itself; as he has done so his lameness has rapidly improved.

As always, better biomechanics means healthier hooves - and healthier hooves means better biomechanics.

I have a lot to catch up with, so there will be more soon.

Out and about

2011-11-10T08:00:00.000Z

Lea was down to see Taz for one last time before he goes home next Sunday. We had one ride out in thick fog but a much nicer time the next day when it was mild and still. I decided that Lea and Taz needed a last Exmoor work-out so we set off to do some proper hill work.

Edward came with us so we had Flynn and Paul out as well, both of whom found it very entertaining to be out somewhere new, even if the terrain was a bit of a challenge at times.

Lea and Taz have a slight issue with potential decapitation by beech branches as Taz is WAY too tall to go underneath them. Luckily Lea has her high viz on so if she is left dangling 10 feet above the ground she will at least be easy to spot.

New boy Thomas

2011-11-09T08:00:00.002Z

We had a new horse, Thomas (who is 3/4 TB and 1/4 Welsh pony, a feisty mix!), arrive at the weekend, whose footage I will put up as soon as I am back online properly. He has been out of shoes for a while but he was still loading his hooves as if he was shod - in other words peripherally - and landing toe first.

As you can see, even though I was nearly taking photos in the dark, he has the typical caudal hoof of a "navicular" horse with high heels and weak frogs - I will try and get better photos in due course(!).

Thomas has spent the last few days meeting the rest of the gang which he has found quite exciting; he has been on his own for the last year as his companion pony died so to find himself one of a much bigger herd is a lot to take in and he has to do lots of walking and trotting around to find out what on earth is going on when the horses are spread out round the various yards and tracks.

Good news...

2011-11-08T12:19:00.000Z

Paddy has been off his drip and on normal food and water since Sunday and food is now going all the way through from one end to the other - yay!!!

Rarely has horse poo been the subject of such anticipation or been so happily received! It's great news though I fear the novelty will soon wear off :-)

Sunny day scrapbook: part two

2011-11-08T08:00:00.004Z

We had a beautiful weekend - sunny and warm, perhaps the last one we will have before the snow and ice descends(!)...Clare was down to see Paul, who is going home next week, and reminded me that she has never been down in bad weather - I find it hard to believe myself...

I took Zan, who was loving the sunshine, along with the dogs, who are fairweather opportunists as well.

Paul putting his best foot forward...though his other feet are looking pretty good too...

Sorry for the haphazard blogging but I am hoping and believing that it will be back on via satellite later this week.

A quick Paddy update - I spoke to the vet today and he is still doing well but has not yet got full gut function back, though we are hoping for more progress soon.

Paddy can eat!

2011-11-06T21:17:00.000Z

Paddy can now eat and drink :-) I am sure that has improved his well being enormously and more importantly it means his gut is functioning again.

Its a great step forward but it's only the first step on a long road.

Still going strong

2011-11-05T20:56:00.001Z

Debbie has visited Paddy again today and all is still going well. He was given his first "proper" food (ie not via drip) today so that's an important step forward for him if all goes well. It's fantastic that so many of you are thinking about him and fingers crossed for more good news.'

Paddy update - and photo if you aren't squeamish(!)

2011-11-04T16:41:00.001Z

Firstly, thanks to everyone who sent such kind messages either here or on Facebook wishing Paddy (and Debbie) well - so far all your positive thoughts have had a great effect and he has come through the first 24 hours as well as anyone could have expected, and he is pretty cheerful considering his ordeal.

We went to see him this morning and he was calling for food, though unfortunately he isn't allowed anything other than via a drip for another 24 hours - sorry Paddy(!).

Look away now if you are squeamish, because this is the offending tumour, which had wrapped itself round part of his small intestine...The vets at Mullacott did a great job with the surgery, and we owe a debt of gratitude as well to our own vets at Market Veterinary Centre in South Molton who made the prompt decision to refer Paddy for surgery in good time, while he still had the best possible chance of a good outcome.

