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Negative Plantar Angles and Why They Matter

Negative Plantar Angles and Why They Matter

Mar 4, 2024 | Feet, Hoof Care

Whinny’s Wisdoms

Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic

Hey everyone, Whinny here! More and more nowadays, horse owners are aware of how important the angles of a horse’s hoof are to his performance and the prevention of lameness. That’s a really good thing, because horses are soooo sensitive to tiny changes in the angles of their feet! If you want your horse to feel his best, compete successfully, or just stay sound for as long as possible, talking with your vet and farrier about your horse’s feet is a great place to start. You may have heard the terms “palmar or plantar angles”. These angles refer to the orientation of the coffin bone within the hoof. Palmar is the term for the front feet and plantar refers to the hind feet. Today, we’re mostly going to talk about the plantar, or hind foot angle.

What is a Negative Plantar Angle?

The planter angle is the angle the bottom of the coffin bone makes with the ground. In a healthy hind foot, we expect it to be about 2-4 degrees positive, meaning that the heel, or back end, of the coffin bone is a little higher than the toe, or front end. The exact angle depends a bit on the horse’s individual conformation. If a horse has a negative plantar angle, it means the coffin bone is “tipping up” with the front of the bone higher than the back of the bone, opposite of the way it should be. Some horses are conformationally predisposed to developing this abnormal hoof form, for example, horses with a very straight hock angles, but trimming and shoeing play a huge part in correcting or worsening the issue.

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An x-ray of a normal hoof with a positive plantar angle

Why are Plantar Angles a Big Deal?

Think of it as if you had to wear shoes where the toe was wedged up higher than the heel. And you could never take those shoes off. Your back and legs would probably get sore. And what if you’re also asked to be an athlete – running, jumping, trail walking – even worse, right? You might develop some problems with your joints or lower back from your abnormal foot position and I bet your body would develop some other issues from trying to compensate. It’s the same for horses. Those negative angles put abnormal stresses on your horse’s joints and back. Scientific studies have shown negative plantar angles to be linked to pain in the gluteal muscles, proximal suspensory ligaments, stifles, hocks, and sacroiliac joints. All super important structures with a massive influence on your horse’s comfort. These issues can range from a subtle effect on performance to significant lameness.

Negative plantar angles are one of the most common hind end issues vets and farriers see. Horses that aren’t yet overtly lame may show signs like resistance during training, difficulty picking up canter leads, stumbling a little behind, dragging the hind toes, problems holding a leg up for the farrier, or lack of freedom in their hind limb swing. More severe cases can develop chronic pain and obvious lameness.

So How Can I Tell if My Horse Has Negative Plantar Angles?

Radiographs

First off, radiographs (x-rays) are the best way to know for sure. My doc will take a lateral radiograph (an image taken from the side of the horse) and measure the exact angles. This is the best way to know exactly where the coffin bone sits within the hoof capsule. She can also measure your horse’s sole depth, toe length, hoof-pastern axis, the breakover of the foot, and more. These are all really useful things to help your farrier optimize your horse’s trim. My doc can show the x-rays to your farrier, and they can come up with a trimming or shoeing plan together.

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This horse has a significantly negative plantar angle of -5.5 degrees.

While radiographs are the gold standard, the rest of the strategies I’m going to list are good indicators of the problem based on external markers. They don’t give you an exact measurement or diagnosis, but they’re great tools for monitoring your horse’s feet at home.

The Shape of the Hoof

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Bull-nosed appearance to the hoof.

If you pay close attention to the external shape of a horse’s hind feet, there are clues that the horse may have negative plantar angles. A bull-nosed, or bowed, appearance to the front of the hoof (the dorsal hoof wall) is typical of a severely negative angle. This is because the hoof wall follows the tip of the coffin bone, which is in essence tipping upwards and pushing outwards. Since a negative plantar angle overloads the back of the foot, the heel bulbs may also appear to be flattened.

