Hooves are SCARY!!

 My gorgeous Chrome, photo taken 9/21/19.

August 12 2019 was one of the scariest days of my entire life.  I walked out to the pasture after work to feed Chrome and he was dead lame.  I had never in my life seen him in so much pain.  He wouldn't walk at all unless I was pulling on the lead rope with all of my weight.  I only had him walk a couple of steps to get a video to send to the vet.  I have uploaded it so you can see it.  It still makes me sick to my stomach to see it.

Direct Link

If you can't watch a video here is a screenshot of how he was standing when I found him.  I immediately knew something was wrong from his stance, his expression, the fact that he wouldn't follow me with a feed bucket and the bloody spots where the horseflies had bitten him and he didn't try to remove them.

This picture makes me so sick.

To be honest when I saw him walk I thought his shoulder was broken (I realize now how dumb that was, but at the time....) because of the way he was swinging his leg out.  I sent the video to my emergency vet and he immediately said founder.  I thought I was going to die of shock and terror on the spot.  The vet said he could come out and treat him or we could give him pain meds and wait a day or two, but I asked him to come out (even though I had to max out my emergency credit card) because I was terrified that his coffin bones would rotate if I waited to treat him.  Please keep in mind through all of this that I had never had any experience with founder other than what I've read.  Reading can't prepare you for the hell of it in reality.

The vet came out and treated him.  I honestly can't recall what all he did except for taking x-rays (which showed no rotation) and running an IV.  He had to nerve block Chrome's left front hoof just to get him to stand on it long enough to wrap the other foot.  Three grown men were trying to prop him up and pick up his other hoof and he almost fell several times, which is why he decided to do the nerve block.  They wrapped both front feet with some gel and heavy cotton padding.  He also put him on various medications (thyroid meds and pain meds).

His wrapped feet the next day.  You can see he doesn't have as much weight on his left front.

When the vet left and I was sitting there with Chrome hooked up to his IV I was in tears.  I remember thinking, "I bought a horse trailer and I'm never going to get to take him anywhere on it."  I honestly thought I was going to have to put him to sleep.  It was one of the worst days of my life, maybe THE worst.

Running his IV medication the next day.

Doesn't he look miserable?

We gave him IV medication and fluids for two days before switching to paste and powdered medication.  We kept him in a stall (well it was corral panels under his barn since I don't have a stall).  This all happened on a Monday evening.  On Friday evening the vet had me take his wraps off.  To my amazement he walked off sound........

As I was taking off the wrap (excuse how nasty it was, we put down a TON of hay for him to stand on so it was soft) I immediately spotted the problem.... an abscess.  See the lighter gray part?  The hole in his hoof is a whole inch wide!! I've never seen an abscess that big!  I know that horses will sometimes act like they are dying with an abscess, but I honestly never believed it would make a horse walk like Chrome was in that video.  He had me convinced he was dying!  In hindsight I realize that part of the problem was his locking stifles which makes him look like he's moving weirder than a normal abscessed horse would.

A picture of the abscess after I cleaned his hoof up.

I'm still not 100% sure that he didn't have mild laminitis, but there was no rotation, no heat, no pounding digital pulse, so maybe not.  It's hard not to be bitter about the misdiagnoses since it wiped out my emergency credit card, but I'm trying not to be because I learned a LOT during all of this.  I would rather be safe than sorry and perhaps prompt treatment prevented things from being worst than they could have been.  It also prompted me to make a change in his hoof care, which I'll go into more below.

Five days after the above video he was pain free and happily helping us build temporary electric fences.  We blocked him off most of the grass (because we thought it a grass induced founder) and off of the pond (because him being in the pond all the time was causing hoof infections).

Before I found out it was an abscess I had reached out to professional barefoot trimmers trying to find someone close to me that is experienced in rehabbing foundered horses.  I was unable to find anyone who would come to my area, but I found a master trimmer who trained the Pete Ramey method and he is helping me learn to trim Chrome myself over the phone and email.  He has been absolutely amazing!

We are taking it slow and doing it in stages because he doesn't want to confuse or overwhelm me.  It is obviously working because he is back to trotting in his pasture and he's landing heel first on three out of four hooves.  The trimmer said the abscess was cause by seedy toe (an infection in the hoof wall which is why we fenced off the pond; some of you may remember he had white line a year ago from being in the pond too).  I had never experienced seedy toe, so I didn't realize that's what was going on.  I thought his hoof had just cracked from his walls being too long.  Seedy toe can also cause laminitis, so that's why I'm taking this all very seriously.  I feel really bad that his feet got in this condition.  I thought his hooves were fine because he was never lame, but you live and learn right?  Below are pictures of his hooves.