Please keep wishing him well, as I know you will, because there is a long way to go before he makes a full recovery... Thanks everyone!

Friday Knight(ley)

2011-11-04T08:00:00.001Z

Mr Knightley, who flew in from Dubai, has now been here exactly 2 weeks. I had been worried that he would find the change from desert climate to Exmoor a real challenge, but in fact he settled straight in and took both the weather and his very different lifestyle in his stride.

It was only when I got round to looking at his passport that I realised why - he was bred just the other side of the Channel in Normandy so he must have felt like he was back in the place where he grew up!

According to Edward, not just the climate but also the geology of Normandy is very similar to Devon, so apart from the fact that we aren't speaking the right language, its obviously very familiar to him.

In Dubai he had been turned out only on his own or with one other horse, so it took him a few days to get used to living in a herd again. At first he was obsessed with Paddy, who was next door to him when he arrived, and tended to overreact when other horses were around, but he has now integrated well and he is much more relaxed as he has realised that the other horses are friends not foes.

With more movement and more comfortable feet he is also beginning to stand and move better - this photo was taken today and his latest footage is up:

ETA: An update on yesterday's broadband meltdown - our previous provider is still in meltdown as far as I am aware but I have (I think) found a new provider. Wish us luck, we are hoping to be back online properly again by next week - which means I will no longer be blogging either from my neighbours kitchen or from South Molton library(!)...Just as well as I have stacks of photo and video updates backing up!

Urgent: Good vibes for Paddy, please

2011-11-03T19:31:00.001Z

Quick unscheduled blog post to ask for the best possible vibes for Paddy, please. He has just had to undergo colic surgery and have an internal tumour removed. He is on his feet and cheerful, according to the equine hospital, but the next few days are critical.

I will post updates tomorrow when we know more but for now please keep him in your thoughts. Many thanks!

The unspoken assumption

2011-11-03T08:00:00.002Z

Well, our internet woes continue – a different problem from last time (when it was simply that we temporarily disconnected it because of the work on our roof).

This time its transmission of the broadband signal which has gone down – so somewhere there is a problem with incoming broadband but only the internet company knows where that is…and the internet company has apparently imploded in a financial meltdown and is no longer answering its phones…

So, the blog may become a bit intermittent until we have a fallback position or the transmission starts up again…I can still receive email though so I’m not completely incommunicado at least!

Back to the world of hooves and horses, I had another interesting call with a vet – this time a vet who had been asked by an insurance company to (in his words!) “do a bit of digging” to find out what on earth goes on at Rockley and (presumably) whether the insurers should include rehabilitation here as a therapy which they cover under their policy.

We had a good conversation and he asked lots of searching and sensible questions (and I found out today told the insurers to approve the claim - yay!) but it was one of his comments which particularly got me thinking.

He said something which I have heard said before by many farriers and vets – that one of the reasons that horses have apparently increasing lameness problems is that they are no longer given a break from shoes each year.

It’s a familiar complaint – that in the old days hunters had their shoes off for the summer and eventers and showing horses had their shoes off for the winter, but as a rule most horses had a few months turned away unshod. Received wisdom is that this allowed them to maintain healthier feet than they can if they are shod 365 days a year, and I am sure that’s a correct supposition.

This is a commonly held view, and one which some of the best “old-fashioned” equine practitioners espouse. But let’s just think about that for a second.

They aren't saying that horses need time off work or a few weeks’ holiday; the specific requirement is for time out of shoes.

If the “gold standard” for hoofcare in a shod horse requires them to have several weeks a year out of shoes for improved hoof health, then the clear assumption is that shoes are a something from which horses need periodic relief. I must admit I've never thought about it quite like that before...

Useful things: Cable ties

2011-11-02T08:00:00.000Z

This week's useful thing is the humble cable tie. What's the use of that, you may ask? All I can say is that cable ties have saved me more busted lead ropes and broken headcollars than I care to remember and more importantly have potentially stopped accidents and saved horses from injury.

