The changing feet of Bailey G

Bailey G went home yesterday and its time for his "recap" post. Bailey arrived in the middle of February wearing bar shoes and with a diagnosis of pedal osteitis and navicular bone damage. On a hard surface he was 2/10 lame LF and 3/10 lame RF.

The photos throughout show his RF. Above in February, and below today. The most interesting aspects from this angle are the much healthier hoof capsule growing down in the lower shot and the fact that he has more depth to the back of his foot and a less under-run heel today.

The caudal shot shows the contracted heels and digital cushion and the weak frog typical of a hoof in bar shoes. You can also see from this angle that the medio-lateral balance is off - the hoof wall is collapsing on the medial (right-hand) side and is overly long on the opposite side.  

Contrasting the same hoof today, there are improvements in frog, digital cushion and hoof walls. 

Nevertheless this is still a foot with a relatively weak frog. its much better than it was but still needs to "beef up" even more. The medial side of his foot is also improving but still has a way to go. Bailey will need consistent work in order to maintain and improve his overall hoof health and strength. 

Here is the bar shoe at day one and a few days after his shoes came off, below. 

Out of the shoe, you can see that the heels are under-run and the frog weak. Over the subsequent photos, its interesting to look not only at how the frog develops and the toe shortens, but also at how the heels migrate back to be much more supportive and less under-run. 

Compare the heel position in these photos - more stable and in a much healthier position by the time of the lower photo. His foot is a more balanced shape too, although there is still some separation at the lateral side as his foot shifts towards better medio-lateral balance. 

Bailey's hoof pics caused some chuntering on the internet about trimming, and what they apparently required by way of human intervention. The answer of course is that they didn't require trimming - and its certainly not trimming which moved those heels back to a better position or improved his frogs and digital cushion. I have trimmed him, but only to roll the lateral hoof wall, and only on his last day so he went home tidy!

A couple of quick stills finally to give an idea of his stride length - not as dramatically extended as Dom's was, but a slight improvement even though he has not yet got the most robust hooves in the world.