Trimming feet

[MajorClementine]

My farrier recently retired so I am without someone to trim my minis (or riding horses) right now. I have tried out a few people on the riding horses and have been less than impressed with them. So I'm working on learning to "barefoot" trim myself. I've been doing a lot of reading and have trimmed my riding horse once so far but I have some questions on my mini mare.

She has pretty tall feet and I'd like to get them down to where they should be. I don't want to get into the live sole so I've been cutting back the hoof wall at the toe each week to create a mustang roll and taking the heels down little by little. I don't want to take the heels down all at once because I'm afraid that will make her horribly out of balance and that I'd also have to trim the frog which I don't want to do.

Does any one have any suggestions? I am assuming that mini feet should be in balance the same way that riding horses should be. Are there any major differences I should be aware of?

 

[Jean_B]

No difference whatsoever for a barefoot trim. Might want to check out the photos /drawings on the topic "Links to photos of hooves" just a little further down. Those heels need to come down enough so that when the horse walks, pressure is applied to the frog...otherwise they don't stimulate blood flow for a healthy frog.

 

[MajorClementine]

Thanks, that's what I was thinking. I've spent a lot of time on barefoothorse.com and was hoping all the same rules applied to minis.

 

[chandab]

Were/are you on good enough terms with your now retired farrier to enlist his help to come over and instruct you while you do the trimming? You'll likely have to pay him a nominal fee for his time, but could be well worth it to have the trained eye looking over your shoulder. [if he's local to you, and you liked his work, hopefully something like this will work for you.]

 

[rubyviewminis]

Yes, even though all farrier work is the same, the difference is in the weight. I realize your thinking the lessor weight is in conjunction to the lessor size. In fact the entire hoof pumps the flow of blood not just the frog, never forget that. Trim the heels all the way to the bottom of the V you see when looking from the bulb to the toe, which is what you do to check for balance. The V is the groove on either side of the frog. That frog need to come down and be level with the heel. The only time to file down, or cut into the toe is if the hoof is extremely overgrown. Otherwise, leave it. It will wear on it's own as it is supposed to, the tip of the coffin bone is right under that, and if you cut into it by filing it down, there is nothing there to support the coffin bone which will cause pain. It needs to build naturally which it will by compression on the sole and excess will form little plaques you can pick off at trims or leave. If the hoof is very long or upright like a can, you have several things to consider about the anatomy.

1) In this position of *tin can* the entire hoof is on the toe of the coffin bone causing unnatural pressure and pain. All the joints from there up will be stressed in this position causing all sorts of pulling, twitching, pain.

2) The inner structures of the hoof are not high up into the hoof as they should be if trimmed low and correct. So you need to take down the heel and let the rest of the sole build. The way to take off dead sole and not cut into live sole until this naturally builds is sometimes hard if the horse is in hard, dry terrain and climate, or the hoof is white and you haven't done it before. When I started I used a master farrier friend, Pete Ramey's book for horse owners, and only scraped down the immediate sole around the frog which can be safely taken off. A very small area on minis. Never on the area between that and the wall, especially at the toe. Between the toe wall and frog apex/tip, is the toe callous. That should not be touched ever unless as I said, it is forming plaques of excess sole, which is dead and can be popped off.

On some horses, when you take the heel down, it will try to grow back very fast. Just keep trimming it. I haven't had this happen, and almost every miniature, except one or two we brought home were extremely overgrown. I have never had one go lame yet, even in my less than stellar attempts when I started. I had a bad habit of not taking enough off. It is scarey, but with people helping online, Pete Ramey's book, and trial and error I finally feel I know what I am doing. And what we do by trying and learning is much, much better than nothing, or the horrible so-called *farriers* some of us have experienced. I have paid some of them to make my poor little ones worse and never will again. There are so many good people on here to help. I hope I have. I DO know what I have written here is the correct way. I should post pictures of my minis. They look and feel wonderful. Pete Ramey feels and I agree that you let the hoof tell you how to trim it, not the angle on the pastern or shoulder. I found this to be true, and in MOST cases with mine, the hoof ended up telling me the same thing as the angle of their pastern and shoulder.

 

[Tremor]

If you're interested, I could give you some names of some farriers to help you and maybe even suggest people around you.

Patty Stiller:

http://hoofcareonline.com/

Sarah MacFarlane:

https://www.facebook.com/IIIBarsV

Both are really helpful and are on a horse forum I frequent. (HGS) You can tell them Tremor sent you.

 

[MajorClementine]

chandab: on great terms with the farrier BUT (always a big but right) he retired because he no longer had the time. He's one of those guys with about 1000 irons in the fire at one time. Something had to give and it was the farrier and custom leather work. I would love to have him come out and give me pointers but I don't think he'd have the time. Worth asking though...

Rubyview: thank you for your very helpful post. I do stay out of the toe (the sole anyway) and just nip or rasp the wall of the toe to give that break over. Is this wrong? I've also got Pete Ramey's book on order from Amazon right now. It was suggested to me on another forum as well.

Tremor: help finding a farrier in my area would be wonderful. I still have one riding horse that will need shoes and 5 retired horses that need trims. So even if I figure out the minis and my one barefoot riding horse I will still need a good farrier.

 

[rubyviewminis]

Good for you! Backing up the toe wall is correct, and so glad to hear you are getting his book.

 

[Riverrose28]

I just got my new issue of Equess, the June one, there is an excellent article starting on page 55. If you don't get the magizene, you might try finding one at TSC.

 

[MajorClementine]

Thanks. My grandfather gets it so I'll grab his copy

 

[MajorClementine]

I trimmed Clementines feet today since she is headed off to training tomorrow. I was able to take quite a bit off her feet without getting into the hard sole. I scraped off the "plaques" that have been mentioned then trimmed the wall down to the sole. Even better is I was able to lower her heels a ton. They still need to be lowered some but her angles are a lot better than they were. I did have to trim her frogs down some because her heels were so long but most of them were starting to exfoliate off so I just helped them along a little. I feel pretty good about this trim since her feet look good and she is still moving good. Her front toes are flared a little but I'm working on that with a pretty sever bevel on the toes. It's the same thing I did for my riding gelding and it worked great. Thanks to everyone for their help.

 

[HGFarm]

Each horses conformation is different and the angle of the hoof should match the angle of the horse... while still keeping it in balance from side to side. You dont want to drop an angle too suddenly as the tendons need time to catch up with the trim job and corrections.

 

[MajorClementine]

Thank you for pointing that out. That is what I am trying to do. Her hoof walls were long all the way around so I took quite a bit off evenly. However, I have been working at getting her heels dropped and was able to quite a bit today. She still has a ways to go (I didn't want to over trim) but I was very happy with what I was able to do today. I am slowly bringing her hoof angle to match that of her shoulder and pastern angle. Right now she is still a little too steep. But it's slowly getting better.