Okanagan School of Natural Hoof Care
5981 Old Vernon Rd V1X 7V2 Kelowna, BC, Canada

Hey Horse Mom, I see you. I see how you are constantly seeking ways to better your horse's life even if it means sacrifices for your own. I see how you spend a...ll your extra money to make sure your horse has the best care possible. I see how much you love your horse and would do anything for them. So, today, I say Happy Mother's Day to you, too. Nice work, Horse Mom Share a picture of your 4 legged kiddo! --- credit: Borisyuk Photography

Another set of Easyshoes today. This horse suffered from laminitis and subsequently foundered a few months ago. He is still dealing with low grade metabolic issues, and needed a little more support. You can see where I have exposed the lamellar wedge at the toe, and you can see where I have trimmed the wall back to align the upper connected growth with the dorsal wall. I also opted to clean up the sole and frog quite extensively, > I don’t generally do this, but with a com...posite going on for protection I was able to take off all of the chalky material and rotten frog. You can also see that the trim is different with a shoe going on, no bevel or roll at the toe and no quarter arch. The most important part of this application is getting breakover back to where it would be if this hoof were healthy. Leaving excess toe would allow the wedge to keep driving apart the connected growth. Is nailing a shoe on much harder once you have thinned the wall? Absolutely, there is an extremely small margin of error. But is it necessary? Yes. Growing out the wedge is the only way to fix this long term.

Brand new blog post today! I have been applying a ton of composite shoe packages lately and thought it may be time to explain when I use them and why! Have you used them? Comment below and let me know about your experience with them and what you used them for.

Another quick update at the bottom of the post for those of you following Dixie's progress.

Finally finished boiling down the coffin bone I saved from Ruby our rescue pony. I recently did a video about her hoof cadaver that I dehydrated and split in half. Ruby was a long term founder case that we worked to rehabilitate, but ultimately we got her too late and weren’t able to reverse the damage. This coffin bone tells the story. The rim edge is very eroded and porous. There is significant ski tipping and a lot of erosion. There is also a lot of asymmetry. Her navicu...lar bone however is in good shape. Here is a link to the video mentioned: https://www.oksnhc.com/blog/foundered-cadaver-vlog Her origin blog post from when we first brought her home is here: https://www.oksnhc.com//cinderella-story-video-update-on-r

A progress pic from Sept 1 to Nov 11, growing out this crack.

While this is definitely not the intended use for Duplo shoes this set up is serving this horse well. I modified the shoe by cutting the frog support out as it’s so muddy right now the owner needed to be able to get in there and clean it out every day. This picture is after 6 weeks.

Generally speaking if I have to take this much growth off, the trim cycle is too long. In this case this was the second trim ever, the first trim for his hind feet, on a previously feral gelding. The cycle was too long but working on training and safety when picking up his hooves was more important! ... Moving forward I will suggest a 4-6 week schedule for him depending on his growth and wear. A lot of people let their horses’ hooves grow long in between trims because they feel like they are getting their money’s worth when this much gets trimmed off. But in all actuality you are setting your horse up for tendon or ligament injury, arthritis and more vet bills down the road. Every extra bit of length adds excess force to the biomechanics of the horse. I heard someone once say that you are paying for my knowledge of what not to trim off and what to leave, not for how much growth I take off. This is so true! You are paying for my years of study and my sleepless nights thinking about your horse and their soundness.

The first step in trimming cute ponies is always braiding their hair #poorpamperedpony

Today I casted some composite shoes on Flash. He is our navicular rehab gelding and normally he wears Easyboot Cloud boots in his front feet 24/7. With his boots on he is very comfortable and lands heel first but without them he is short strided and lands on his toes. Due to all the mud and snow the boots aren’t very easy to keep clean and dry, and he also ripped one of them so I thought we would try something new while I wait for the new pair I ordered. I hope he will be a...ble to go barefoot once we have some softer snow cover, but right now we are in the stage where the mud can be hard and unforgiving when it freezes all lumpy. I used an older pair of EasyShoe Flex composite shoes with some padding to provide a bit of comfort for Flash’s arthritis. I applied them with Epona casting hooks and 3M casts. Unfortunately for Flash the only colour I had was pink I also applied artimud under the padding to keep his frogs healthy! My biggest concern is his traction if things freeze so I may have to add some quick studs but I’ll have to see. He trotted off pretty comfortably on these so my fingers are crossed that they will work for him until the new boots arrive, and possibly as an alternative to the boots once and a while.

A perfect hoof on this paint mare. Great connection and uniform growth I could trim hooves like this all day. Ok while it’s mostly perfect, I’d like to see the heels come back a little without sacrificing their height