Another sign is underneath the hoof, on his sole. In a foot with negative angles, the apex, or tip, of the frog is often deeply set in a depression in the sole. A normal hoof will have the tip of the frog positioned at about the same level as the surrounding sole, rather than sitting in a well.

A normal hoof. Notice how the apex of the frog is not deeply set in a depression.

Sometimes horses with negative plantar angles will have a squared off appearance to the hind toes, caused by dragging the feet. This can also be caused by sore hocks or other causes of lameness. Negative plantar angles can sometimes be the root cause, but not in every case. Either way, if the horse has squared off hind toes, my doc should check him out.

A steep coronary band angle is a very strong indicator of a negative plantar angle – we’ll talk about how to measure the coronary band angle shortly.

Stance

A normal horse should stand squarely, with both the front and hind cannon bones vertical, or perpendicular to the ground. When the hind hooves are out of balance, poor posture often results. Horses with negative plantar angles are frequently uncomfortable standing squarely. They may stand with their hind limbs camped under themselves, because the high toe and low heel makes it uncomfortable for them to stand with their cannon bones vertical. When the lower leg is placed vertical (as it should be in a normal horse), the hoof-pastern axis is often out of alignment, causing the horse discomfort. He will try to bring his lower limbs forward to straighten his hoof-pastern axis, but unfortunately over time this abnormal posture causes soreness in the stifles, hocks, hamstrings, and sacroiliac areas.

Stand your horse perfectly square with his cannon bones vertical

A normal, square, stance with the cannon bones perpendicular to the ground

Watch your horse to see how he tends to stand. Any horse can stand in an abnormal position for a moment, but if he consistently tends to stand with his hind limbs underneath himself, it warrants an evaluation of his feet and musculoskeletal comfort.

A camped-under stance

Measurements

And now for a great way for you to estimate your horse’s plantar angles at home! We’re going to look at the angle of the coronary band. A steep coronary band angle indicates low or negative angles. Remember, it’s not a substitute for x-rays, but is a good external sign of what the plantar angles are doing internally.

Stand your horse perfectly square with his cannon bones vertical

Basically, we’re going to be drawing an imaginary line through the angle of the coronary band and continuing it forward to see where it bisects the front limb. You’ll need some sort of long, thin tool – a longe whip can work, or a thin piece of wood like a long ruler or even a broom handle. If you’re handy with computers, you can also do your measurement by digitally adding a line to a photo of your horse later.

Match the angle of the coronary band

Stand your horse perfectly square with his cannon bones vertical[/caption] It’s critical that your horse stands square with his cannon bones vertical to the ground to get an accurate measurement. It may be helpful to have a set of crossties or someone to hold your horse. You’ll also want him standing on even ground. Take the tool that you’re using and line it up with the coronary band on the outside of his hoof. Raise or lower the end of your tool to match the angle to the angle of the coronary band. Now look at the forelimb on the same side – where does your tool hit that leg? In a normal horse, the line will bisect the forelimb no higher than his knee (carpus). If it’s between the knee and the elbow, there is concern that he has low or negative plantar angles. If it’s at the elbow or above, there’s a strong chance he has negative plantar angles!

This line bisects at the level of the front knee, which is normal

These are great tools for monitoring your horse’s hoof condition at home and protecting his long-term soundness. If you have any concerns, my docs will be happy to help!

Until next week!

~Whinny

P.S. There are videos on how to check hoof angles over on my YouTube Channel. If you want to dive deeper into hoof angles, this is a great way to do it!

Whinny’s Wisdoms is the official blog of Whinny the Clinic Mouse at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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How Horse Feet Work

How Horse Feet Work

Apr 24, 2023 | Feet

Whinny’s Wisdoms

Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic

Hey everyone, Whinny here. As the resident mouse, I spend a lot of time around feet, and what you see a lot, you have a lot of questions about. This has led to a very steep learning curve for this mouse about what horse feet should look like. Really, all things feet. I started with the abscess blog, and have really gone on quite the educational journey from there. Tony has been very helpful throughout. He’s been teaching me about all the ways humans mess up horse feet (his words, not mine). So, I thought I’d go over some of that knowledge with you guys this week!