Its very old-fashioned, but to have a breaking-point on a headcollar rather than on the tying end makes a big difference, particularly if you use those long, very strong lead ropes which are popular in natural horsemanship.

We all know not to tie horses without a quick release and to something which will snap if they panic, but if this is at the rope end, its perfectly possible for a horse to get loose with 6ft or 10ft of rope trailing between its legs.

If you are very unlucky, as happened to a client of mine, the rope will wrap round a rail as the horse goes past at speed and then as the rope tightens the horse will get a nasty dose of whiplash and end up with quite a serious neck problem. An even worse possibility of course is that the loose rope wraps round a leg and brings the horse down.

I know those ropes don't break because someone illicitly "borrowed" a set of long reins from me once, without permission, and used them - with a Land Rover - to pull some trees out of woodland. They reckoned the breaking strain on the rope was several tons. The same is true of course of nylon headcollars, which we all use, and rope halters, which have the added issue of being narrower so exerting more pressure if the horse gets caught suddenly by that.

Cable ties, by contrast, cost a few pence but - if you buy heavy duty ones - have a reasonable breaking strain of about 25kg - more than enough to stop them snapping if a horse is just fidgeting.

Horse of the week: Paddy

2011-11-01T08:00:00.001Z

This week's horse of the week is Paddy, because although he has bdeen growing a great set of new hooves as fast as he can, he has hit a slight snag and needs some good vibes!

As you can see, when he first arrived he had a long hoof and in the top third you can just about see a horizontal split, to the right of the toe crack as you look at this picture. At the time it didn't seem too significant - and talking to his owner it seems likely that it was the exit hole for an abscess he had a couple of months before he came to Rockley, which made him very lame.

Fast forward to the 19th September and the crack is lower in his hoof but a long way from the ground. The problem arose when the split got low enough to start affecting his toe and his breakover.

Today, as you can see, the abscess split is nearly grown out (and for good measure his toe crack is improving) but there is a weak, soft spot just at the point of breakover on his toe which is presumably the cavity where the abscess was.

Paddy is doing his very best to grow a better hoof capsule but we will all be very glad when he has go another few mm of growth and has got rid of all that old rubbish!

Sunny day scrapbook

2011-10-31T08:00:00.000Z

Well, the internet is playing up again(!) but I've managed to grab a couple of sunny day pics over the weekend. More when the connection comes back on...

Taz surveys his kingdom

Knightley and Paddy

Quote of the week

2011-10-29T08:00:00.000+01:00

This came a couple of days ago, from a conversation I was having with a vet whose client wants her horse to come here.

I have a lot of these types of conversations with vets, and - so far - despite lots of sceptical vets, I've never yet had one refuse to allow a horse to come here. Its rare though that I have such an enthusiastic response as I had from this vet :-)

When he first called, we had a good chat with me explaining what the elements of rehab were and him giving me the background on the horse. He was very positive about the horse coming here and I offered to send him the detailed information on Project Dexter, as I always do, and a synopsis of what rehab involves.

That's normally the last I hear, until I start sending the vet updates on how the horse is progressing, but to my surprise I had another call the next day and he had read the information and just wanted to check a couple of details. he seemed if anything even more enthusiastic about the horse coming for rehab and finished with the classic line: "I'm very interested - after all shoes aren't a natural solution." :-)

Horse of the week: Original Flynn

2011-10-28T08:00:00.003+01:00

The Original Flynn, who went home in August, has been running a campaign on Facebook to get himself recognised as "Horse of the Week" ever since I (unfairly) inaugurated this modest award after he had already left Rockley.

Well, this week is definitely his week - especially after his human admirers (of whom there are of course too many to mention) took these great pics of him out and about at home.