8-17-19 - These were taken the day I sent photos to the trimmer.  He was about five weeks out from a trim and I forgot my hoof pick so they are dirty.  My bad!  I just want you to have a baseline from where I started.

 Left Front (the one with seedy toe and the abscess).

Right Front (note the very stretched white line?)

 Right Hind (the other one with seedy toe)

Left Hind

9-3-2019 - It took me a while to do his first trim because I sprained my ankle, which caused back pain from compensation.  Once I was able to bend over again I trimmed him and sent pictures to the trimmer for an update.

Left Front Below

 Before Trim (see the hole where the seedy toe is?)

 After Trim

Right Front Below 

Before Trim

After Trim (almost looks like he wants to get seedy toe in this one too, but he didn't)

Left Hind Below

 Before Trim

 After Trim

Right Hind Below

 Before Trim (horrible seedy toe...)

After Trim

I forgot to mention during all of this time I've been soaking him in Oxine (off brand of white lightning), medicating the seedy toe and using durasole.

Below is his most recent trim which has him landing heel first in three out of four hooves.  The right front is being stubborn (trimmer said I need to back his toe up more to correct his breakover), but it does land heel first sometimes and flat the rest of the time, so we are well on our way.  Before all of this he was landing extremely toe first.

9-19-19 - I only did his fronts this day because my back was sore.  I will do his rear hooves again soon.  I also have to make some corrections on his fronts per my trimmer.  I forgot to get before pictures.

 Right Front

 Left Front

 Right Front (see the event lines? Makes me think he's had laminitis issues before)

He also had some coronet jamming that is looking much better and he's standing more square.  As soon as I can get him landing consistently heel first on all four feet I will be able to put him back into work (I've been hand walking him during all of this because the stall rest had his stifles locking again and exercise is very important for correcting hoof issues).

I'm feeling very optimistic at this point.  I went from thinking my horse was going to die to feeling very empowered taking his hoof care into my own hands.  I'm so happy that he is landing heel first because long time followers of this blog will know how much it's bothered me that he has chronically landed toe first most of his life.  I have learned so much and I'm happy that I get to keep learning.  I love this horse so much and I can't even imagine him not being in my life or not being happy or healthy.  I'm ecstatic to have my happy boy back.  Below are some pictures I took on Saturday.

 My handsome boy enjoying the small amount of grass I will allow him.

 Look at how flea-bitten he is getting!!!!  Just like his dam!

 He is so happy again, ears forward, stride long, forward, eager.  Love him!

 His stride in the front has gotten so much longer as I've slowly improved his breakover.

One last artistic shot of the turkey vulture feather my husband found and propped up.

Also I just want to say thank you to those of you who have stuck around during my absence.  I feel bad for not updating my blog and I'm going to start doing better because it's important that I can track the progress of his feet.  For those of you who are not hoof nerds I'm sorry if this is boring!  It's just a really good way for me to see our progress.  Thanks guys!!

Barn Raising

I have so much to say I don't even know where to start.  Ever since we moved here I've been wanting a barn... there is a three sided loafing shed, but it's tiny and stays muddy so I never used it for anything.  It's just for them to get out of the weather or away from the flies when needed.  The problem is last winter we were feeding the hay in there and it got so muddy we couldn't get the tractor in... that meant feeding the hay outside where it got wet and molded.  So I told hubby I wanted at least a roof on posts just to keep rain off the hay.  Of course he went overboard and is building me a huge barn!!

To be honest we rented the above auger because our ground is so hard and rocky that hubby can't dig it by hand with his messed up shoulder and even our hand held auger puts too much torque on his shoulder.  The big auger worked great... with two people laying on it and a ton of patience lol.  Our ground is sooooo rocky!  We had to keep stopping and using the 16 pound digging bar to break up the rock so the auger could do it's job.  Since we were renting the thing for a pretty penny we decided to dig all the holes we would need for our dream barn.  Of course digging holes in a pasture is dangerous... just asking for broken legs... so we had to set all of the posts too!!

 Our first post set in the ground.

We are only going to have enough money to get the framing around the tops of the posts done (to prevent them from bowing which they are already doing) and we have enough tin laying around to roof maybe a third of it.  So we will have Woodhenge (Stonehenge, get it haha) out there for a while.  It will be a while financially before we can complete my dream barn, but I spent a little time (okay a lot of time) today making out a floor plan.  :D

Here is my original, but it's hard to see so I did one on the computer too.  Notice the Dover magazine I was using to draw on?  Hehe.

