Hoof care

“ The feet of horses being the very basis of support, upon which the safety and expedition of the frame entirely depends, they are entitled to every possible degree of care and attention; more particularly in the winter season, when, from neglect, so many ills and inconveniences are known to arise. The injuries, accidents, and diseases, to which the feet are constantly liable, consist of cracks in the heels, scratches or lacerations, stubs and bruises of the outer sole, or upon the verge of the coronet between hair and hoof, corns, sandcracks, thrushes, canker, quitter, ringbone, and footfounder ”

“ A plank trough six inches deep, two feet wide and as long as the stall is wide may be filled with a stiff clay, and the horse made to stand with its front feet in the clay bath for ten or twelve hours daily. When grooming the horse, the foot should be cleaned with a foot-hook and washed with clean water. Hoof ointments should be avoided so far as possible. The importance of fitting the shoe to the foot, avoiding the too free use of the rasp and hoof knife and resetting or changing the shoe when necessary can not be overestimated. Shoeing the animal with a special shoe is sometimes necessary. ”

“ If they would try them unshod, they might be agreeably surprised at the result. Setting aside their superior performance, they would find, when they came to sell them, that the veterinary surgeon would always pass them as free from all suspicion of brittle hoof, sandcrack, seedy toe, thrushes, corns, pumice-foot, cutting or brushing, or navicular disease. No unshod horse ever suffers from any of these diseases or defects, no matter how hard his work or over what ground. This much is allowed, as we have seen, by veterinary surgeons. ”

“ Moderation is the most satisfactory course in all things. Abjure utterly all oils and greasy hoof dressings, they are pernicious recommendations of unreasoning grooms. They fill the pores of the wall, and injure in every way. Nature will find oil, if you will allow circulation and secretion, through the action of the frog.
"Stuffing the feet," is another wretched, groom's device. A horse has a dry, feverish hoof from contraction, so his hollow sole, denuded of its frog, is "stuffed" with heating oil-meal, or nasty droppings of cows. ”

“ The long toe becomes "dished"—that is, concave from the coronet to the ground—the long quarters curl forward and inward and often completely cover the frog and lead to contraction of the heels, or the whole hoof bends outward or inward, and a crooked foot, or, even worse, a crooked leg, is the result if the long hoof be allowed to exert its powerful and abnormally directed leverage for but a few months upon young plastic bones and tender and lax articular ligaments. ”

“ If the acute constitutional symptoms developed from sloughing of the foot do not result in death, a new hoof of very imperfect horn may be developed after a time; but unless the animal is to be kept for breeding purposes alone the foot will ever be useless for work and death should relieve the suffering. When only the sole sloughs, recovery takes place with proper treatment. ”

“ Though the opponents of hot fitting draw a lurid picture of the direful consequences of applying a hot shoe to the hoof, it is only the abuse of the practice that is to be condemned. If a heavy shoe at a yellow heat be held tightly pressed against a hoof which has been pared too thin, till it embeds itself, serious damage may be done. But a shoe at a dark heat may be pressed against a properly dressed hoof long enough to scorch, and thus indicate to the farrier the portions of horn that should be lowered without appreciable injury to the hoof and to the ultimate benefit of the animal. ”

“ The movement of the different structures within the foot and the changes of form that occur at every step are indispensable to the health of the hoof, so that these elastic tissues must be kept active by regular exercise, with protection against drying out of the hoof. Long-continued rest in the stable, drying out of the hoof, and shoeing decrease or alter the physiological movements of the hoof and sometimes lead to foot diseases. ”

“ To examine the foot properly the shoe should be removed. It is not sufficient to merely scrape the bottom of the foot clean, for if the nail has pulled out and the horn sprung back in position, all trace of its entrance may have been obliterated. To examine the foot properly, tap the hoof with a hammer or knife and the exact spot may be definitely located. If the injury is of a few days’ standing, additional heat in the hoof and, perhaps, slight swelling of the coronet may also be present. ”