You'd be smiling too if you had a horse as magnificent as Flynn ;-)

Just time, if Flynn doesn't object, to quickly add this video update by Wiola on the progress of Kingsley and Pocholo who seem to be doing well in their new Hampshire home. Clever boys! Also kudos to Wiola, who is riding despite a dislocated knee... :-0

High heels, weak frogs, chickens and eggs

2011-10-27T08:00:00.006+01:00

Following my post about Paul earlier in the week, Caroline put up a good comment, and one which I suspect voiced what a lot of people are wondering. I'd posted that Paul had been regularly trimmed and that there had been no changes in his diet or environment.

She said: "But maybe its a lack of correct trimming???"

Caroline went on to say that if a horse is not trimmed so that the frog is in contact with the ground, that in iteself can lead to weakness and atrophy in the caudal foot which, over time, results in a toe first landing and the rest, as you already know, is history.

In her own words:

"My theory is that the frog loses contact with the floor and the back half of the foot starts to weaken. Then one day they do something which tweaks a tendon and/or ligament because the foot is no longer strong enough to cope. From then on, the horse is toe first landing due to pain in the back half of the foot from the tweak, and everything goes downhill from there.

The horse is suddenly lame, but I believe that it is gradual weakening over the previous months that actually caused the lameness.

That's my theory, and I trim to keep my own boys frog in contact with the floor standing on concrete because of it.

Each of the 3 barefooters who have come to you for rehab has had heels which are preventing the frog from being in contact with the floor (as well as an underdeveloped frog). Paul's photo above is a good example. Irrespective of the quality of the frog, the heels are too high. It really does look to me like a pattern beginning to build ........"

She is correct that about the high heels/weak frogs - that is true of every horse who comes here, whether shod or barefoot. In itself thats not surprising, because all the horses who come here have pain which is located in that area of the hoof. They take pressure off that area, land toe first and the caudal hoof weakens.

For me, though, the $64,000 question is which is the chicken and which is the egg - does the high heel/weak frog cause the toe first landing OR does the high heel/weak frog occur as a consequence of a toe first landing?

Why is this important? Because it makes a BIG difference in how you deal with the problem.

This is dear old Ghost, my late lamented eventer who taught me an indecent amount about hooves. There is more about him here, but like most navicular horses he had an incredibly weak caudal hoof immediately out of shoes.

One of the things I learned early on was that - while he was in rehabilitation - I couldn't back Ghost's toe up (or trim his heels) because to do so made him less sound and slowed his recovery.

When I had learned a bit more about anatomy, the reason was clear - the navicular meant he had pain in the back of his hoof (in his case bone changes but almost certainly DDFT damage too) and if I tried - by trimming - to put more weight onto the frog, digital cushion and the bones and soft tissue of the caudal hoof, he couldn't cope. The area wasn't yet strong enough to deal with greater stimulus.

The same issue arises with any of the rehab horses here - they have already had injuries and arrive with lameness and weakness in the caudal hoof.

Which brings me back to Caroline's question. She trims her own horses to ensure that the frog is in contact with the ground, but her horses are already sound, have robust hooves and can obviously cope with the added stimulus.

It would certainly be possible for the sequence to be - as Caroline theorises - high heels > weak caudal hoof > lameness. If this was the sequence, then very careful trimming might be helpful once the lameness had improved BUT in Paul's case I am fairly certain that the sequence was different and the high heels/weak frogs are effect, not cause.

I can be certain with Paul because - since he came here in September - I saw his hooves only a few weeks ago, and at that stage he didn't have high heels or weak frogs. He was in work and it was only when Clare was away for a week that he suddenly went lame.

So in his case, at least, my guess is that it was something more sudden which re-aggravated his original injury. Over the next few weeks, he landed toe first because of the caudal hoof pain, and the result of that (not the cause) was high heels and a weaker frog because of lack of stimulus.

Its for this reason that I am not happy to lower his heels with a trim - because to do so would increase the load on his caudal hoof and - in his case, at the moment - would most likely make him lamer not sounder.

