This is a stallion that I work on at one of my bigger barns . The first 2 pics are the day he arrived as you can see he was in a mess with a pretty severe hoof wall infection . After we resected the infected horn he was put in a cast with putty. The next few pics are at random times I worked on him so it kind of shows the progress that was made over a years time. Sorry for no pics of the resection, he was pretty sore and I didn't spend much time thinking about pics until I was done . He did have the cast reapplied for 11 months the last pics are from Wednesday of this week. He is currently sound and has been for the past 10 months . As we know theses cases can go from good to bad quickly but hes doing good so far. The owners are top notch and are willing to do whatever is asked .
Heart Bars applied to laminitc horses lose the support they provide under the center of P3 as the wall grows. They can be great on acute laminitis if the farrier does followup every 10 days to 2 weeks. IMEs, need to insert a shim under the frog plate at about 10 days to make up for the wall growth. Then at 20 days a thicker shim, or switch to Equipak fill from back of foot up to the apex of the frog. It is a very high maintenance protocol. In acute cases, the owner is usually receptive to more aggre$$ive treatment options. Not something I would do on a chronic case unless the owner was committed to making changes in management. IME, chronic laminitis seems to go hand in hand with owner in denial.
