Heat wave

[altivo]

It continues to be unseasonably warm, though they're promising a cooldown on Thursday. And actually decent weather by Saturday for our furry picnic at the Railway museum. Yay.

Got to work this morning and hardly made it to my desk before finding out that there was an unexpected meeting I needed to attend. I wasn't the only one who thought it was next week, but it was in fact today. So by noon I split to drive to Loves Park. Nothing earth shattering, but we haven't been holding our consortium catalogers' meetings as regularly as in the past and I didn't want to miss.

So that meant the afternoon away from work. Got home about an hour early but if I'd driven back to work instead, I'd only have been there 30 minutes or so before time to leave.

Nothing much accomplished this evening, but that's OK. I'm still getting over that virus thing. Lots of coughing and nose "stuff". Thank the goddess my ears opened back up this morning. I really hate that feeling. It's one of the reasons I won't fly any more, because it always happens to me on airplanes and then takes like 24 hours to clear back up.

Tess has a big chip out of a forehoof, and I'm worried about it. She's not lame or anything, but it looks bad and she had one on the other side of the same hoof a month ago. I don't know what she's doing to cause this. Or what I can do to prevent it.

Bed calls, gotta go now.

Comments

[avon_deer]

Wish I could join you on this picnic..I need a distraction. :D

[altivo]

Yeah, it would be fun to have you here.

[avon_deer]

Distance is a problem sometimes. Someone invent the transporter! :D

[altivo]

"Beam me up Scotty, this place sucks?"

I'm not so sure I'd let them put me through one of those, though.

[kakoukorakos.livejournal.com]

Are you talking about minor bar cracks right at the edge of the hoof wall? If so, that's absolutely normal, even a good thing with barefoot horses since they improve traction. Those sorts always appear right at the bars if hoof wall is flexing normally.

If Tess is shod, you might want to let her go barefoot, most of the more serious cracks are due to shoes putting stress in the wrong places. Hooves crack and flex where they need to in order to be resilient, but shoes tend to prevent wear only at a high cost, things like quarter cracks and more severe bar cracks that go all the way to the quick.

[altivo]

Well, more like two or three inch chunks of hoof missing. She lost the outside edge of the near forehoof a couple of months ago and our farrier "rebalanced" it in an attempt to even out the growth but now she's lost the inner edge and the front of the hoof looks like it's growing to one side. As I said, no lameness and no infection but I'm worried at this point that it's putting some weird stress on the supporting bones. Farrier is due back soon, though.

All my horses are barefoot. The boys never seem to have any problems, but Tess has had a number of difficulties. So far we've gotten her past them, and this is probably not as bad as it looks to me. When I went out to fetch her from the pasture yesterday she came to meet me at full gallop and looked just fine in terms of stride and balance.

[kakoukorakos.livejournal.com]

I've seen about 2-3" gaps between the hoof wall of the toe and heels as far as natural bar cracks go. It's mostly something to worry about if the chunks start breaking-out such that they go above the level of the sole (and I don't mean the crumbly dead sole, but the actual horn that is solid and needs to be pared with nippers or a knife). I noticed that my horses don't actually have it, only the older mare has a chip starting. All winter, with the snow, their hooves tend to grow-out more and stay solid, but as soon as all the snow melts and the subsequent mud dries out, that's when their hooves start drying out and the harder surfaces cause them to crack. But again, it never bothers them, it happens pretty much every year.

But what would worry me is if it's uneven and her hoof is becoming excessively lopsided. Sometimes they'll flare a little on one side, but it could be a sign of more serious orthopedic problems in either the diagonal opposite rear leg or her other front leg that's causing her to favor one or the other of them and put excessive weight at an odd angle on that particular front hoof.

[altivo]

Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. Both that the apparent lopsided tortion on the hoof is a result of something odd about another leg, and that the now lopsided level of the chipped hoof will put new torsion onto the foot with the chips.

I keep spying on her when she's running or walking but can detect no anomalies. Fortunately, I think John is due back to trim hooves in a week or two and he can give a more expert opinion. At least it doesn't appear to be bothering her yet, though I keep wanting to fill it in with Bondo or something. ;p

[kakoukorakos.livejournal.com]

You --can-- fill it with Bondo. I've used fiberglass for hoof repairs and to fill gaps. It probably wouldn't work so well on the edge of a hoof, though, it works best when it's either filling a crack or the gap between shoe and broken hoof wall.