Over the next few weeks though I would expect his frog and the whole caudal hoof to become much more robust. As part of that process his heels will lower and the frog will beef up, but at the moment its not that there is too much of Paul's hoof - its that there isn't enough!

Useful things: Hot shower

2011-10-26T08:00:00.011+01:00

Last week I posted about the new love of my life - straw pellets (the details for the company are on that post for those wanting to order or enquire). This week, I've got what I think is another really useful piece of kit to recommend to you - a hot shower for the yard.

We put hot water in the barn - via a bog-standard electric shower - a few years ago but although it was a big improvement on no hot water it had a few drawbacks. The water pressure wasn't great and because it had a standard shower fitting it was quite vulnerable to horses treading on it or being dropped(!)...

I'd been keeping an eye out for a replacement and saw this on Facebook over the summer. It runs off gas, instead of electricity, and hooks straight into the existing water supply so there is better pressure.

There are some glitches. The gas ignition is via 2 D batteries which is fine in principle but it eats battery power so you need to remember to switch it off after every time you use it or you have a lot of (expensive) dead batteries. It also comes with a lack of good instructions so you need to work out pretty much on your own how everything fits together which is probably easier for some people than for me... Finally, because it costs the best part of £200, you need enough horses to justify the expense.

On the plus side, its fantastically useful to have readily available hot water, the hose is heavy duty and long enough to reach most bits of a horse without difficulty and the spray supplied has several different settings so you can have a single jet, a fine mist or anything in between.

Its proved to be great for washing off cuts or scrapes and marvellous when you have wet, muddy horses to clean off after hunting. Even horses who hate being washed off (like Dexter and Bailey) stand under the hose with a blissful expression when they realise its warm, and its got to be a lot better for tired muscles too.

This is the video the company have made - and the shower pretty much does exactly as it appears to do here. If anyone is interested in acquiring one, the company's Facebook page is here and they are very helpful.

Hooves changing quickly - for good or bad

2011-10-25T08:00:00.016+01:00

We had a "rehab return" last week - Paul, who was here in November 2009, has come back to Rockley for a short winter break ;-) When I first met him he had been lame for a long time, with persistent problems in his LF . He went home in Feb 2010 back in full work (he had a day's hunting as his last day!) and has had a busy time since then.

As with every horse, there have been ups and downs but Paul's life has been active and he and his owner Clare have achieved a lot.

Paul came back this September, for the RRR, and at that stage he was landing and moving well (despite a nutritional blip over the summer) but for some reason (and we may never know exactly what the trigger was) he became lame in October.

Paul's hooves changed radically over the time he was here in 2009 and Clare is now extremely well versed in what makes a hoof healthy - or unhealthy. She had already spotted a few weeks ago that his caudal hoof had weakened and that he had lost his good heel first landing. Its probably worth adding that he has been trimmed regularly all the way through, so its not a lack of trimming that has caused the change(!).

Here is his LF when he arrived a week ago and sure enough, as Clare suspected, his frog has become weaker and is no longer playing a primary function, particularly on a hard surface. His overall hoof balance is still good though, and importantly his digital cushion is extremely robust - 2 years of hard work barefoot are still paying off!

Look how much stronger his foot is when he returned last week (above) and at the hoof pastern axis, which is radically better today than when he arrived in wedged shoes in 2009 (below)! The sort of strong base he has now makes it so much quicker to improve hooves.

Both Clare and I were sure it wouldn't take long to get Paul back on track, especially as he has such a fantastic attitude and is such a determined little horse.

We don't know exactly what Paul has done but its possible he has re-injured the same area that was originally a problem. We know that most horses with his original problem in fact have soft tissue damage within the hoof and its true that horses who have previously suffered a tendon or ligament injury are prone to the same area being re-injured.

