We have a 16yo pony at our facility with a history of founder. During the spring and beginning of summer, we keep her on a tight schedule of confined to the paddock with free-choice water and hay, plus turning out into the pasture for 1/2 hour a day. The rest of the year she is turned out with the other horses. She has not had an incidence of founder in at least a year, but when I came here in May she was extremely sensitive about her feet (difficult to pick, severe limping, laying down).
About a week after I started here, I saw the pony standing in a classic laminitic stance, and immediately called the vet. He stated she wasn’t laminitic, but was delaminating on her front feet (hoof separating from the sole). Her hooves were a mess- chunks of hoof flaking off, etc. He put her on Bute for 2 weeks and recommended a new farrier with experience in such cases. The new farrier came out approximately two weeks ago, several days after the pony’s last dose of Bute, and put shoes on her front feet (she was previously unshod since we can’t ride her) with the shoes facing backward (opening at the front of her hoof, top of the shoe supporting the frog) and cleaned up the flaking. She could not put on the typical heart or egg-bar shoes because there was nothing to attach them to at the front of the hoof.
The shoes made a world of difference… the pony was running around the pasture, wasn’t as difficult to pick… I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between her on medication and her with these shoes. However, in the past 3-4 days her hooves have begun to look terrible- worse, my boss says, than she’s ever seen them. The area at the front of the hoof, the part not covered by the shoe, is flaking off again. She doesn’t appear to have problems walking, and she’s still okay with getting her feet picked. I think it may have something to do with the huge amount of rain we’ve been getting, coupled with the fact that she normally spends a lot of time laying down, softening the hoof and speeding up the delamination, but honestly I’m not as aware when it comes to this level of problem.
Should we try booting her on a permanent basis? Should we take the shoes off? (this is what my boss wants to do- she thinks the shoes have made things worse) What kind of prognosis are we looking at with delamination? (the vet said there’s really nothing we can do about it, it’ll just keep progressing, and we should consider confining her permanently to the paddock with a turnout of 15-20 minutes a day)
Any thoughts?
TIA