A Giant Middle Finger

Tony and I were comparing our paws while discussing horse feet. We both have 5 toes on our front paws, with claws on each. Then we looked at one of the horses in the hospital to better discuss how weird horse toes are. Tony told me that one toe they have is actually a really long version of our middle toe. The hoof is basically a fingernail that goes all the way around, and it only covers the very last bone. If we are comparing that to a human, the finger is everything towards the ground from the fetlock, and the cannon bone is the middle bone of the palm. The wrist is called the knee, because as Tony constantly reminds me, horse people are weird. 

Whinny Wisdom: The laminae is the name of the tissue that holds the hoof to the bone. Swelling gets the suffix -itis, so laminitis is swelling of the laminae.

Lots of Physics

Every time a horse (or mouse, or person) steps down, force goes back up. This is physics. Horses are big and so they have a lot of force. Then add the design of standing on one toe, and all those forces are concentrated. Now add running, jumping, turning fast, and all the other things horses do, to the one-toe-design and there’s really a lot of force going up that one tiny toe! It’s hard to believe it doesn’t break all the time. 

The point of all this physics talk is to say everything needs to line up really well on horse feet or those forces are going to go every which way. If you read Part 1 of my Arthritis blog last week, you know what happens when those forces go every which way. It’s not great. 

Pictures!

We had a horse in the hospital that was going to get his feet done by our podiatrist, Dr. Staples. I learned a lot hanging out by her shoeing trailer during that appointment! I have some pictures to help explain.

My first picture here is just a foot so you can see it without any markers. 

My second picture here has markings from an app called HoofMapp. This app was developed with a whole lot of work from Yogi Sharp. It lets any mouse (or human) take a picture of a horse’s foot, do some measurements, and get a good idea how balanced that foot is. I will say it takes a lot of practice to get just the right picture. Ask any of the Docs here, and they can give you pointers.

Anyway, here’s picture two:

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The mark that lines up with the coronary band has a hash mark ⅓ of the way back from the very front of the foot. Yogi looked at hundreds upon thousands of x-rays and pictures of feet to determine that this point is pretty darn close to where the weight should be centered on the foot. The line at the ground surface goes from front to back of the weight bearing surface. 

Notice I said weight bearing. If you look closely at the line, you’ll see it goes from the spot at the front where the shoe touches the ground to the very last spot of the shoe at the heel. Next, a perpendicular line is drawn from that hashmark up top to the line along the ground. It should divide that line in half. This is a guideline and it doesn’t have to be exactly 50:50, but you can see this one is nowhere near that! 

Back to Physics

I know all those lines were a lot of geometry, but they tell a physics story. They tell us this horse has too much toe. That means when those forces go up the leg, they are way too strong in some parts, and not strong enough in others. While this horse is an extreme example, a toe that’s too long is the most common problem my Docs see. It puts huge forces on the back of the foot. You know what’s on the back of the foot? The deep digital flexor tendon and the navicular bone. They get lots of excess wear and tear from all those forces, and then we’re back at my arthritis blog. But it can all be avoided with proper trimming!

Whew, that was a lot of info! There’s so much to horse feet. I hear the Docs around here talk about how important it is. If you’ve got questions about your horse’s feet, ask them: They love to talk feet! Or you can watch this video my docs made to help you figure out how to assess your horse’s feet without HoofMapp, if it’s easier for you. 

That’s it for this week!

~Whinny

P.S. Are you subscribed to my blog yet? There’s a big purple box right below here that you can put your email in, and I’ll send you my blog every Monday. As Tony would say: Don’t rely on Facebook to tell you it’s out!

Whinny’s Wisdoms is the official blog of Whinny the Clinic Mouse at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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Wet Weather and Mushy Feet

Wet Weather and Mushy Feet

Sep 19, 2022 | Abscesses, Feet, Hoof Care

Tuesdays with Tony

We sure have been getting a lot of rain around here lately. As you know, we cats are not fond of rain, and now all my favorite sunbathing spots in the clinic parking lot have become puddles! Yeah, yeah we need the rain to grow grass, but the daily thunderstorms and high humidity can wreak havoc on your horse’s feet.

