trimming her feet

[No_Angel]

weve had Ceryn for about a month now, and we are still having issues with her picking up her feet.
they are in need of a good trim, and i believe she hasnt been trimmed since last august, she was just turned away with the other broodmares on a hill.
she gets quite stressy with her feet, so we dont do it every day as i dont want to sicken her, we tend to do it every three days, and put a saddle on her or groom her on the other days, we also walk her out on the road aswell.
they have worn down since going out on the road, but she still needs trimmed.
i think im just after a bit of reassurance to what i have decided, so ive decided not to let my farrier trim her feet till shes picking them up nicely and it doesnt stress her, do you think thats the right thing to do?
i dont want my farrier to get hurt, or hurt/un-nerve ceryn, and i want the farrier to be a nice experience for her.
ive got rasps and can do a maintenance trim, so i can have a little go when its a bit safer to do so. but i dont want her feet to come to any harm, they are quite wide and flared at the moment, but if i keep walking her on the road they should wear down enough that i can just tidy them up.

[teabiscuit]

thats what i'd do if i had her, but i'd pick the feet up every day,even if its just for a second, and even if its only just off the floor.
i also rasped the frayed edges off a horse with feet issues by getting them to stand on a block of wood one or two or three inches high with the offending edge hanging over the edge of the wood. i could gently rasp it into a slightly better shape until the horse was ready for the farrier.

[KateWooten]

they are quite wide and flared at the moment, but if i keep walking her on the road they should wear down enough that i can just tidy them up

I'd worry about that a bit. All last year before I really knew anything about barefoot trimming, both my 2 had very slight flares, and I could ride them maybe 40 minutes a week on the road before they would wear right down - so that was my limit. However, once I knew more about it, I realised the harm I'd been doing. Once the hoof-wall starts to flare, right away that is evidence of separation going on. The more flared they are, the more I was damaging them, by walking on a hard surface - because of the angle the hoof wall starts to grow at, the impact on the road serves to push the hoof-wall even further away from the sole and stretches the laminae more and more away from the coffin bone... it's like pulling your fingernails back and stretching the 'quick' OUCH.

It wasn't until this winter that one of mine fimally went lame under their regime and I got my act together. He was just telling me that all that white-line stretching had finally gotten too much.

So, without making a big deal of it, I think I'd be working a lot more intensely on the feet handling. I used to do a lot of this by using a soft cotton rope around the fetlock as the 'back-up cue' ie ask for the foot by running your hand down the back of the leg, and if no response, gentle rhythmic tugs on the rope until you get one ever-so-slight try - just even a shift of weight, and then release.

However, I learnt a real neat method recently that's working even better : Ask for the foot however you like, but a clear cue - like snapping your fingers for example, then if no response, gently squeeze the chestnut, increasing pressure until you see a very slight shift in weight if nothing else, then immediate release and praise. This seems to work a lot faster maybe because there's no intermediate tool or gadget - the rope - and just like the rope, it avoids having your hear in a vulnerable position. Always ask with the softest cue, accelerate the cue predictably, and reward the slightest try.

Oh, yes, almost forgot, always, always work with the horse's feet with the horse free - I mean a halter and lead is fine, and if you use one, take the lead in your outside hand, passed around the back of you, so you know you can always spin the horse's hind end away if you need to. Never tie the horse to work on it's feet because it needs its head and neck to balance, and it needs to know if you're going to put it in a vulnerable position with one leg up, it needs to know it can escape whenever it needs to.

I'd be doing this a few minutes at a time, as often as possible - at least twice a day.

Kate

[No_Angel]

im not going to do it that often, becuase she genuinly gets stressed about it.
shes a nervous horse, been a broodmare all her life and left on hills to fend for herself, she has had hardly any handeling apart from 6 weeks the lady i just bought her from did with her, luckily for us shes very bright and is picking up on things quickly, she was completly headshy, now a month later lets you touch her ears, head and kiss her face.
shes not lame at all on her feet, all my other horses (4 others) are all barefoot and ive been shown by my farrier how to do a maintenance trim (he trims my horse with a barefoot trim, not a pasture trim), ceryn has also been barefoot all her life and can walk over any surface happily, so no problem there, shes not exactly wearing her feet way, just chipping the edges so they arent as flared. she will occasionally pick her feet up ok, but she has real problems actually bending her left fore (not when walking, just when you ask to pick it up, she quite happily kicks the door with it;) ) but she picks them up for a few seconds then pulls away and gets all stressy, so much so that she stops eating (she loves eating) and she starts to move around the stable. shes usually loose in her stable when i pick up her feet, but im going to try outside where the farrier does the feet so she can get used to it, it just hope she doesnt pull away cause ill never be able to catch the bugger again:rolleyes: ill have to lure her in the field again with maddie and a bucket of food:p

