Yesterday I came to the decision Bay was hurting. I had noticed him being a little off during the storm, even gave him a bute for good measure, but since then I hadn't seen him trot around enough to know if he was really lame still, so I lunged and watched yesterday, and he's not right. Saw what I thought was bruising on his front feet.
Posted it on the farrier forum yesterday and that hasn't made me feel any more confident on the next step. One guy went off on me, the rest all have opinions, I have to figure out how to apply them...
You'll see.... Is this bruising? - The Farrier & Hoofcare Resource Center Forums
Oh my, that was an interesting read...some real arrogant creeps over there huh:)
Don’t pay attention to them.
I have no clue what could be going on with Bay. He is definitely off...and I think we did talk about the shoe looking to small when he was first shod...I don’t know how that would affect him tho.
Keep us updated.
Becky
Wow! That Jaye guy is a piece of work isn’t he! Seemed to just want to make you feel stupid and not much else.
As for the redness at the toe, it’s probably from the over-thinning of the external hoof wall that he did. I used to do that on Grace, trying to get rid of a toe flare, but noticed I was getting redness and some sole flattening later on, so I quit doing it and just started beveling the hoof wall up from the breakover point I wanted, so that section of wall didn’t actually touch the ground and continue to stretch the toe, and the problems seemed to resolve themselves. I think that thinning the hoof wall too much weakens the whiteline connection and causes tearing and sinking of the internal hoof structures and that’s the red you’re seeing. So hopefully he’ll quit doing that, but as to how to tactfully tell him that, that’ll be the hard part like you said. And if he can’t get the next bigger size of the NB shoes to fit without a forge then he definitely need to use something else. Using an NB shoe, because it’s supposed to be “good” without regard to whether it fits the foot or not is not smart. Hopefully this guy will get better over time and won’t lame your horses in the meantime.