Sunday, December 18, 2011

A Girl With A Rasp...

...will always have much to do at my barn. :-) Take, for instance, Lucy:


This sweet girl is an 8-year-old Quarter Horse who foundered back in September(ish?). Luckily, it was caught very early and Lucy received standard protocol care--she stood in a giant tub of ice water for several days in order to lessen the damage done to her hooves, and was put on IV DMSO (some of the worst-smelling stuff ever invented). It was found that her laminitic attack was brought on by Insulin Resistance, so her diet was given a drastic overhaul.

On October 7th, the farrier came out to drill Lucie's front hooves into clogs. About two days later, one of the other boarders said to me, "Have you seen Lucy's back hooves? They're ridiculously long--can you rasp them?" Of course, I told her I'd get on it right away, so I grabbed my trusty rasp and gloves and pulled Lucy out of her stall. Imagine my shock when I laid my eyes on these hooves:

Right Hind Before




Left Hind Before





This hoof has such a bad case of thrush that the frog had rotted halfway off

Obviously, those hooves were in need of some major work. I did what I could with my trusty rasp, taking the toes way back and lowering the walls. Her bars were so overgrown that I was also rasping them while I took the walls down.

Right Hind After



Left Hind After



Yes, those hooves are still miles too long, but it's a huge improvement. Hey, it takes a LONG time to get rid of that much hoof wall when all you're working with is a rasp! Luckily, I was able to cajole Candy into knocking Lucy's walls back a few weeks later. But it was Lucy's front hooves that I really wanted Candy to start working her magic on--I couldn't actually see them because of the hoof casts, but I was unfortunately quite familiar with Farrier X's work and was worried that he would transform Lucy's hooves into nightmarish zombie hooves like he did to Tiff.  Again, I had to just bite my tongue and wait for the right opportunity to present itself; but I knew that I would eventually get Candy on the case and those clogs off of Lucy's hooves.

7 comments:

eventer79 said...

Horse clogs??? WTF??? That man is on drugs. There can be no other explanation.

Frizzle said...

Eventer, the sad thing is that putting the clogs on is a very common practice for foundered horses. It makes zero sense to me, but then again so does a lot of hoof-related stuff.

smazourek said...

Okay, I'm guessing the clogs were particularly bad on her since her toes are about 10 miles too long all around.

The first horse I took on as a client was this bad when I started. I told the owner it looked like he hadn't been trimmed in years and here she'd just paid ex-farrier to trim him 8 weeks before! Absolutely ridiculous, I feel like following that farrier around and trimming all the horses when she's "done."

I wonder if these two farriers went to the same school...

Frizzle said...

smaz, her front toes are not like that at all. Her back feet were obviously way ovedue and the farrier didn't even touch them, just took the shoes off and left them.

And I wonder if he even went to farrier school at all!

Kristen Eleni Shellenbarger said...

I seriously can't stomach that this guy is still working. I wish a horse would clobber him straight into retirement. Seriously...it's OUT OF CONTROL abuse to leave the horses in condition like this. I feel so bad for their owners who are clearly starting to learn THANKFULLY to you and Candy. Soon, the message is going to spread like wild fire and he'll be making shoes for no one. Hopefully!!! Again, kudos to u girls who care and constantly are learning!

Frizzle said...

Aaawww, thanks for the love, girl! Yeah, I seriously wish there was some way we could force this guy to retire--he is NOT doing right by these horses. Not by a long shot. If little old me with my freaking ENGLISH degree and ZERO trimming/farrier school or clinics can look at a hoof he just did and point out at least five things that are extremely WRONG, that's a bad sign!!

Achieve1dream said...

Yikes! Scary! This guys is seriously one of the dumbest people on the planet. I hope he's forced to retire soon too. Jeez!