“ Abundant and regular exercise, good grooming, moistness and suppleness of the hoof, going barefoot, plenty of good feed, and at proper intervals removing the overgrowth of hoof and regulating the bearing surface, by increasing the volume and improving the quality of the blood [Pg 589] flowing into the pododerm, favor the rapid growth of horn of good quality; while lack of exercise, dryness of the horn, and excessive length of the hoof hinder growth.
The average rate of growth is about one-third of an inch a month. Hind hoofs grow faster than fore hoofs and unshod ones faster than shod ones. ”

“ But they are generally very restless. They paw their bedding behind them at night and often refuse to lie down for a long rest. The lameness of this disease, however, can hardly be said to be characteristic, for the reason that it varies so greatly in intensity; but the position of the leg while the patient is at rest is generally the same in all cases. The foot is so advanced that it is relieved of all weight, and the fetlock is flexed until all pressure by the contents of the hoof [Pg 423] is removed from the heels. ”

“ If suppuration, however, has already commenced, the horn of the frog and of the bars and branches of the sole, if necessary, is to be pared thin in order that the foot may be poulticed and all pressure removed. When the lameness has subsided and the exposed part covered by a new layer of horn, the foot may be shod. Punctured wounds of the foot are of everyday occurrence, and when they, as frequently happens, involve the more important organs contained in the hoof, no disease or wound can be more serious. ”

“ When put upon the soles of foot-sore sheep, it hardens the hoofs, and enables them to travel better.
Sheep are sometimes cured by keeping them on a dry surface, and driving over a barn-floor daily, which is well covered with quicklime. It may also be cured by dryness, and repeated washing with soap-suds.
The above ailment should not be confounded with a temporary soreness, or inflammation of the hoof, occasioned by the irritation from the long, rough grasses which abound in low situations, which is removed with the cause; or if it continues, apply white paint or tar, after thorough washing. ”

“ When treatment is not promptly begun the inflammation extends to the deeper layers of the pododerm, or, indeed, even to the plantar cushion, and gives rise to swelling of the bulb of the heel upon that side and to a well-marked lameness, which requires treatment by a competent veterinarian.
Ordinarily a bar-crack is only found by a close examination of the hoof after the shoe has been removed. In paring the hoof the crack usually appears as a dark streak, sometimes as a bloody fissure; not infrequently grayish hoof-pus is discovered in the depths of the crack. ”

“ In our treatment of the hoof, we would seek to know the cause of the horse's troubles, firmly believing that he is endowed by nature [Pg 45] with strength to perform the service man demands of him, and that he is not necessarily a helpless prey to torturing diseases of the minor organs ”

“ After this is done, the animal is shod with an ordinary tip, a sharp cantharides blister applied to the coronet, and then turned out in a damp pasture. In this case the object of the tip is to throw the weight on to the heels and quarters. The thinned horn yields to the pressure thus applied, and a hoof with heels of a wider pattern commences to grow down from the coronet. Two to three months' rest is necessary before the animal can again he put to work. ”

“ So treated, many cases of side-bone lameness will be relieved, if not entirely cured, and, should the worst happen, and no alteration in the lameness is noticeable, no harm will have been done to the foot. In this connection, the originator of the treatment says: 'I may assure those induced to doubt either their diagnosis or the value of hoof section that no harm is done to the foot, even should the operation be of no value. It may do much good; it cannot do harm. The operation will never succeed until the inherent timidity of sawing or cutting into the wall is overcome. ”

“ A hoof of the base-wide position is always awry. The outer wall is more slanting, longer, and thicker than the inner, the outer quarter more curved than the inner, and the outer half of the sole wider than the inner. The weight falls largely into the inner half of the hoof. In motion the hoof is moved in a circle. From its position on the ground it breaks over the inner toe, is carried forward and inward close to the supporting leg, thence forward and outward to the ground, which the hoof meets first with the outer toe. ”

