Thursday, February 10, 2011

False Alarm

Here I was, all set to have a really educational 'fixing this old cripple' post, Aaannndddd....

I got nada!

I explained to the farrier about Turk's bobbling in the pasture again and his stumbling and told him to do what he thought would be best for Turk.

He looked Turk's feet over, pulled a shoe and whistled.

There was a ton of growth to Turk's feet that was barely discernible by looking at him from the topside. And honestly, he didn't look that long from the bottom either. I mean, I knew that Turk was due to be re-shod and I did end up having to go 9-weeks because the farrier was out of town last week, but Holy Moly...
Of course, looking at the freshly trimmed hoof on the right compared to the still shod hoof on the left, it's obvious just how much Turk's feet had grown out.

We have not seen this much growth in this time-frame ever. Last summer when we first started shoeing Turk, we thought he would need to be reset at 6 weeks. Well, that ended up being needlessly frequent, so we went to 7-8 weeks. The last time I had Turk re-set, the farrier said that 8 weeks would be fine during the winter. The horses were off grain and only on grass hay and of course when the weather gets cold, the growth slows down a bit as well.

The farrier did say that this was the best looking and feeling hoof he has trimmed off of Turk to date. Yea! We have hit good foot!! Turk stayed in regular shoes and for the first time, both of his front feet are at the same angle.

I wonder if the Healthy Glo-rice bran and flax supplement I have been feeding had anything to do with accelerating Turk's hoof growth?

Needless to say, we are back to a 6 week reset schedule.

This is what we started with 7 months ago (and I was already 2 months into working on him on my own)...The Comeback Kid

8 comments:

Fantastyk Voyager said...

That's a lot of growth! Maybe his new diet has been good for him.

Sherry Sikstrom said...

Whatever it is ,its working!

gtyyup said...

Whoa...that's a ton of growth!! The after trim hoof sure looks great though!

Enjoy the clinic...sounds like a perfect "get goin' again" activity!!

Rising Rainbow said...

First thing I thought was healthier feet. Been there. LOL

It does make sense, however, if he's looking better, his feet would be better.

It's always such a relief when you finally get into that healthier growth and know what you're doing is really working.

Mikey said...

That's a ton of hoof growth. I'm a believer in that rice bran, it's done great things around this place. I ought to add the flax seed, I know that makes their coats look amazing too.
I'm about to start a new blog piece about frogs and healthy feet. All of our recently went to barefoot, as we aren't gathering cattle in rocks lately, mostly we're on the flat and in arenas. Feet look good, but frogs have big clefts. So Absorbine is kindly sending me some product to try. I'm on a mission to get the healthiest bare feet I can on these horses.

Danielle Michelle said...

God it's so stinckin' cold here! It's finally warming up a little for this weekend, but I've got fat, fuzzy lazy butts for ponies right now!

I'm also really behind in 'feet'. Bad mommy I am...

in2paints said...

Wow, the hoof growth on Turk is amazing! I might need to invest in some rice bran and start feeding Lilly. I was thinking about doing that anyway, but now I have yet another reason!

Mrs. Mom said...

Ya goober. ;) Take side view of his feet NOW---- then take some in a week from same side, then at two weeks, then three.... you get the drift. Set them up side by side and I bet you'll be amazed at the difference.

Rock it at the clinic this weekend! Cant wait to hear all about it!