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 Loves to compete
Posts: 5760
   
Location: Oakdale, CA | I would xray him right away................. | |
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 Expert
Posts: 3782
 
Location: Gainesville, TX | OE Hoof Evolution is a good supplement to think about feeding to, just to improve the overall health of the hoof. And I am going to echo someone else on nutrition. Omolene is really high sugar content. I would get him on something with lower NSC (non soluble carbohydrate). | |
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 Veteran
Posts: 214
| When I first got my gelding we had a pretty frustrating go. He had pads on his front end and it was described harder rodeo ground seemed to sting his feet a little. He was due for a trim and reset when I took him to do a prepurchase so the vet pulled, did x-rays, flex test, hoof testers etc didn't find anything out of the ordinary wear and tear expected. The horse was working great but slowly got a little off in the front end over the next few months. We only live 45 mins from the previous owner (who I really like) we kept his feed the same, kept the same farrier etc. We got this horse in August and by December I took him to a lameness specialist. X-rays, blocks, hoof tests later he felt he had a ligament or tendon injury in both fronts, we decided to not do the MRI just to confirm this and went with the treatment route starting him on stall rest etc. Come his 8 week check up he was no better, just as lame. The vet thought he might be a tad sore with the hoof testers so he started digging.. and digging and digging... I wish I knew how to upload pictures, my horse's front feet had entire sections taken off almost to the cornet band in several spots close to his heel on both fronts. Deep festering abscesses that kept resealing.
I had been talking with another farrier about my problem horse in the meantime so he took a look at him. Where our problems were mainly coming from were around the bar areas. The way this particular horse grows a foot apparently requires each trimming to really clean out the bars. I never thought anything different about how this geldings feet were opposed to any of our other horses just while cleaning his feet out. He would get a tiny piece of sand or anything really in there it would seal over work its way up and we had the reoccurring lameness. This farrier, who I wasn't using before, came out every other week to ensure things were still open and draining, made him special shoes to help support the parts he was missing hoof. This went on for about 12 weeks. This horse was back to being legged up in June 2016 and knock on wood, we haven't had an issue with abscesses since. The farrier who was doing this horse before I got him and 4 months into owning him does a very good job, but a new set of eyes from the farrier I currently use really saved me in the long run. For the vet I took my gelding to to misdisagonse the deep, reoccurring abscesses as a ligament or tendon in BOTH fronts would hopefully give a little hope maybe yours could be something as simple as ours turned out to be, good luck! | |
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| Test your hay/forage and balance his diet to that. If you don't know enough to do it yourself, hire someone to do it for you. Dr. Eleanor Kellon is great. From there you can have a custom supplement created that balances your forage. It truthfully is quite astonishing what *issues* a properly balanced diet will eliminate and how much money you'll save in the long run.
For example: It could be that your hay (or water) is high in nitrates which affect the thyroid (plus, many other issues) and is manifesting itself through abscesses in this colt or that your forage is high in copper (unlikely, but possible) and by feeding three additional sources of copper, you're throwing the iron:zinc:manganese:copper ratio way out of balance.
You can test each forage source for about $40 through http://equi-analytical.com/
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