“ Continuous standing always contributes to contraction of the hoofs, and this evil is greatly favored by dryness, which more particularly affects the front hoofs. The hind hoofs receive sufficient moisture from the animal’s manure. Poor floors, particularly those that are uneven, tire the limbs. Accumulation of manure and the careless use of stationary sole-pads induce thrush of the frog.
The object of hoof nurture is to lessen or entirely remove all these injurious consequences of shoeing and stabulation. ”

“ Another very prevalent cause is faulty shoeing, although it sometimes happens that it results from other diseases of the foot, as, for instance, thrush, side bones, corns, etc. The disease is indicated by a pinched and shrunken frog, high heels, long bars, straight walls, and hoof so dry that it is almost impossible to cut it. The treatment consists first of all of preventive measures. The feet are kept moist and the horn is prevented from drying out by the use of moist sawdust, occasional poultices of boiled turnips, and a free use of greasy hoof ointments to the sole and walls of the feet. ”

“ One can perhaps better give one's client some vague idea of the patient's suffering by likening the pain to the throbbing sensation of a festered finger-nail. Tell him that each hoof of the horse is similarly, or, if anything, more delicately, constructed, that in each foot the same process of 'festering' is going on, and that upon them the animal has perforce to stand.
As one might expect, the position of greatest ease is the decumbent. Strange to say, though, in many cases of laminitis the animal persists in maintaining a standing posture. ”

“ Then they're sometimes troubled with overgrown hoofs."
"What do you do if they get foot-rot?" asked Miss Laura.
"I've various cures," he said. "Paring and clipping, and dipping the hoof in blue vitriol and vinegar, or rubbing it on, as the English shepherds do. It destroys the diseased part, but doesn't affect the sound."
"Do sheep have many diseases?" asked Miss Laura. "I know one of them myself--that is the scab."
"A nasty thing that," said Mr. Wood, vigorously; "and a man that builds up a flock from a stockyard often finds it out to his cost.
""What is it like?" asked Miss Laura. ”

“ Abundant but not excessive exercise is more necessary than anything else to the preservation of the health of the hoof. It aids the circulation of blood within the foot, and, therefore, the growth of the horn. Horses which perform hard, regular work have, as a rule, better hoofs than those which stand the greater part of the time in the stable. ”

“ When, however, an alteration of position is continued for many weeks it tends to become permanently fixed and may thus do a great deal of harm, which is not traced to its real cause because the effect is slow and gradual. It is important, therefore, to remember that the proportion of the hoof is to be maintained not only because it is necessary to the well-being of the foot; but because it affects the action of the whole limb. ”

“ In the more advanced stages he is feverish, breathes hard, has violent throbbing in the arteries of the fetlock, lies down, stretches out his legs, and sometimes gazes wistfully upon the seat of the disease; and in the ulterior stages, if no efficacious remedies have been applied, the diseased feet either naturally recover their healthy condition, or they suppurate, slough, cast part or all of the hoof, and gradually acquire a small, weak, new hoof, or they undergo such mortification and change of tissues as to render the animal permanently useless. ”

“ If however too much blood will have flown out, with a small soft cloth having been plucked with oil and vinegar and small salt and with its own shit of the horse on the joints with hooves you will tie. After the third day you will make warming. If flesh will have accumulated, you will use either contracting or vulnary things and more often with a scalpel the horn of the hoof you will purge and destroy, in order that it should grow equally. ”

“ Should the injury run on to suppuration, the lameness becomes most acute. The pawing movements become more pronounced, and there is evident disinclination on the part of the animal to place the foot squarely on the ground. One is then led to manipulate the foot. The hoof is hot to the touch. Percussion causes the animal to flinch, and to flinch particularly when that portion of the wall adjoining the corn is struck. Finally, exploration with the knife reveals the serious extent to which the injury has developed. ”