Horses evolved on dry, grassy steppes… not a lot of swampland or rain there, so their feet didn’t evolve a good water management system. The repeated wet-dry cycles (or sometimes just wet) we have here cause the tubules that make up the hoof wall to suck up water and swell. When they release that water, the tubules shrink again, leaving empty space between the inter-tubular material and the tubules. This repeated cycle causes hoof walls to crack and split, and the soles to erode away. If your horse has shoes on, it makes those pesky nails loosen way before the next scheduled farrier visit. Let’s talk about the various moisture-induced hoof conditions my docs are seeing a TON of lately, and what you can do about them.

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Thrush

You know the smell. That rotting, nasty smell that you notice while picking your horse’s feet. You may also see some dark black or gray gunk oozing from your horse’s soft frog, or the deep sulci (clefts) around the frog. Thrush is caused by a mixture of several bacteria that love wet, oxygen-poor environments, like the deep grooves in your horse’s muddy feet. Horses aren’t usually very lame unless it gets really bad, but you’ll want to treat it before that happens. Luckily, with daily cleaning and application of a topical treatment, you can control thrush.

There are a variety of commercial products you can buy at the tack store to treat it. One of my doc’s favorite home-made treatments is a mixture of copper sulfate crystals and either wax or Desitin cream. My doc buys a toilet bowl wax ring from the hardware store (or Amazon) and uses bits of that mixed with the copper sulfate. It’s cheap, and it sticks to the foot like a cat to a tuna can. It’s important to pick out the feet so the treatment can contact the damaged tissue really well. Whatever product or treatment you’re using, apply it all over the frog and into the deep cleft in the center of the frog. Repeat once a day in the beginning, and as you get it under control, you can space it out.

Mushy Foot

This is a disorder that my docs see regularly here in Florida in times of wet weather. The entire sole gets soft, thin, and crumbly. You may see a depression just behind the toe where the sole compresses (it can even hold a small pocket of dirt). If you press the sole with your fingers, you may be able to slightly move it. Soles like that aren’t nearly strong enough to take the weight of a horse and protect the bones inside his foot. Mushy foot can be really painful for your horse and can look as bad as laminitis. 

During this season of frequent rainfall, your horse may need to spend some time every day in a dry area like a clean, bedded stall, to allow his feet some time off the moist grass. Remember that even if it’s not actively raining, a grassy pasture can keep the feet wet from the dew and rain it holds on to. You’ll want to pick your horse’s feet out every day.

The best topical treatment out there for “Mushy Foot” is daily application of Durasole (my docs carry it in their vehicles). Durasole contains drying and strengthening agents that thicken and harden the sole in a short period of time. Apply it every day until the sole is harder and the horse is more comfortable, then you should be able to decrease to 2-3 times a week. Work with your farrier to make sure your horse’s feet are trimmed on a 4-6 week schedule to promote healthy soles and hoof walls. If your horse is really sore, my doc may suggest he wear padded boots to temporarily cushion his feet until they start to improve. She won’t want him to stay in the boots for too long though, since the inside of a boot can be a moist environment as well.

Hoof Cracks and Abscesses

Another foot problem my docs see in this weather is cracked, crumbling hoof walls. As always, the first line of defense in keeping your horse’s hooves intact is regular trimming by a knowledgeable farrier. Too-long or unbalanced hoof walls put extra pressure on hooves that are already weakened by wet weather, and can cause those cracks to start or chunks to flake off.  Along with avoiding muddy pastures, be careful how often you wash your horse, as that’s just additional moisture he’s standing in.

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Abscesses are also common this time of year since soft, mushy feet allow easier entry for bacteria. A sudden onset of severe lameness is the most common presentation, but since that could mean other problems too, you’ll want to have my docs out to examine your horse. Also check out their YouTube video on how to make a hoof bandage so you’re prepared to manage this common problem!