Okay I'll explain what everything means.  Each square is two feet.  The barn will be 60 feet by 40 feet.  The orange dots are the posts we have in the ground right now.  The black lines are solid walls.  The red lines are gates.  The dotted red line is corral panels and the dotted blue lines are crossties.  The red lines going off the page on the left will be my corral panels set up as outdoor pens attached to the stalls.  The red lines going off the right side of the page will be a 12x12ft concrete pad for a wash stall (water lines go really close to there so less digging lol).  We will also bury electric to it someday.

The solid walls around the exterior of the barn will be from roof to ground, but the interior walls (except for tack room) will be half walls with metal grating above it.  So the stall area will be fully enclosed against coons and stuff, but with LOTS of air flow and view for them when they are in the stalls (which will only be for feeding, injuries, grooming, etc. although I might bug proof Chrome's stall and put him in it at dawn and dusk for a few hours to keep him away from the gnats that cause sweet itch in the summer).   The open area is where the hay ring will be so they still have their free choice round bale, but it won't get rained on anymore!!  The hay storage area will hold 24 round bales doubled stacked.  The reason it is corral panels instead of a fence and gate is so that they can be taken down to give lots of room for moving the tractor around while stacking them.

For right now the part over the stalls and tack room is probably all we are going to be able to afford to roof, so we will store and feed hay under there until we have the money to roof the rest and them start putting up walls.  It will be a long process because we are paying as we go (trying to get out of debt).  It will be worth the wait though!

Here are pictures of the poles we have in the ground..

See why we call it Woodhenge?  

Yes they are leaning.  They are quick to bow when they aren't braced at the top.  Since they are so high (they are 4x6x16 set two foot in the ground approx.) we will be able to bend them back into shape as we put up the framing.

Here you can see him putting up the string so we get all the posts the correct height.  If you look closely you can see the orange string.  :)

I think that was everything I had that is barn related.  Below are random horse pictures.

 Looking good!  His black coat is coming back in slowly.

 He stepped forward and Jackal photobombed hehe.  

I didn't even know he was laying back there.

 Some fun black and white.

 Rocky has a nice, muscular booty even when not in work.

 Chrome's reverse blaze is rapidly disappearing and 

the fleabites are popping up in large numbers!

 Here are a couple of pictures of white goat.

 He did this flehman response for five minutes!

 Chilling on the pond bank lol.

Brown goat started limping so we caught him in the barn and discovered his hoof is infected.  We actually caught both of them and trimmed their hooves because they were getting long.  White goats face was all bloody where they had been head butting so much he broke the skin open.  Male goats are so dumb.  We treated his face, trimmed his hooves, dewormed him and turned him loose.  We treated and trimmed brown goats hooves, dewormed him and set him up in the barn.  He's going to stay there while we soak his hooves until the infection is gone.  I used some spray yesterday, but tomorrow I'm going to soak the infected one in Oxine (White Lightning) like we did Rocky's hooves.  Other than that they are doing well.

I also forgot to mention in my last ride post where my friend went riding with me that she rode Chrome when we got back.  She trotted and cantered him for the first time.  She said his canter feels just like her purebred Friesian mare's canter!!  Nothing at all like her Quarter horses.  :D  I knew his gaits felt huge, but I haven't ridden anything but him in so long I couldn't really make an accurate comparison.  I have noticed when he and Rocky gallop up his knees come way higher up than Rocky's does.  I'm going to try to get a video of it sometime.  It's really cool seeing it side by side.  Anyway she had fun riding him and he was a good boy.  A funny thing that happened is that her dog was running in front of them while cantering and Chrome lowered his head and was trying to chase the dog down.  I yelled at her to get his head up because I didn't want the dog run over and I didn't want him to start crowhopping.  She pulled his head up and he got bouncy for a second, but didn't really do anything wrong.  :)  He's such a good boy.  I was proud of him and it was fun watching her ride him.  I edited the original post and put this in it.

I think that's about it.  Chrome is still itchy, but his sores are healing up.  I found some new shampoo that I'm going to try tomorrow (it didn't warm up enough today strangely) that is supposed to help itching.  I hope it will give him some relief.  The neem oil helps prevent new sores, but it doesn't give him relief from the healing ones.  Poor guy.

Oh they got trimmed this weekend too.  Their hooves look great.  Rocky still has some old bruising, but it's much improved.  She said we can get back to riding him, but probably need to keep him off the pavement as much as possible.

Well I think that's it.  There's something I'm forgetting, but this post is way too long, so I'll try to remember later.

