Hoof Pathology: Holy Crap!

Back in May, Tiffany's farrier resected her front hooves--basically, the front half of her hooves were chopped off. The explanation given to me at the time was that it would relieve pressure within the hoof capsule. It made absolutely no sense to me; and after reading this article on hoof resection, I am still perplexed. The article explains that some laminitic cases require resection of part of the coronary band area because:

 "The lower rim of the coffin bone becomes [infected] due to compromised blood flow and dying tissues... and fluid resulting from this can travel up..., breaking out at the coronary band. If initial treatment, usually a poultice, doesn't stop the process, the coronary band will swell and prolapse over the hoof wall. The wall then cuts into the swollen tissue, causing further inflammation and restricting blood supply to that tissue.Performing a resection...can relieve the pressure on the laminae and thereby allow the critical blood circulation to be restored. With meticulous aftercare, the foot's underlying tissues can then repair."

But, looking at theses hooves, it is apparent that her resection is completely different from the one described above. Neither were resected at the coronary band and they did not go completely through the hoof wall. Furthermore, she did not require any "meticulous aftercare" that the article goes on to describe--no Betadine-soaked felt or tight bandages. So, why was this done to her hooves? I certainly don't see how the procedure would have relieved pressure withing the hoof capsule. I am certainly open to hearing any information/ideas/guesses you all may have.

Also note the backwards shoe

And, even after such drastic measures, poor Tiff was still spending much of her days either lying down or standing in a classic founder stance:

Those pictures were taken back in May. Over the next few months, I watched Tiffany's feet grow and grow. And grow. And grow some more. For some reason, her farrier just did not come out to do her hooves. By September, she was in agony. And it's no wonder, as her hooves looked like this:

Are you spitting Diet Coke all over your keyboard and screaming at the computer screen yet? Well, take a deep breath and scroll down; it actually gets worse.

Yes, Tiffany's hooves went untouched from May to September (possibly October--unfortunately, I don't have exact dates for everything). I am ashamed to say that I didn't go around screaming at people and demanding that action be taken. Shame on me for letting her suffer. But shame on the farrier for allowing these hooves to get in such a condition while under his care. I'm no farrier, but I can take one glance at those hooves and tell you at least ten things that are glaringly wrong with them--namely the fact that they are about a mile too long. She's tipped up onto the point of her coffin bones, which is putting her in even more pain than she was previously.

But at least there was one thing I could do for Tiffany: her back hooves were unshod, and of course they were also grossly overgrown, so I grabbed my rasp and went to work. Sadly, I was too angry to take true "Before" pictures, but I'm sure you can imagine how terrible they were--there were so many flares that, when you picked her hoof up, the edges were scalloped and wavy. The toes were so long that she could barely get out of her own way.

These pics were taken after the first rasping:

Also note the overlaid bars--they were so long that it sounded like Tiff had rocks stuck in her hooves. I ended up rasping the bars back as much as I could

Under-run heel (one this farrier's trademarks, unfortunately)

And these pics were taken after the third rasping:

Big improvement, but still a long way to go. At least backing up those toes made it a bit easier for sweet Tiff to walk:

And that's on three grams of Bute. :-/

I know this is heartbreaking and very difficult to see. But, trust me; it gets better. In fact, I'm right in the middle of "Better" now. :-) But I do want to tell this story from the beginning, so I'm doing a bit of backtracking at the moment. Hopefully, I'll get all of you caught up in the next few days.