Christos now lets go a different direction lets look at the sole and see if there are any jams in it. I would love to see the solar shots and determine if there is a problem there before I try to fix the outside hoof wall. For the last five years I have been doing studies on sole jams and there affects on the outer hoof wall. The results of the study will amaze you much you can change the hoof capsule by either removing or creating sole jams. For some reason we pay little attention to the sole (other than depth).
Thanks for your input, John, I understand that the shape and form of the bottom of the hoof does affect the shape and form of the wall a lot, but I do not know what a sole jam is, that's a first for me. As I mentioned earlier these horses have very strong hooves, their soles are nice and smooth and uniform and thick and deep and everything I'd ever want a horse's soles to be. But may be there's something I don't see, I'll take sole pictures as well and you guys tell me what you think.
If you can get a jam in the wall why can't you get a jam in the sole. I have found that a lot not all of my wall distortion started in the sole. The pics should tell us a lot.
I float all the quarters after the burn a small bit, more if there's a jam as above. David's method works well too, and is more appropriate for horses in work. I ran my method past a guy who gave me the OK, but showed me the bevel method as it gives support but lets the quarter settle as well. This guy seemed to do alright in his barns, and I really shouldn't give out his name , but his initials are Jaye Perry.
Now this is frustrating. This horse had jammed up quarters in all four hooves. The only thing I did was pull the shoes, lightly rasp the wall flat to clean it and remove all the dead stuff from the soles. I did not cut anything, I did not correct anything, and the jammed up quarters fell straight. Bummer. Here are the pictures :
Can it be that all this dead junk in the sole was distorting the coronary band ? I really did nothing more than remove the absolutely dead stuff that was flaking away. Even the bars, I did not trim them, they broke off where you see them when I was pulling the pieces of dead sole. It pisses me off, I wanted to try David's tip today.
Must be the retained sole. Funny thing is I have very few jammings!!! but it is wet as hell in this country, it would be very rare to see that much false sole in England. I wonder if the climate has a bearing.
Yes, it tells us that I need to find a horse with badly jammed up quarters tomorrow. This was not nice, I got all wound up to float some quarters today and they just popped in place.
Yes, David, I was thinking that too in the morning, it can be that it only happens in the summer, but I am not sure.
It'll be interesting to see if removing the shoes, cleaning up the feet leads to the jamming disappearing in that one...
Thanks, Smitty, I will not complicate things. I do keep it simple and try every day to improve my basics, but conversations like this one do help me understand better how things work.
Yes, but the only ones I can think of with jammed up quarters are 3-4 weeks away. I may have four new ones in the weekend, pretty neglected, we'll see there.
Christos, I believe you have just figured out what John Muldoon has been talking about. He has been studying how the sole can be the cause of many distortions, including but not limited to coronary band distortion you had here. Over the last few years John has documented many cases where the abnormalities in the hoof were a direct result of the sole being retained in places and not it others (jams and dams are the terms John has been using). The bars being "high" the way they were just after puling the shoes, causes pressure upwards in the hoof capsule, distorting the hoof wall, coronary band, etc. He has never said "A lot of sole needs to be removed" just that the contour needs to be consistent from the white line to the sulcus of the frog, all the way around the hoof.
