What a Difference! (Warning: media heavy)

Just a week ago, I was contemplating retiring Estes.  I was trying to come to terms with the fact that we may have had our last ride together.

Yes, we'd gotten her on supplements and she was moving better.

Yes, we'd gotten her back fixed and she was moving better.

But she still wasn't right and I was trying to figure out what to do.  I could probably still ride her if I moved her down to the flatlands, but what kind of fun is that when we're both used to riding in the mountains?  She has to have a job or she's destructive.  Ask Mom.  Estes has eaten several of the crossbars of the fence.  I wasn't convinced that moving her down to the flatlands would work for either of us.  But I can't afford to keep a horse I can't use, either, and I promised her other mommy that I'd be her forever home.  I wasn't a very happy person while I was trying to figure out what to do.

And then our farrier suggested shoes.

Oh, my hell.  My mare is back!  She was shod on Monday and on Thursday, Bill and I went out for a long ride - about 2 1/2 hours.  She was feeling so good that we went on some of our favorite trails, starting with the Willow Tree Trail.

And the fun begins...

Tippy-toe

Those idiots at the ranch down the road have trimmed
back the willows.
Idiots.
I hate them.
No, really, I do.

It's been a while,
"Hey Bill, which way?"
"Just go up and over"

After we lived through going on
"Not the trail"
Doesn't look so bad from this angle.
Bill didn't take pictures as we were picking our way down.
Something about being afraid we'd fall on him.

But he kind of redeemed himself with this video of the last climb out of the trail.

Estes was feeling really good after the Willow Tree Trail, so we decided to head across the Beaver Ponds.  She must have been thirsty after the hike over the Willow Tree Trail, because she did something that I don't recall her doing before.

She almost didn't leave any water for Ranger.

When she was done drinking up Rock Creek, we crossed over and I got the coolest. picture. ever.

Not sure how I managed this,
but I love it!

The Beaver Ponds were gorgeous as always and Her Highness was still feeling good, so on we went to a trail that isn't my favorite, but it's a good test of how her feetsies were doing.  It's a rarely used, steep, ugly trail.  Not ugly as in looks-wise, but ugly as in rocky and steep.  I don't even have a name for that trail.  I've pretty much named most of the ones we ride, but this one has remained name-less.

See?
Steep.
Ugly.

We decided that since the horses had worked so hard, they deserved a picnic.  Ranger chose a nice place, but was a little too insistent, so Beel said no and we pushed on to the pond.

It was a real horse picnic,
I even took Estes' iron bar out of her mouth.

Look closely...
there's a napping Bill back there.

No singing frogs this time of year,
but it's still pretty.

It was a pretty good picnic.

I'll pick up the last part of the ride in a later post...it's one small step toward our goal of riding bridleless by the end of the season.

Where to Start?

Let's see...we ended with the Estes saga a couple of weeks ago (maybe), and when we left off, I'd had the chiro out to crank on her and get her sorted out.

After her back was aligned, she was moving better, but still not "right".  She was walking like she was really footsore, so I took a peek at her feetsies.  Being barefoot, we usually just let their feet be.  We have our fabulous farrier come up at the beginning of the season, trim them up, and that's it.  I tossed around some ideas with Mrs Mom, but in the end called up our farrier.  I just couldn't do what I wanted to do. 

And all I can say about that is Thank God! I thought that her sole was overgrowing her hoof wall and wanted to cut back the sole.  Turns out the sole was fine, but the hoof wall was lacking.  Our farrier said that it happens sometimes when it's been dry and the ground is hard.  It's not been overly dry, but the ground has been hard and was wearing away the hoof wall.  Her Highness digging with her club foot didn't help either.

I know it was hard for our farrier to say these words to me, "I think shoes would be good".  He knows how much we love our horses being barefoot.  Love that they're easy keepers.  But one of the reasons I love him so much (besides his absolutely adorable family that we finally got to meet and besides the fact he came up on his day off) is that he ALWAYS has the horse's health and comfort in mind.  He's been working on Estes' feetsies since before I bought her, and his dad was her farrier before that.  There's some history there, which I appreciate.

When those words left his mouth, I knew I had to do it.  He wouldn't have made the suggestion off-hand.  Even though I love her being barefoot, I'm not so hard-core that I wouldn't even entertain the suggestion.  Rather than shoe all four hooves, we went with just shoes on the fronts.

Which we had to borrow from the livery. 