Hoof Update

Sorry I haven't posted this weekend.  I had to work yesterday and I've had a horrible sinus headache all day today, so this will just be a quick update.

The horses just got their trims and are looking good.  Rocky has been trotting and cantering in the pasture with no limping.  He was able to keep weight on his hooves for the entire trim instead of fighting to get his weight off of them.  When she brought his front hooves back he still jerked them away and struck forward, so that's a behavioral thing we will have to work on.  When his leg was forward and sitting on the jack he stood just fine the whole time.  He didn't fight at all with his rear hooves.  Weird.  With hubby's shoulder messed up he can't do too much, but I'll try to do some clicker training with him on holding his front legs up, building the duration very slowly.  I'm thinking it shouldn't take long before he realizes it isn't going to hurt anymore and stops trying to do that.

Sorry if this makes no sense.  I'm probably rambling because of the headache.  I'll try to update again tomorrow.  Oh and we measured Chrome again just to see how tall he is after a fresh trim and he's still 15.2hh.  He looks taller, but it's probably just because Rocky is shorter than he is lol.  :)

Rocky's 1st clicker session+Chrome's ear+Rocky lameness update+lots of videos!

 So handsome!!  His dapples seem to disappear sometimes lol.

Chrome first.  I had to braid his forelock because the hair kept getting stuck in his wound and then I'd rip it back open pulling the hair out.  I hope he doesn't rub his forelock braid out....  The wound is gaping open again, but it's not swollen and it's a lot less red.  We cleaned it today and put more powder on (the rain has made using the powder very difficult grr).

Here is a cute video of Chrome being a goofball.  It also shows a closeup of the wound.  The pictures didn't turn out very good, so the video will have to be good enough.

Direct link here.

Now Rocky.  First of all this is only his third Oxine soak and the improvement is amazing.  I'm a believer in this stuff.

He should dress up as the tin man for Halloween...

he already has the boots!!

Aren't we done with this yet??

Check out these pictures I got of the bottles that I mix the Oxine and vinegar in...

See the gas inside of it?

How about now?

That's the chemical reaction taking place.  That's what happens inside of his boots.  I can't imagine how it must feel, but it does not damage live tissue.  He's a saint to put up with all of this.

It's making a big difference too!  I'll let you see for yourself.  First up is a walking video showing him walking after his trim last weekend and then today.

Direct link.

Then here's a trotting video.  The before clip is short, because it never crossed my mind to get a video of him trotting when he was lame.  He had a huge head bob!  I'm talking he bobbed his head a foot easily.  So the after video is awesome!!

Direct link.

Can you believe that's just from his thrush treatments??  The before clip was taken after his trim.  He was way worse than that before his trim.

He stands under himself.  We're going to start soaking his rear hooves this week too, now that he's so good with his fronts.  I'm going to practice with an empty plastic bag and then a plastic bag with water in it before I use the Oxine.  I have no clue how he's going to react to having something on his rear hooves... I'll update when that happens (and I might get video haha).

Next up is a video of Rocky's introduction to clicker training!  He's never done any clicker training before so this is all new for him.  Sorry the video is kind of long (about 6 minutes I think), but I didn't want to cut anything out.  I had to trim out a couple of sections where I was walking around them (would have made you motion sick) and where I was talking about someone I know by name.

Direct link.

He did such a great job!!!!!!!  Hubby did too hehe.  I don't think it will take long before Rocky moves on to other things.  We are going to do short target training sessions for a few days and introduce following it.  Then we will do the grownups are talking game to keep him from mugging.  After that we will finally be able to work on his hooves.  He's been in so much pain that we can barely clean his feet, much less rasp them.  I'm hoping in another week he will be comfortable enough to at least let us clean them out, do some clicker training to reinforce holding his feet up nicely (and not jerking them away violently like he does now) and then we can start rasping his toe and flares between trims.  :)

I hope everyone had a fantastic fourth of July!  I spent it helping repair a toilet and sink that broke and cabinets that were sagging.  Didn't see a single firework!  We were invited to go see a show, but when we walked outside our tire was flat and it was the only vehicle we would drive that far.  We didn't feel comfortable driving that far on the spare so we didn't go.  Oh well.  We got a lot done around the house and the weather was crappy anyway.  Why did the rain have to come back?????

Sorry, I'll stop whining.  I hope you enjoy the videos.  I'm so excited because hubby is so excited about clicker training Rocky.  I think I'm going to get back into it with Chrome too.  He loves it and I miss it.  :)  I'll update again soon (hopefully tomorrow, but if not it will probably be next week because I just don't have time during the work week).