Monday, January 12, 2015

Hard Hooves

I had a friend come down and teach me to use a hoof knife and let me use her nippers yesterday. Twister has a chip in his right hind from where laziness and a dread of trimming hinds has kept me from keeping up with them. Generally, I don't have to do them as often anyways. In the summer I trim Twister's fronts every 6 to 8 days. Closer to 6. I do the hinds every 14 days or so. In the winter, I thought I could get away with doing the hinds every 4 to 6 weeks. Twister has decided to tell me how wrong I am. Pretty sure he has a little white line or something going on too. His cracks in the front hooves have never grown out and they should have like ohhhh I don't know 6 months ago or more. My friend said she had the same problem and squirted some anti fungal/bacterial stuff up there and stuffed the cracks with cotton. Repeat as needed or as cotton falls out.

So back to trimming. I finished cleaning up Twister's feet from yesterday and did his fronts really good. Let me tell you. Those fronts made me WORK! Whatever I am doing to toughen up his feet is working! (Shout out to Carly from Poor Woman Showing for all her advice! Sorry that all your trial and error with Robert is what made you so helpful, though). His white foot, previously his worse foot, looks best now. His black foot doesn't look as good but he's had some thrush in it in November that is threatening a come back.

After getting his feet trimmed and clean, I cleaned out the cracks with a stiff brush and took a syringe and squirted some Farrier Barrier up there and packed it with cotton. Then I scrubbed his frogs really good with the stuff. Cannot DEAL with anymore thrush. Like all year with this horse. I know the first year barefoot is the hardest. But this is redic. My EX-trimmer never even mentioned it could be white line or some sort of infection causing the cracks to not heal. She's not my ex-trimmer because of that. That actually is a long story. I wouldn't reccomend her to anyone though. Anyways.... so in a day or so I'm going to soak his feet too. Luckily, he's the good horse in the barn. I tried to soak porkchop's abcessing feet this past summer and he tried to kill me.

So I'm hoping I'm on the path to getting his feet cleared up, tough and ready for SHOW SEASON! We ARE showing this year! My fiance and I finally found the ONE. The trailer that ends the buy/sell/trade trailer crap we've been doing for a year. It is perfect. 2 horse straight load that is tall enough for our TBs and has a ramp. And my favorite part is the dressing/tack room with built in saddle rack!!!! And I have the career job now, so I can afford diesel and entry fees!

my sexy truck and sexy trailer. ok ok ok.... OUR sexy truck and trailer. lol

5 comments:

  1. good luck getting the thrush / white line stuff under control. but damn - that truck/trailer combo is AWESOME!! Twister better snap his tootsies into shape if he wants to start rolling around town :)

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    1. Curtis, who I have been bragging about his feet and want to trade Twister's feet for his, I think is about to pop an abscess. They ALWAYS want to prove me freakin' wrong!

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  2. Your trailer looks perfect!!! You guys are going to hit up all the shows in style!

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  3. Miles has struggles with thrush too -- it's just SO tough to beat for good!!

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    1. Carly from Poor Woman Showing suggests using Tomorrow Dry cow treatment. I have some but have been treating Twister's cracks and don't want to risk all this crap mixing on his feet. One thing at a time.

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