Knowing we were barefooters, our farrier didn't think to bring any of his shoeing stuff.  Luckily, Compass' horses are always in need of shoes and she had what we needed.

Within an hour after getting her shiny new shoes, Her Highness was feeling much better.  I hopped on her in the pen, which might not have been the best idea, as she had a bad case of the zoomies (that's a Mrs Mom-ism).  She trotted along the fenceline and then came to an abrupt stop, which just about unseated me.  Then she trotted along the next fenceline and I prepared for another quick stop.  But, nooooo, she decided to execute a beautiful 90 degree turn.  And just about unseated me.  At that point, I decided it was about time for me to leave her alone or I was going to embarrass myself.

Heavy Sigh

Her Highness is at it again.

It's always the end of the season that we have problems.

This time it's not thrush.

It's not sand colic.

It's not her back (anymore).

Because why would Her Highness repeat injuries/illnesses from the past when she can come up with a new way to get out of work?

Our crazy weather has done crazy things to her feetsies.  Her sole has overgrown her hoof walls.  And it's so rock hard that I can't cut it with the knife and the rasp just skitters across it.

*shaking head*

What am I to do with the old girl?

The farrier will hopefully be up next week to get her feetsies in order and he's going to earn every penny.  And then it's back to work for Her Highness.

Pedicure Time

The horses' feet were REALLY long when we got them back on Friday.  Their feet do fine while out on the mountain, but Ida had moved them to "fat pasture", where the ground is nice and soft.  Makes for comfy standing around, but lousy hooves.  We were lucky enough to get ahold of our farrier to come out and trim them up.

Estes used to be a real pain in the arse to trim and shoe.  Used to be that they'd have to drug her to shoe her.  We did the math and the last time she was drugged to be shod was in 2003; we ran the livery in 2004 and she mostly behaved herself while getting shod.  And by that I mean that she only kicked the farrier once or twice and bit him once.  Because of that history, I'm always a little anxious when she gets trimmed, even though we haven't had any problems with her since we took her barefoot.  Do you think that she was trying to tell us something about the shoes?  Now that she's completely barefoot, she hasn't had any issues with the farrier.  (Mr Mrs Mom - before you object - she asked nicely for her foot back before she broke yours.)

Our farrier whipped Estee out in no time, despite the fact that she had easily an inch that had to come off of each.  You could see her sigh with relief when he finished her club foot and she could touch the ground again instead of tippy-toeing around on her high heels.

I do feel sorry for our poor farrier, as the Mustangs' hooves are hard as rock.  By the time he was halfway finished with Jesse, he'd completely dulled his rasp, so Mom loaned him ours.  While he was working on Jess, I grabbed the bareback pad and Estes' new headstall and went for a quick walk-about.  Usually I don't use the bareback pad, but she's a disgusting hairball right now and I was in my only clean pair of jeans.

It felt so good to be up on my own horse again, even for only ten minutes.  I tried working on my seat, with the leg position I'd been practicing on M in my lessons.  Yeah.  Hmmm.  She wasn't a fan.  When I ride bareback, I usually just let my legs dangle, so there's not much calf contact.  That she's okay with. 

This "new fangled" seat (as she thinks of it, I'm sure) increases the calf contact and she's not happy about it.  She got jiggy and snorty, but as soon as I let my legs dangle like I normally ride, she settled right down.  The settling down thing was really important today, as I had fallen down the stairs right before I left the house and jacked up my upper back.  The Estes Two Step did not feel good on my back, so having her move quietly was important.  We worked on standing still; she's a rather impatient horse, so standing still is not easy for her.

Even though it was a very short ride - just around the block and the cabins - it was wonderful to be back up on my baby girl.  I even think she kinda missed me.  I've been getting all kinds of cuddles from her - and she's not a cuddler. 

I can't wait until I can go for a real ride on her, not just around the block.

Sigh.

No matter, it's just wonderful to have them home.

Thrush? In Colorado?

When Mrs Mom suggested that maybe Estes had deep tissue thrush, I was confused as I've always been told that Colorado's too dry for thrush.  I mean, we worried about it when it was damp for extended periods of time, but not day-to-day.  Mom picked out Estes' club foot and treated it for thrush for a couple of weeks and Estes quit gimping.  Huh.  Thrush in Colorado.

