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Discussion on Horizontal Hoof Cracks
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Member:
mtca
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Posted on Friday, Sep 12, 2014 - 1:00 am:
Our horse Socks goes in the barn nightly and when he came in BOTH hind feet had horizontal cracks in them over night. Is this a selenium issue or any other ideas? These photos were taken in Jan so he has a lot of heavy hair on his legs. They were almost grown out and it happened again this past week. It is not something that grows down from the coronet band it just appears on his hoof.
 
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Member:
rtrotter
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Posted on Friday, Sep 12, 2014 - 9:20 am:
Hi Linda,
The first thing I noticed was a red bruise on one of your horses feet. So, I would ask the question do you ever see him trying to paw or putting his foot through a fence?
I had the same things appear on my own horses feet on the inside and outside of both front feet. They eventually grew down as a better foot was being developed and his nutrition changed and now they are gone. My horse is barefoot in heavy racehorse training and has not worn shoes for over a year. At one point last year before I turned him out for the winter, he had horizontal slice cuts on his pasterns and I always attributed the horizontal slice cuts in his feet to those. Although I do not know for sure, I do think some sort of trauma was the cause, pawing and getting his foot stuck on the fence, his interference issues or an equipment( bell boots) irritation.
So, If Dr. O chimes in here, I'd be curious as to what he has to say.
Rachelle
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Member:
mtca
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Posted on Friday, Sep 12, 2014 - 10:26 am:
Hi,
These are his HIND feet so pawing is not an option. Also we have electro-braid fence so no place to get his feet under a fence or tear the hoofs on. That is why this is so concerning. Our farrier says he has seen this before due to illness or fever??? Any other thoughts?
Linda
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Member:
rtrotter
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Posted on Friday, Sep 12, 2014 - 1:24 pm:
Sorry Linda,
I missed the part about hind feet. And this could be related to illness or fever or it could be an inflammation reaction.
Is there something going on with your horses pasterns, they look very thickened to me, but that could be the way the pictures were taken.
My horses' feet have gotten so much better with the addition of a product called Equi-thrive, he has a bunch of problems including digestive and skeletal, in general all caused by inflammation. The Equi-Thrive normalizes the cell structure to lessen the inflammatory processes. It also boosts his immune system and I have been able to take him off all the other supplements I had him on for his various problems.
take care
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Moderator:
DrO
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Posted on Saturday, Sep 13, 2014 - 4:00 pm:
Hello Linda,
Because the cracks are along the circumference of the hooves parallel to the coronet and the hooves do not appear irregularly shaped (flares for instance) there is a strong suggestion that there is a defect in the wall as it is created at the coronet when the hoof was first made. Perhaps it looked normal but for reasons that are unknown at this time was weak. The normal wear, tear, and stress allows the cracks to form. This does not look like selenium deficiency or selenium toxicity but it may be worth checking the se content of the diet. For a list of possible causes and diagnosing the problem see HorseAdvice.com » Diseases of Horses » Lameness » Diseases of the Hoof » Wall Cracks and Thin Sensitive Soles.
Rtrotter is correct about the coronet bruise being above where a group of the cracks have formed suggesting blunt trauma of possibly a foot imbalance that we cannot see in the photos you provide.
DrO
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New Member:
zaza
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Posted on Friday, Sep 19, 2014 - 4:28 pm:
Hi Linda
I am not a farrier or vet. I have owned my horse for 6 years now and I have struggled most of them trying to get his hooves healthy working with two vets, 4 farriers and 3 different approaches(he is only 9). Therefore I have done a lot of research recently for myself on hooves and how to trim and what to look for and for the past 8 months that I took over his trimming completely he has never been better. He has taught me a lot about a lot of things because he is honest if I hurt him or make him better so with that knowledge, and take from it what you need, I share this.
I personally see a "shelf" (black arrow) which to me looks like the beginning of the flare. Each green arrow I see prominent "rings" which I have found indicate a drastic change in the horses lifestyle such as nutrition changes, exercise changes and/or trimming changes (different or lack there of). Red arrow is where I see questionable red spots indicating bruising which coincidentally is also where the horizontal breaks are (possibly to let out the pooled blood that had accumulated and added too much pressure, which is the definition of a bad bruise).
Also the top (closest to coronary band) horizontal crack on both pictures (are they different hooves?)are on the same distance down and honestly I would guess something happened 4 months ago when that picture was taken(give or take two months depending on how fast your horse grows hooves). I would be curious if there was a change in work, food, supplements, pasture and or farrier or lack of farrier around that time period 4 months or so before the picture. A stab in the dark would be if horse is eating a lot of pasture, one change is the fall quality of grass vs winter vs summer. If you only have the horse trimmed in the summer and nothing in the winter which coincides when the horse is worked, etc.
These pictures are at a bad angle and only show a very small peace of the puzzle so I am going off of little info, but my horse use to get a lot of bruising in the exact same spot as yours when he would get what some call "pasture trim" because his walls would grow so fast and work on hard ground that I believe would poorly conduct the concussion and bruise the top like that. If it truly was from blunt straight on trauma, then the bruising being so high next to the coronary would cause some damage to the hair as well or I guess it is possible that it was hit just right to make sure it only hit the top edge of the hoof (I doubt it, especially because I see it in both hooves and also all the other things I mentioned which usually coincide).
If I hit the mark on any of the above mentioned or if it makes any sense... I would love to see more pictures especially currently showing the solar surface.
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New Member:
zaza
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Posted on Friday, Sep 19, 2014 - 5:05 pm:
I posted the above thinking I could quickly add the pictures and it doesn't matter how I save them it is not small enough to upload. I am still trying though 
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New Member:
zaza
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Posted on Friday, Sep 19, 2014 - 5:25 pm:
Here is the first picture that you posted marked with the different color arrows to show what I see. I am curious to know where the new ones are or how they look now. 
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New Member:
zaza
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Posted on Friday, Sep 19, 2014 - 5:27 pm:
Here is the second picture I referenced to also marked. 
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