Proper Diagnosis, Proper Treatment

If you suspect your horse may have any of these foot problems, give one of my docs a call for an exam. There are more serious conditions (such as laminitis) that can masquerade as one of these conditions, and an expert evaluation is highly recommended. You can even come find me here at the clinic for a “Cat-Scan”… but if it’s raining, don’t expect me to greet you outside!

Until next week,

~ Tony

P.S. If you want more, the humans have a podcast called Straight from the Horse Doctor’s Mouth, and they have several episodes on feet. I highly recommend you check that out, which you can do over on the Podcast Page of my website, or you can subscribe to it on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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Talk To The Foot

Talk To The Foot

May 13, 2019 | Farriers, Feet, Hoof, Lameness

Tuesdays with Tony

With the amount I talk about horse feet, you all must think I’m obsessed with them. Well, you kind of have to be when you run an equine vet clinic like I do. Horse feet are kinda important. It’s not like a dog, where they can get along just fine on 3 legs. Horses need all 4 of their feet to be in good working order just to survive. So today I’m going to teach you a few things you can look for to make sure your horse’s feet are going in the right direction instead of the wrong one.

 

Lameness

   Did you know that over 85% of lameness in horses originates in the foot? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen humans bring their horse in for “soreness in the stifles”, “hock injections”, or even a “broken shoulder” and the problem ends up being in the foot. The silver lining in this is the fact that foot problems can often be easily corrected by trimming and shoeing, which is an easy and inexpensive fix, relatively speaking. Believe me, you WANT your horse’s lameness to be in the foot. That’s a much better scenario than a bone cyst, severe arthritis, or a torn suspensory ligament.

    This should go without saying, but recurring foot lameness is usually an indicator that your horse isn’t happy with how he’s being trimmed or shod. Now, I’m not telling you to pick up the phone and call a new farrier. A great place to start is with X-rays of your horse’s feet. There is only so much a farrier can tell from the outside of the foot. Many times, the bony column within the foot doesn’t match what the hoof would lead you to believe.

    There is so much we can learn from just a single side-view of the foot. My docs can tell you if your horse has any signs of laminitis, such as rotation or sinking of the coffin bone (the bone inside the hoof). They can even tell you if these changes are acute (new) or chronic (old). They can determine your horse’s palmar angle, or the angle between the ground and the bottom of the coffin bone.

white line disease horse hoof

They can tell you if your horse has signs of coffin joint arthritis, or navicular disease (note: to get a full evaluation of the navicular bone, a few more views would be necessary). They can tell you how good the bony alignment is from the fetlock joint down to the tip of the toe. This hoof-pastern-axis should be a straight line, neither “broken-forward” nor “broken back.”  Your farrier may be surprised to see how much excess toe or how little sole your horse has. Additionally, he can get an idea of the side-to-side symmetry and balance of the foot from one more front-to-back view.

 

A Good Trim

 

Everything about horse feet starts with a good trim. You can see my Everything You Need To Know About Horse Feet blogs for tons of information and pictures. Here’s the basics: the heels should be brought down to the widest point of the frog. Yes, brought down. Do not leave bad-quality heel on. You can’t “grow better heels” on a horse. They’ve got what the good Lord gave ‘em and you can’t fix it, you just have to manage it.

Alignment side equine hoof demo at equine hoof care semina

From there, your farrier should trim the foot as they normally would. When finished, the widest part of the hoof should be halfway between the toe and the heel. If it isn’t, the trim is adjusted until it fits this ideal. If it can’t be….well, that takes me to the next section of this blog

 

Shoes or no shoes

 

I hear it all the time: “My farrier just wants to charge me more so they said my horse needs shoes.” Nope, not true. Farrier myth busted. Every farrier I met doesn’t want to put shoes on a horse until they absolutely need it. However, when the hoof has been trimmed to the best of your farrier’s ability, and the mechanics are still all messed up, a shoe is needed to fix what’s messed up.

