Old mac trouble.

[Widget]

I measured Ruby's feet the day her shoes came off, and checked the chart, and bought size 8 G1's all round. When they came, the fronts looked to be a perfect fit, backs seemed ok in length but a little wide.

6 weeks on they are all huge on her! Her feet are now way smaller than when trimmed. Is this normal? Will they stay this size? I am now stuck with 4 size 8 boots that I cant use and no money to buy any more!

[Yann]

Were the feet trimmed when the shoes came off? I assume the feet were quite flared to begin with and this is now growing out? It's not an uncommon situation unfortunately, I had this with Tess but over a rather longer timescale. Could you not try and sell your current boots to help finance some that fit better?

You might well be better off with G2's shape wise now as well :)

[Widget]

Yes they were trimmed. Cant comment on flare as I dont know enough about it. Yes will have to sell them and get more, but dont want to buy more until I know she will stick to that size. Its a pain as she is fine without them apart from the really stoney hill in and out of the woods!

[Bobbin]

Bry went down a size on the fronts a few months in so I had to sell the old ones and get a new set.

As long as you get her feet trimmed on a regular basis and do enough work without boots, I wouldn't think she would go back up to the original size.

[Roofio]

i might be able to take them off your hands ;) just got to find my tape measure!

[Yann]

Are the hoof walls straight from top to bottom, like an upturned ice cream cone? They ideally should be, and any deviation from that to more of a bell shape is a flare. If you now have pretty straight walls chances are your horse's feet will stabilise at that size. Your trimmer should be able to advise you if they expect any further changes too :)

[Widget]

Yep straight down. Have looked up flare on the interweb and she has none. The underside of her hoof has more horn round the edge (where shoe would be) than the toe. Toe edge is almost flush with the sole. By the time it gets to the heel its about 1/2 - 1/3 of a cm above. Bit like high heels. Assuming that is bad, are her heels too long or toes too short?!

[Yann]

It's not necessarily bad at all, sounds pretty normal from what I've seen. In most cases you probably wouldn't want the wall to overgrow the sole much more than that. However there is a school of thought that suggests it's a good idea to leave a slightly longer heel on a less than capable foot to encourage the horse to keep landing heel first comfortably :)