[MelanieD]

If your farrier is a nice one who will introduce himself to her before grabbing a foot and will be patient then I'd let farrier do her. He can probably do a good trim very quickly which helps the feet very quickly hopefully with far less time spent faffing about with her feet than it would take you to give her a bit of a trim if you haven't had much practice at it. Clicker training is great for persuading horses to have their feet handled, I had one that was a nightmare with her feet and desperate for a trim and it let us get it done and persuaded her that trimming was nice sweetie time rather than something nasty.

OTOH if your farrier is a grumpy little sh*t then road work is better than nothing or traumatising her with an unpleasant experience.

[No_Angel]

hes not grumpy as such, but if i ask him to do her then he will do all feet, instead of giving up if it gets too much for her. he has been known to smack occasionally, and as she does mini rears to pull her foot away sometimes i dont want to chance it yet.
i used to trim 2 of my horses feet before i broke my collarbone, its a bit harder now as the muscle is still dodgy in my arm, i managed to trim one of maddie feet last night before my whole left forearm balloned up:rolleyes:

[Silver1]

You might consider getting a sedative for her and having the farrier do a really good trim. Then you can work on her manners at your leisure with out any worries about the condition of her feet.

[No_Angel]

i dont agree with sedating my horses unless its an absoulute nesccesity, i wont twitch either. her feet arnt so bad that she cant walk, so i thinkive made up my mind to leave her and sort out her problems before i let the farrier have a go. my mum agrees with me that its hte best thing to do with her.

[KateWooten]

I'd send you my trimmer ... do you think she'd freight over to Tennessee ok ?, he's an absolute angel and has never found any reason to hit a horse ... and he'd trim half a horse if that's all the horse could take.

[No_Angel]

had a break through tonight, managed to pick all her feet up and hold them to the count of 10 without much fuss at all:D

[teabiscuit]

that's good.
i think she'll be better off being trained for the farrier, even if it takes time.
you're right not to get him to do her before she's ready.
i once read that a horses feet are precious to him as they are his means of escape from predators, so they need to really trust you to allow you to start picking them up, especially with an older girl like you've got.
keep it up, she'll get there, and eventually it would be a good idea to introduce farrier tools to her, and maybe get her used to putting her feet in the position farriers have them in to rasp

[No_Angel]

its 7 weeks between our trims now (was 6, but as feet are getting better, can leave it a bit longer) so if shes not dont this time i will have to trim her myself.
im getting used to it again now, did maddies other foot last night in half the time i took me to do the other, i will make an ep yet!:D :p

[KateWooten]

im not going to do it that often, becuase she genuinly gets stressed about it

I've found, ( to my cost, and shame) that whenever I have a horse showing stress at any stage of the trinaing, it can be traced straight back to me. I've been late on the release. The horse only learns from the release. Especially with my little mare, if I'[ve gone out with an idea of what she should achieve - e.g. pick up her foot and hold it for 30 seconds, or whatever - well, that's not the right attitude for her. WHat I have to do is go out and see exactly where she's at today, and take itfrom there. If today she can only shift her weight and think about picking up a foot, then that's where I have to start. Take that and build on it. The horse only gets stressed when the trainer is trying to start from a point thaat the horse is not yet ready for because if they do that, the horse tries in it's own mind and doesn't get the release.

That's why I'd advocate doing the training far more often, but releasing much earlier - long before the stress.

[Pink's lady]

Spend time on her training, but in the meantime, you can do a little rasping. You'd be better taling off too little than too much and she's abviously not sore at present, so just a little off can only make it better.

Have a good read about what you're trying to acheive and don't do anything you're not sure about.

It might take you months to get her OK for the farrier, but in the meantime you could even just maintain the feet as they are, if she's not sore.

[teabiscuit]

is it just a trim you want, or do you want her shod?

[No_Angel]

no, im getting her barefoot trimmed, shes been barefoot all her life.

[teabiscuit]

just got my 13 y.o ex brood mare ok with being shod-it was her third time and she was an angel :)
she was ok the other 2 times, just nerves.
i prepared her with lots of short practice sessions, but she still had to cope with the fact that it was someone else picking her feet up :rolleyes:
it's really nice when they get there though :)