This is because once an area has been damaged, scar tissue forms which is less elastic. Clearly, if a hoof like this starts to land incorrectly again, damage will happen more quickly as scar tissue is less able to sustain incorrect stresses (such as a toe first landing) than undamaged tendons or ligaments.

However, if we look at Paul's changes over just the last week its clear that - with a healthy hoof structure already in place - he is already starting to bounce back, and much more quickly than he did straight from shoes.

The longest journey so far...

2011-10-24T08:00:00.010+01:00

This handsome fellow is Mr Knightley, a new arrival who wins the "Rockley Air Miles" award for the most arduous trip to Exmoor. He was in quarantine for a month then flew from Dubai to Heathrow, finally touching down here at 1am last Friday morning!

I was a bit concerned that he would feel the cold but amazingly, having tucked him up in a stable rug, he was toasty-warm and hasn't been in the least bothered by the drop in temperature. Its helped that we have had a lovely, dry few days with sunshine and a bit of warmth, so he's had quite a gentle introduction to the UK climate so far. Of course he didn't have a turnout rug, so he's borrowed a spare of Charlie's until I can go shopping for him :-)

His feet are interesting - his heels are under-run and his hairline at the coronet is distorted on both, worse on the LF. His front feet have a medio-lateral imbalance which is confirmed by x-ray and unfortunately he also has soft tissue damage to his hind feet.

His feet are proof that a desert climate in itself doesn't necessarily guarantee healthier hooves, especially - as his owner points out - if a horse spends more time in a box than moving around(!). As you can see, he has quite a deep central sulcus infection and its one of the factors in his weak frogs.

Its a catch-22 - discomfort in the frog means the caudal hoof doesn't engage so over time it tends to become weaker and as you can see the frog is not touching the ground at all as the front hooves load on a concrete surface.

The solar view just confirms what we've already seen from the top. The foot is actually quite shallow but there is a build up of dead sole. I won't touch that, as it will wear away on its own over the next few days along with the unbalanced hoof wall.

For now, Mr Knightley is getting to grips with being turned out with a group of horses, which is a new experience for him, and much more freedom than he has been used to. As with most horses who come here from box rest or restricted movement, the key is to allow him to move but on the most supportive surfaces, and as calmly and quietly as possible, with only gradual increases in the space he has access to.

Just brilliant!

2011-10-23T15:50:00.000+01:00

Massive thank you to Debbie, Paddy's owner, who came up to visit him today and brought me this fantastic polo shirt :-) I LOVE IT!!!!

...and yes, I agree, clearly we will have to have polo shirts for the next Rehab Reunion ;-)

When horses go back home...

2011-10-22T08:00:00.028+01:00

A few updates came in on former rehab horses while I was off line, and I wanted to cram other stuff onto the blog this week so they have been postponed, but I thought might be an ideal blog post for the weekend!

First off, a lovely email from Lady's family, with this gorgeous photo of Lauren and Lady. Lynn emailed me in response to the "Rollercoaster" post last week, which I very much appreciated:

"I thought I would drop you a line to say that Lady is doing really well, she is now chilling in her field all week and enjoys light hacks at the weekend. We have had no problems with her for months now and limiting her access to grass has meant she has remained sound throughout!

This is the first summer we have enjoyed her to the max and Lauren is now super confident.

They are a great team to watch charging all over Dartmoor!! We have stuck to the diet you gave Lady last year and all though we cannot get her out enough to self trim Jane was down last week and thinks she is doing great."

Well done to the whole family, and of course to Jane Stevens, who is looking after Lady's feet.

Also good news about Oscar and Dilly, who continue to go from strength to strength. Their feet are "overseen" by farrier James Nash and its been very helpful to chat to him about their progress. They are doing so well that they are even inspiring others on their yard to consider going barefoot - leading by example is the way to go!

