What's happening to my horses bulbs/feet?

I have a club footed TB horse. He's 7 years old OTTB that was purchased as a yearling and raced for a couple years. The horse came to me (me fresh out of an 8 week program @ heartland) with aluminum shoes glued on with equilox. He is one of my wifes horses.

I've had him for just under 2 years now. He has thin and shelly hoof walls. I have tried a few hoof supplements on him with no obvious change. I gave up on the hoof supplements for a bit and got back on the program with them about 3 months ago.

I have gotten the back feet to the point where I can nail shoes on him and he will keep them on for the full shoeing cycle most of the time. He did just pull one off today in the mud @ 5-6 weeks and the foot will now need rebuilding to get a shoe nailed/glued back on.

I have been experimenting with him quite a bit. I get to try out all kinds of stuff I wouldn't want to do to a clients horse for the 1st time.
One of the things I tried most recently was equicast. I thought that if I could get him to grow out a decent foot without nails holes, that maybe I could nail shoes to his front too.

I'm wondering what the heck is making his bulbs protrude? This is new for him and all I can think is that the cast held the foot too tight for too long. When I wrap the cast on feet I always cut it away from the bulbs.

I happened to have an equine vet friend over today who is pretty sharp and the only thing she could think of was an under run heel kind of thing. But I have the same scenario on the club foot.

Anyway, sorry for the book. And this will not be the last thread on this horse.
Sorry for the mess. It was late and muddy. I can take more/better pictures if anyone likes.
I also ran out of black equilox and this is the end of the shoeing cycle so the glue is chipping off.

The heels are not being cheated either. I have roughly at least a 1/4" of shoe hanging off the back of the heels.
Here's the club foot.









The medial sides a bit higher here and I fight that every time. The lateral side doesnt seem to grow much and I drop the medial as much as I feel I can.

Do you have something against trimming heels so the frog touches the ground?

Not at all. On the club foot I get the heels down as far as I think anyone would. I don't make him bleed but I go down as far as I think I can. He just has a lot of heel growth. On the normalish foot, the frog usually looks pretty good. I do try and trim to the widest point of the frog on all my trims and also try and achieve ground contact with as much frog as possible. . I will redo him sometime between now and Wed so I can take some shots of how I trim him.

I believe what you are seeing is just his growth.

I also just noticed, looking at the photos. The bulb growth seems to be in line with the new healthier looking foot. I assume that top inch or so of healthy looking foot is from the use of my new foot supplement. Just figured I throw that thought in the mix.

Thanks

If you started out with the frog on the ground and this is where things are now, then you probably ought to be doing this horse on a shorter schedule interval.

I will keep an attentive eye on it. I think (hope) it may be a growth explosion from the supplement. No thoughts on the bulbs though?

This is the toughest horse I do. If it were not my own I would get someone else under it. As it is, if I don't get anywhere good with him soon. I will find another farrier to come and at least consult.

Can you get photos of his feet after you trim them next time? After they're trimmed but before there's any equicast on them.

I agree the heels are way too high, but ya might need to use a frog support pad or make one from a pour in ...engage that frog and lower the heels slowly...?

I got his front done today and hear are some pics. I think that the main question I came here for with the weird bulbs has to do with his hoof supplement kicking in. The new hoof growing down looks much healthier and the bulbs seem to be growing out of that. The rears have a similar looking situation going on but not as ugly.

Is it just a matter of tightening up his schedule or do you see something my novice eyes don't?

By the way. I typically cant nail shoes on him because of a shelly, thin hoof wall. I have hot nailed him on more then 1 occasion trying to use the outside portion of his white line.

club foot

in comparison, I took probably less then a 1/4" off at the toe.


knife points to where the sole can not paired anymore as it was easily yielding to pressure getting it to M/L balance

Regularish foot

Mike, Why couldn't you nail shoes on? Looks like plenty of foot to nail to?I only wish half the horses I shoe had that much wall.
Anyway nice work, Maybe a little frog support would help spread them heels a bit.I see there not the greatest feet , but I think they are repairable to some extent.

This is the best the hoof walls have looked in 2 years. 4 months of hoof supplement, and it's starting to show a difference. I did get the regular foot nailed up with a shoe but don't expect it to stay on for more then 4 weeks. Then when the shoe falls off the wall will get shredded from being bear foot for more then an hour. It's been super shelly but starting to make a turn around. The club foot I'm trying a special package on that required glue so I stayed with that for another round.
I'm looking forward to maybe one more cycle and then hopefully I can get some normal shoes nailed on here with some proper frog support.

I did do a pour in pad this time - equi build

Anyway, looks like you could nail a shoe on easily enough, but a go round with glue ons wont do no harm., main thing is work to spreadimg those heels.

This is generally why I glue even when it looks like I can nail on. He lost his (nailed on) shoe on the hind last go around @ 6 weeks. Shoe was off for about 6 hours before he was discovered. He was pretty sore and tore his foot up to point where I felt I couldn't/shouldn't nail.
Did I mention that he has a tendency to bleed if I use his white line to nail?

In the last photo it looks like you may have some wall infection present, so you should probably debride that wall until the margins are clean and solid.. To be safe, I'd soak the hoof in either White Lightning or Clean Trax before I affixed any shoe to it, especially if I was going to use a glue-on that would cover that wall. You may also want to consider using a lighter section if you go with a steel shoe and shortening up the time between resets. I also think you need to get your nails up higher on the wall.

I'd clip up, nail on some shoes, and get rid of the equithane/equilox. I knew feet don't expand as many think but anything in the back half like that is still constrictive. Give it 2 or 3 shoeings. . .I'd it's not working try a bar shoe.

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Thanks for the advice folks, much appreciated. Now that ive got a little more foot Im really looking forward to getting some shoes nailed on him.

as for the white lightning style treatment. After I do that next time. I heard that mixing some CS crystals into the glue will help with any possible bacteria under the glue. Any thoughts on that? I know the CS trapped in the glue won't help. But I assume the CS on the foot side of the glue would. I get concerned with the strength properties of the glue if I were to add things into it like that.

WOW preconceived notions "of can't nail a shoe on is BS". I do it everyday. Yeah you might get 'em, pull the nail treat but the other nails that you will drive will suffice; heel nails included. Your apprehension is acceptable at your tenure; wife's horse "nail them to his ass" and get some good foot growing!

Mixing cs with the acrylics works well for me when you are filling a debrided area ... I don't use the cs when doing glueons tho .

what's your or others idea of getting the foot to grow? He's been on a hoof supplement for about 6 months now. He is growing plenty fast now but the horn quality at the bottom of the foot is still quite shelly. That's to be expected but the sole still feels really thin. I can make him sore just by pressing on the sole with my thumb. Quite a bit of flexion in the sole.
I have considered pulling his shoes for the winter (maybe just his hinds?) but am afraid of doing more harm then good.
i pulled his hinds as an experiment about a year ago and poured equibuild into his sole cavity. He was dead lame after a day from just the toe/white line area hitting the ground without shoes.

I think i've mentioned it before in this thread, but when he does lose a shoe, his foot gets chewed up faster then i've seen on any other horse.