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Duck Feet?
How'd that happen?  And what to do about it...

To get an idea of where I'm coming from, you can check out a different 'article:' 08/08/14 My Opinions on Farriery and Where They Came From

A Small Disaster in the Making

One day you look at your horse's feet and you go 'O GOOD GOD THE TOE IS TOO LONG!'  So you, or your farrier, pull out the rasp and put a lovely mustang roll on the foot.  And about three months later you see this:

You see lovely new grown that's more telling of the real shape of the foot and then underneath it you see what looks like a flare.  Whereas before the hoof wall was even and looked good (but wasn't), NOW it looks messed up. (but isn't!)  What you're seeing is where the toe had been too long and the hoof wall was being pulled forward.  If you're able to keep up with the good trimming, it's no longer getting pulled forward so bad and no longer getting misshapen so bad, but you're for sure able to see how bad it was.

So it looks like this is the problem, but it's actually the solution working it's way through the foot.

The next problem, the 'disaster in the making' is when the last bit of the old growth gets next to the ground.  Provided you're keeping the foot trimmed nicely, and keeping the flare off the ground so the new growth stays tight and isn't getting deformed too much by the toe pulling it outward, when that last little bit of old growth gets to the bottom, it's going to be pointing more outward that downward.  The result is that it seems like it takes forever for the new growth to get long enough to trim, but it will.

The dynamic in all of this is that how the hoof wall connects with the ground creates forces that 'inform' the new hoof how it is to grown.  In this case, the long hoof is pulling the hoof wall away from the desired growth pattern.  One article I read described this as something similar to catching you fingernail on the side of a table -- you hand moves, but your fingernail doesn't, and it hurts like the dickens.  (And this is what's happening to the horse every step.)

	In this column:  The hoof you'll probably see that requires several cycles of growth.	In this column: the 'ideal' scenario that fixes in one cycle of growth.
Before you notice there's a problem - the toe (or whichever or maybe all of the hoof that's involved) is getting pulled out of shape by the contact with the ground.  These are the same pictures ...  the one on the right os rotated and shows how when the end of the toe hits the ground (lower yellow dot) the force is transferred up the hoof wall (upper yellow dot) and 'informs' the new growth.
The start of new growth after the 'flare' is gotten off the ground and the new growth is no longer being adversely acting upon by pulling of the long areas.
Continued new growth
Looks awful but it's better.
The end is near!
Still getting there...
The 'disaster' that awaits.  At this point the bottom of the hoof is not in contact with the ground well at all and it looks like the hoof is growing sideways instead of downward.  The thing is, this is the final stretch.  What looks awful now was actually awful a year of so ago and has simply taken this long to grow out.  In a little bit, all of the old malformed hoof will be able to be trimmed off.
Made it!
	this hoof will continue to get better through several cycles of growth..	this one is the 'ideal' scenario.

Disclaimer

So Okay - these are drawings (which are a lot harder to do on the computer than by hand but my scanner is kaput) and this is somewhat theoretical, although it also reflects what I've been through with my horses.

One of my horses came to me with seriously messed up feet and, to be honest, I didn't take pictures because I never thought they'd ever get better.  While they never got to be picture perfect, they improved remarkably.

The real trick is to mitigate the damage of the hoof that is hitting the ground too far away (because it is leveraging back up the hoof wall and deforming the hoof at the coronet band.)

(And I am quite certain that the original farrier involved had no intention of muffing up.)

The Moral of the Story 

Be good with the trims!  Keep with it, though several cycles perhaps, and it will get better.   And if you see a horse hoof like this, know that someone 'woke up' and it now fixing the problem.  Kudos to them.

Books: Amazon Assoc. / Old Favs

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