Rain, go away, at least for a while. It's been so wet here this spring that I considered getting waterwings for Shadow... and I know the farmers are getting edgy as they've barely made it out into the fields before another rain system moves in and they're mudded out.
Since there's so much mud, I thought a good topic to address would be hoof care... I know Shadow's white tootsies are looking a little rough. Here's what I found. there are quite a few
myths out there about hooves. The big one for us this time of year:
Myth: Horses get thrush from standing on wet ground.
Thrush is an infection of the frog and sole of horses. Wet conditions alone will not result in thrush, since bacteria and fungi must be present, but dirty conditions such as stalls not mucked out regularly are certainly a cause of this nasty condition. Affected feet will have a very offensive odor and will produce a black discharge around the frog. Lameness will result if the condition is allowed to progress far enough to affect the sensitive structure of the foot.
Proper cleaning and trimming of the feet along with proper stable sanitation will help decrease the chance of infection. If you notice that your horse’s feet smell bad and/or have a discharge, cleaning and disinfecting them with a copper sulfate product or iodine solution can treat the problem. A regular trimming schedule with your furrier also helps prevent and control thrush.
Myth: Hot fitting the shoe hurts the horse.Hot shoeing, including hot fitting, refers to the act of forging/fabricating a shoe, and allows the furrier to custom make and fit the shoe to the horse. Hot fitting involves applying a hot shoe to the horse’s hoof, burning the hoof where the shoe is applied and seating the shoe to the hoof.
"Those in favor of hot shoeing say that a well-placed hot set shoe seals the hoof tubules and allows the furrier to see where there is a high or low spot in the foot," explains Bill Reed, a furrier from Columbus, N.C., who shoes horses in the Carolinas and Florida. "Some will argue that burning the foot injures the foot or dries it out, but this is false because there are no nerve endings there. Does it hurt when you trim your fingernails?""
Have a lovely, day, I'm off to the baseball game... I get to throw the first pitch!
Lauri
