Week Nine on the Barefoot Rollercoaster!

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night she went out without boots. The ground has actually been quite hard but this doesn't seem to have caused a problem. Her feet have chipped quite a bit in the last week but we're guessing they probably need to and boots won't help that.

There's been no sign of a particualr problem on the right fore and she's looked even over both fronts.

She looked particularly good on Wednesday night and walked out both on the way in from the field and back out again. She also looked happier in herself and is hanging closer to the rest of the horse group in the field (at her worst times she seems to stand far away from the group and/or hang out with a 30 year old pony)

It rained on and off for the rest of the week but not hard. On Friday she cantered up the field to us barefoot! We took her into the menage and took her boots off for a little trot round. She was pretty desperate to move but definitely still a bit sore so we kept it short. I brushed her down and washed her feet and generally faffed with her for about an hour. She's had her special balm on every day.


On Saturday we played again in the school and she was moving quite nicely with her boots on.

She's had her boots off all week in the field and is definitely standing and walking better as the week has gone on. She's standing higher in her shoulders and has her hind quarters more underneath her.

Apart from the mysterious cold leg incident (see previous post), on balance it's been a positive week for bare feet!

Mysterious Cold Right Foreleg?!

As I was brushing Lottie, picking out her feet, washing her feet and balming them yesterday, I noticed she'd got one cold leg?!

I assumed she'd been standing on it in a particular way to cut the circulation or standing with her right fore on the cold stone but it stayed cold for a good hour. It was noticeably colder than the others and I even got Chris to feel all her legs and tell me if she could spot a difference between them. She picked the right fore out as cold straight away (like to check that I'm not going nuts and am always glad for this kind of result!) but like me had no idea what might cause it.

We turned her out and the leg was still cold when we took her boots off in the field. We agreed that we'd have to have a feel the next day and take it from there.

Of course I came home and googled 'one cold leg' and couldn't find anything that seemed relevant. I found out about blood clots (of some variety) that can cause both hinds to be cold, but nothing singling out one foreleg.

We spent a good six hours up at the stables today and all four legs remained at the same warm temperature... Maybe I am a little nuts afterall or maybe Lottie was just attention seeking ;-)

Seedy Toe

When the trimmer came we established that Lottie had a little bit of 'Seedy Toe' in both fronts. After searching the web, and frightening myself silly about it with horror pictures, we bought some fancy soap and balm to hopefully clear it up. The muddy field has made this quite a chore and the process goes something like this...

- Clean out feet and rinse down (soap needs to be applied to a nearly pristine foot otherwise they're still dirty when you're finished!)
- Lather up soap on each foot and leave for a minute.- Pat dry and remove excess soap with cloth/towel
- Apply balm to whole foot and push into cracks and crevices

After doing this daily for a week our backs now have some sympathy with poor trimmers and farriers backs. Why is picking up horses feet so exhausting? Lottie is just about fed-up with having them messed with too and always seems to wriggle when you pick up her right fore. Even so she still trys for us and she practically puts her boots on herself now!

We've finished the daily routine and are washing once a week now but still applying the balm daily.

Cross fingers the effort pays off!

Week Seven & Eight

Progess is so slow and we aren't getting much new information so we're being patient... That means not much to blog!

Lottie was really sore on the right fore again early on in week eight. We walked her on hard smooth ground and she was borderline hopping (we actually stopped 10 metres from the stable and Lottie & I waited while Chris went and got her boots, she looked that sore!). Even with her boots on she was unevenly sore and short-striding on her right fore, toe first landing.

I called the trimmer and he thought it may be an abcess so we set about hammering around her foot in the hope of finding a sensitive spot. We couldn't find anything so we tried again the next day and she was looking better. As the week has gone on she seems to have reverted back to her normal sore. We've hardly had the boots off since as this soreness in her right fore showed up after a night out in the field with naked feet.

However, we'll have to try her again as we're not sure we aren't holding her back with having boots on all the time?!

Week Six - Lottie and Jazz Trimmer Visit

Lottie and Jazz 5th September 2010

The link above takes you to before and after pictures from Sunday for both girls. The trimmer came and was very patient while our friend Hannah photographed every possible angle for us!

The news on foot scores wasn't as good as I was hoping for but then maybe my expectations were a little unrealistic. Our footman put Jazz at a 3 out of 10 and Lottie at 2 out of 10 and of course both are doing better on their backs than fronts.

I'll put the main points/things we are dealing with in a follow-up post.