If your horse has really weird feet, your farrier is definitely going to want an appointment with our Docs and the x-ray at the same time. This will get your horse the best possible shoeing job. Heck, your farrier and my Docs get so much information from foot x-rays that we recommend them for every performance horse, every year.

No hoof, no horse, is the truest thing ever said about a horse. Be sure to use my Docs as the great resource they are to help your horse have the very best feet they possibly can!

 

Now be a good human. Scroll down a teenie, tiny bit further and subscribe to my blog. All the cool humans do it. And if you listen to the podcast my Docs do, which is another cool human trait, you can listen to more about horse feet. The more you know, the better care you can provide for your horse.

 

Until next week,

 

~Tony

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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The Ideal Hoof

The Ideal Hoof

Oct 2, 2017 | Farriers, Feet, Hoof, Hoof Care, Shoeing

Tuesdays with Tony

I’m going to revive a classic Tuesdays with Tony here: The April 2015 Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Your Horse’s Feet. I’ll post a link to this at the bottom, don’t worry! I hear the Docs talking about feet a lot so it must be important. My understanding is that the ideal horse hoof shape is simple to understand, but not easy to achieve.

Who thought that was a good idea??

Equine Leg Anatomy from Springhill Equine hoof care seminarYou humans have a thing you do with your middle finger. Horses one-up you: they walk on theirs!  That’s right. The coffin bone is the tip of your middle finger. Feel the bones moving down your finger, back toward your hand, and you have the equivalent of the short pastern, long pastern, and cannon bone.  You’ve got a navicular bone too, but only in your thumb. This whole ‘walking on one finger’ thing is why horses have so many lower leg problems.

What’s a foot supposed to look like?

Walking on one finger means the hoof has to be balanced just right. If it isn’t, too much pressure gets put on one part of the anatomy. Excess pressure leads to badness. Here’s where ‘simple, but not easy’ comes in. On a freshly trimmed hoof (that’s important and I’ll tell you why in a minute), a line drawn at the widest part of the hoof should have 50% of the hoof in front of it, and 50% behind it.  A line drawn down the center of the hoof from toe to heel should have 50% of the hoof on the inside, and 50% on the outside. In the pictures I’m using as an example here, one half of the foot is trimmed, and the other half isn’t. That will help you see the differences.  

proper trim sole demo at equine hoof care seminarproper trim sole long equine hoof care seminarNow why did I say in a freshly trimmed foot? Take a look at where the heel is located on this hoof. It’s nearly ¾” farther forward on the untrimmed side, when compared to the trimmed side. That’s not because the farrier did it wrong 5 weeks ago, that’s because the foot grew forward. It’s what they do.

heel bulb demo at equine hoof care seminarAfter assessing the bottom of the hoof, pick up the leg. Put your hand underneath the end of the cannon bone, and let the hoof hang. Notice there are no human hands in this picture. That’s they way it’s supposed to be! When you hang the hoof like this, a line drawn down the center of the pastern and heels should be perpendicular to the bottom of the hoof.

My horse’s hoof looks nothing like this

There’s two reasons your horse’s foot doesn’t look this:

1. Conformation.

2. The Farrier.

Number 1 is WAY, WAY, WAY more common that number 2!

Crooked-legged horses end up with crooked feet. Your farrier’s job is to try to compensate for what Mother Nature did a less-than-ideal job of creating. For instance, if there’s more foot on the outside, your farrier will more aggressively trim and rasp this area to keep the foot from getting too off-kilter. However, sometimes the foot is too far off or the pressures of the job are too great. This is where shoes become necessary. A shoe will help your farrier compensate by preventing excess wear on parts of the foot, and allowing for support on other areas. Think that’s easy? There are approximately 1.3 million types of shoes (this may be an exaggeration) for horses. That alone tells me it ain’t easy!!