Fayley posted about Isha on the UKNHCP forum:

"I am now doing more with Isha barefoot than I ever did shod - hacking at least 4 times a week for at least 1 to 2 hours on varied surfaces, beach gallops, cantering pretty much wherever we fancy (starting to feel a bit like I did as a child on my tearaway pony - so many opportunities to whoop and say 'oooh we can squeeze a canter in here!') and Isha is happy to go 'off piste' and clamber banks, walls, down stream banks etc, something she would refuse to do when shod. I'm aiming to be showjumping again next year, just gotta get myself brave enough to do it

Every now and then people make strange remarks about her being barefoot and ask why I'm doing it, and I find myself starting our story with 'well she was diagnosed with navicular syndrome' without a second thought about it, its only when I see their shocked faces that I remember the stigma attached to the word, I've forgotten that its something to worry about"

Bailey and Lainey are now combining dressage with hunting - latest news is that Bailey is fully clipped and also working on medium canter :-) Photos are required...

Frankie and Cristina are jumping XC - they have failed to get any photos - but its fantastic to hear about, even without illustrations!

Lucy is still amazing everyone with her ability to cover any terrain with her fab new feet - she has now grown a whole new hoof capsule and is apparently having a wonderful time up in Yorkshire.

Finally a real blast from the past - Blue, who was here in 2008, and whose owner I lost touch with, is apparently doing marvellously. I caught up on his news via an owner who knows him and is interested in sending her horse here - small world!

I've also got news about Paul, who first came here 2 years ago and has returned for a short break - but he will get a blog post of his own plus foot photos!

Useful things: Straw pellets

2011-10-21T08:00:00.004+01:00

I'm going to start an occasional blog feature of "Useful things" - products which I've come across, or been recommended, which I've tried and tested and have found really useful. If you've got recommendations of your own feel free to chip in too :-)
[FWIW, I'm not on the payroll for anything that I'm recommending, so this is all totally impartial!]

Today's product looks and sounds rather mundane, but it is rapidly becoming a huge favourite...Straw pellets!

It was Sez on the UKNHCP forum who first posted about them and I was intrigued. Previously I've always used straw for bedding - I've had concerns for a while about shavings, given that we spread our muck-heaps on our own fields and shavings take forever to rot down properly - but straw has some drawbacks.

Its awkward stuff to handle and gets everywhere, some horses will eat it (though not here, usually, as they have ad lib haylage) and its not terribly absorbent. For one horse in a box its ok, but as I have lots of horses coming in and out of the barn, there is a tendency for straw to be spread everywhere.

Up till now, the only alternatives seemed to be miscanthus or hemp - better and safer than shavings in terms of the muck heap but too expensive for the numbers of horses I have here.

And then I found out about straw pellets...I ordered a tonne from this horse bedding supplier, who are extremely helpful, and the pellets have now been down a week. They are fantastically easy to handle and create very little mess (a LOT less sweeping is now required - hurray!) but form a solid, warm bed which the horses seem very comfortable with (they look knobbly here, but break down quite easily).

Even with several horses coming and going in, the bed stays intact, with no holes or bare patches and the horses don't seem to take it out with them when they move about either.

Mucking out takes a fraction of the time as there is no need to rummage in piles of straw and its so much more absorbent that there is no longer the tedious daily chore of taking out all the straw and having to sweep out wet - you can see exactly where the wet patches are and just lift them out.

One other nice aspect is that the pellets smell gorgeous - good enough to eat - but although I wondered if the horses would find them tempting they seem totally uninterested, despite the fact that most would nibble the odd piece of straw.

I am now trying to be very disciplined and use up my remaining stock of straw but am longing for the day when I have no bedding but pellets! I highly recommend them :-)

For an initial "set-up" in one of our big boxes (which are 15ft x 15ft) I used about 15 bags but I've been pleasantly surprised by how little I've had to take out over the first week, and I would expect I would only use one bag a week for a top-up - maybe less if I was on a more traditional one-horse-per-box system.

The only drawback for a smaller yard is that you need to order at least half a tonne (just over 30 bags) at a time but if you can justify it, a tonne is more cost effective.