Beckie’s Equine Letter
News, Case Studies, Questions & Answers
And a Lesson of the Month in every Issue
Summer 2007 -- Issue 14
News for the Month
Well this newsletter is well over due, but this is because I’ve been spending my time working on my new website. I have been really excited about the launch, and have been very pleased to see lots of you regularly using it. I feel all my efforts have been really worth while. I’ve had over 250 individual people view it, including people as far a field as America, Australia, France and New Zealand. So satisfying.
I haven’t yet shared with you much about my trip to Colorado in April. As you read on you will be able to see some of the horses I got to work on. Again a fantastic trip and I came back even more excited about shoeing, which is what it’s all about. I also managed to achieve a new qualification whilst I was there; I gained a Level 4 Certification in Lameness. This involved a gruelling written paper followed by shoeing a crippled horse, and being assessed at every stage. I felt very honoured to be shoeing amongst some of the best farriers in the world.
To continue furthering my knowledge I have booked myself onto the world’s largest Hoof Care Summit which takes place in Cincinnati at the end of January. This is a 4 day seminar with 65 speakers, and lots of round table discussions. There will be lots to learn, so looking forward to that.
I was on a course recently, held in Sussex. One of the lectures really caught my attention; it was by Colin Reeves who works for the company creating the Keratex Hoof Care products. He had some really good ways of describing horn structure on a basic level. He talked about how our wet summer has affected feet. On the back page I have included some of the things I picked up from his talk.
In May I got involved with doing another shoeing demonstration at Anvils Open Evening. I would like to thank Gill Mercer for boxing her exceptionally well behaved pony Blue there for the evening. Blue at only 6 years old stood for 2 and a half hours patiently late into the evening whilst I went through the trimming and shoeing process. Also thank you to those of you that came to support me, it’s always great to see some familiar faces in the crowd.
Well I hope you enjoy this newsletter and remember it will also be on my website so you can check out all the pictures in colour. It does make quite a lot of difference especially on the dissection ones.
Please find enclosed a copy of my new Pricing Guide which takes affect from the 1st of September.
I will look forward to seeing you all soon.
Beckie x
Lesson of the Month
Dissection
Whilst I was on my Level 4 Lameness Clinic we had a morning dissecting legs. This was excellent as we methodically went through the leg finding all of the tendons and small ligaments and photographing them. We were given a leg between three of us, we were lucky and got a very fresh leg! Firstly we had
to remove all the hair carefully trying not to cut into the soft tissue. We wanted to prove some of the reasons why we are using the widest point of the foot as a guide for shoe placement. So we drilled holes through the sole of the foot to see exactly were the internal structures where in relation. Each group did this so we could check for consistency. Below you can see me drilling through the foot.
Peeling off the hoof wall was a pretty tough job. It proved just how strong the laminae are bonded to the pedal bone and the hoof wall. It took quite a lot of team work to prize it away.
This picture below shows the whole sole and frog peeled back.
Here are all the tendons laid out. The Extensor tendons running down the front and the Flexor tendons and the Suspensory ligament running down the back of the leg.
Case Study
Horses I was involved with shoeing in Colorado
This horse below was given a partial hoof wall resection due to a bad case of white line disease (seedy toe). All of the necrotic tissue was removed still staying clear of the sensitive tissue. The foot was then thoroughly dried out; small holes were drilled above the resection to give the hoof filler more to bond into. The foot was then filled in layers with a Vettec product called Super Fast. It is a very quick setting filler that bonds in 30 seconds. As it cures it heats up, so it had to be done in layers so as not to produce too much heat. Once this has cured it can then be rasped and nailed into just like the hoof wall. As long as the preparations are done right this will bond for a good couple of months.
Below is a chronic laminitic with exceptionally overgrown feet. He has so little structure to his feet it is impossible to nail anything onto them. The Clogs in this case were screwed and glued on. Look at the difference in the height of his heels and all the distortion to the front of the hoof wall. (The top picture was taken before trimming). Because he lacks so much stability in his feet the Clogs work like a cast to his foot. Locking it up and then giving him the equivalent to another joint on the bottom of his foot. The rounded edges of the Clog enable him to turn very easily and bring the break-over back under the tip of his pedal bone. In this situation paddock soundness is the objective; it’s a case of making him as comfortable as possible.
Website - www.beckiemabbutt.com
Just a few words on my new website. I am so pleased to see so many of you using it. Any feedback would be much appreciated, and if anyone has any suggestions about other things they’d find helpful to have on there then please let me know when you next see me.
The Horse Portfolio section is becoming very popular. Eventually I would love it if I could have a picture of every horse I shoe on there. It’s nice for me to see pictures of the horses I shoe in action so if you could all dig out a good picture of your horse and either e-mail it to me at (beckie@beckiemabbutt.com) or I can scan it and return it to you, that would be great. Feedback I’ve got so far is that other customers are enjoying being nosey and seeing what horses other people have got, and the range of horses I shoe.
I am trying to add new case studies to the site at least once a week. So every time you look there should be something new.
Note re-farriers cover during holidays
Recently I was covering for another farrier that was away and I thought I should share with you the problem that occurred. I was called out to one of his clients to do a lost shoe and after refitting the shoe, the client refused to pay me saying that “he’d only had the horse shod a week before and he was not going to pay as it shouldn’t have come off”. In this situation I was offering a service and if he had any grievances he should take it up with his own farrier at a later date, and pay me for the work I’d done. When I’m away if you have to use another farrier for an emergency please pay them what they ask, and if you think you’ve been hard done by please just bring it up with me when I’m back.
Comparing horn to wood
Whilst on a course last month I learnt a lot from one of the speakers Colin Reeves. Colin works for Keratex a company providing great hoof care products.
Colin had a very good way of describing horn structure and why we are struggling so much with the wet summer we’ve had. I have included a paper that he recently wrote, but here is an analogy he used which simplified things in my mind.
If you think of the hoof as a piece of wood when it is soaked in water it swells then when it dries out it will shrink and contract. Just like my front door that regularly frustrates me when it doesn’t fit in the door frame! The feet can change in size so much to the extent that if I shoe a horse when it’s feet are super saturated then they get put in the stable for the day their feet will dry out too quickly. The feet will have contracted to the extent that the clenches can rise the same day as they were shod. This is why shoes are coming loose sooner at the moment during this wet summer we are having. Feet can’t cope with this continual change.
I guess another way of looking at it is there are different qualities of wood as there is horn quality. A good strong wood when soaked then dried quickly wouldn’t crack and split like a cheap weaker wood. Feet are the same they are all different qualities some are affected more than others.
I hope this explains why this summer has been exceptionally tough on feet.
Handouts that went with this Newsletter
The effect of Climatic Condidtions on Hoof Horn - by Colin Reeves