I always thought of thrush (when I thought of it) as primarily attacking soft tissue, like the frog and surrounding tissues, but never thought about it attacking the sole.  Holy cow was I surprised when Mr Mrs Mom took the hoof knife to Estes' sole and found all sorts of thrush.  In fact, her sole looked like marble and her frog was a disaster, even after the two weeks' worth of treatment.

Here's a video of Mr Mrs Mom working on Estes' gimpy foot.  It's long and there's lots of chatter in the background, but you can very clearly see the marbling in her sole from the thrush.



Did you notice that he didn't use a traditional farrier's hold?  I love the way he held her hoof and it's much easier for me, too.

We'd ridden pretty hard before her trim and she was a little sore, which you can see at the end of the video, but it's nothing like her gimpy video.

Mrs Mom's Magic Arrow-y Thing-y

I sent Estes' hoof pictures over to Mrs Mom and had her do her magic.  Only one picture was suitable, but I found it helpful and thought I'd share it.

Red Arrows- that is where your deep tissue thrush is hiding. Clean the hell out of that area, and pack with any of the treatments we discussed



Lime Green Arrows- Shows bar tissue. Not out of hand, but you'll learn to trim that back to the level of existing sole


Blue Arrow- at toe- shows her breakover/ wear pattern for that foot. Nothing bad- just thought you might find it interesting to note.


Heels are flat and level- very nice. Might be a tad high, but hell this IS a true club foot you're looking at too.


On the top shots, all that really jumped out at me was that the heels on her non-club foot are a tad high as well, (which might well explain her sore shoulder- horse's have a way of evening themselves out to cope with issues in the distal limbs,) and I see some "lines" in the hoof wall. Some folks call those "event lines". I don't have a name for them, but note them as they are an indicator of changes in the horse's life, diet, exercise level, hormone levels, past illness, etc etc etc... The lower on the hoof wall, the long ago the event that disrupted the horse's system. Higher up obviously more recent. Not usually anything to worry about- just a good overall sign for us when we "read" the hoof.


I can't tell from photos how much retained sole she may have in there. May not be much, might be tons. Club feet tend to retain a lot.


Now- on that club foot- to test how far that deep tissue thrush has invaded, and how bad it has affected the internal stability of the hoof- you need to do the following:


1- lift hoof, and clean WELL- all cracks and crevices, and hidey spots.

2- place one hand on either side of hoof- thumbs over the sole, fingers wrapping towards toe.

3- Rotate inside hand towards to, outside hand towards heel.

4- Repeat, with inside hand going towards heel, outside hand going towards toe.


What you are looking for:

Flexion. Movement. Watch the hoof. FEEL the hoof- if you see and FEEL (FEEL is CRUCIAL) a lot of movement in the hoof, that shows you the internal structures are compromised.


Which means what?

Compromised internal connective tissue means a weaker heel. Means more movement on weight bearing. Means pain on movement.


Can it be fixed?

Yes- and with no shoes.

It will take aggressive treatment by you guys, packing those openings and cracks. Hooves can heal themselves amazingly well. All we need to do is clear out the crap that has taken over in there, provide exercise to tolerance, a good diet, proper balanced trimming and staying on top of ANY thrush that will try to invade.


Your supplies:

Q-tips

PenG soaked cotton balls, tubes of the mastitis treatment, triple antibiotic- any of those will work

Or White Lightening soaked cotton balls


Any of the above to pack the holes with.


Recovery time will depend on how deep the tissue was compromised- but within a couple months you should begin to see an entirely different frog and sole. Watch her move too- she'll tell you how things are feeling in there.


We've (and by "we", I mean Mom and Bill since Estes lives with them) been treating Estes with Pen-soaked cotton balls, which seems to be helping her movement.  Monster is working with her this weekend and will take her out for a short ride to get her stretched out.  I have hope that she'll be sound again soon.

Estes' Feetsies

So here are some not very pretty pictures of Estes' feet.  Probably her shoulder problem is coming from the ground (as most of you were kind enough to point out).  She's in desperate need of a trim and I'm working on getting Mrs Mom out to Colorado to teach me how to trim her.


The fronts...

The backs...

Club foot (front right)

What do you think?  Besides the fact that her back right is in bad shape - are the heels constricting on her club foot?  I think I saw, and certainly smelled, some thrush.  Mrs Mom tells me that deep tissue thrush is common in clubby feet, so we're starting treatment for thrush.

Sorry I'm missing lateral views, as they didn't turn out well.  Next time I'm at the lodge I'll see if I can get some better lateral views.