Got foot questions? Send in pictures of the bottom of your horse’s foot, a picture from the front, and one from the side taken at ground level, and my smart Docs will tell you what they see. To expedite the process, please include 1 bag of Temptations Savory Salmon cat treats with written instructions for the whole bag to be given to me (my minions think it’s appropriate to give me two or three treats at a time, which is ridiculous). You can also come and deliver them in person (and ask questions) at our Behavior Seminar this Thursday! I’m hosting the seminar here at the Clinic, so make sure you come scratch my ears. Oh, and learn about horse behavior, that too. That’s Thursday, October 5th at 6:30pm, right here at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry. Just look for the big black cat!

Links to original posts:

Part 1: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Your Horse’s Feet

Part 2: Everything You Need to Know About Your Horses Feet

Tuesdays with Tony is the official blog of Tony the Clinic Cat at Springhill Equine Veterinary Clinic in Newberry, Florida. If you liked this blog, please subscribe below, and share it with your friends on social media! For more information, please call us at (352) 472-1620, visit our website at SpringhillEquine.com, or follow us on Facebook!

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Tuesdays with Tony – Mushy Feet

Tuesdays with Tony – Mushy Feet

Aug 7, 2017 | Farriers, Feet, Hoof, Hoof Care

Mushy Feet

My, we have been getting a lot of rain around here lately! As you know, cats are not too fond of water. As if that isn’t enough of a reason to be concerned about the rain, daily thunderstorms plus high humidity equals muddy pastures; a recipe for disaster when it comes to your horse’s feet! Please, allow me to give you a quick rundown of “what-to-use-when” for the various moisture-induced hoof conditions we see most commonly.

Thrush

You all know the smell. That rotting, nasty, sticks-in-your-nostrils-for-hours smell that you notice while picking your horse’s feet. You may also see some dark black or gray gunk oozing from your horse’s soft frog, or deep lateral sulci (clefts). Thrush is caused by a bacteria that loves wet, oxygen-poor environments, like the deep grooves in your horse’s muddy feet! Luckily, with daily cleaning and application of Kera-Mend Thrush Paste (available through our Docs), you will have the infection well under control in no time!

Mushy Foot

This is a disorder that our Docs see regularly here in Florida in times of wet weather. The entire sole gets soft, thin, and crumbly; to the point that you can make it bounce with your thumb! [Cats don’t have thumbs, so I can’t say I’ve tried this myself.] The best treatment out there for what the Docs call “Mushy Foot” is daily application of Durasole (available here at the clinic). Durasole contains drying and strengthening agents which actually thicken and harden the sole in a remarkably short period of time.

Hoof Cracks and Crumbles

Another problem we tend to see with feet in this ugly weather is cracked, crumbling hoof walls. As always, the first line of defense in keeping your horse’s hooves intact is regular trimming by a knowledgeable farrier. However, there are a few things you can try in the interim to help your farrier out. First of all, stop washing your horses feet! Yes, you heard me right. You know what one thing is worse for feet than standing in a muddy pasture all day? Standing in a muddy pasture, having mud washed off with a hose, allowing feet to dry out, then returning to the muddy pasture. It’s actually the wet-to-dry-to-wet transition that is really bad for hooves! If your only turnout option is in a wet environment, help your horse out with some Kera-Mend Hoof Dressing (my minion Beth in the office can order it for you). Apply some to the coronary band daily (because, as we all know, hooves grow from the top down). This product not only promotes healthy hoof growth, but it also protects the hoof from that wet/dry transition. The secret ingredient is lanolin, which is the waxy substance produced by sheep to waterproof their wool! Maybe if cats had that stuff, we wouldn’t hate the water so very much.

Proper Diagnosis, Proper Treatment

If you suspect your horse may have any of the aforementioned foot problems, please have one of our amazing Docs out for an exam. There are more serious conditions (such as laminitis) that can masquerade as any one of these conditions, and an expert evaluation is highly recommended. If you would like to have any of these handy-dandy hoof products in your tack trunk, come find me here at the clinic, and I will point you in the right direction… but if it’s raining, don’t expect me to greet you outside!

Until next week,

Tony