Posted by lgili on April 25, 2003 at 22:57:14:
In Reply to: Re: banana shoe/trim? posted by Derin Foor on February 27, 2003 at 10:17:14:
: : : Does anybody know what angle (degrees) the banana is set at? I tried to pin Dr. Redden down on what angle his form (he uses to shape the shoe) is or what the difference in degrees he sets the rocker toe from the posterior portion of the hoof. It looked to me to be about 15 degrees but it's hard to tell without a protractor. I have seen him do one set of shoes with a nice crisp angle at the breakover and another set of shoes with a rather round belly. He didn't really clarify when or where he uses either. Maybe it's part of the evolutionary process of the banana to rock n roll rail shoe.
: : I hate that shoe and the reason I do is because a couple of years ago I took on a horse that was shod like that and was chronicly lame, everytime the owner came back from a trail ride her horse was extremely sore, head bobbing. This horse had dished dorsal wall and underrun/low heels and flat soles. We also discovered a hailine crack in the LF wing of the coffin bone. I think they were atempting to ease breakover, but the bannana shoe was doing more harm than good. If you ask me it places to much pressure in the quarters and on the wings of P3. I trimmed the foot for balance, used Egg Bars, side clips and rolled toe. After the crack in the coffin bone healed up I went to Natural balance shoes and the horse was much better and could trail ride, after about a year the horse was completely sound. I think NB is the best way to go if you need to ease breakover.
: : Phil
: Lately I have used this shoe on several chronic founder cases and it has worked well.....there is a very steep learning curve when it comes to the application of these shoes......last weekend at the SC AAEP meeting at NC State Vet School we discussed this type of shoeing and its benefits and later shoed a horse using this method.... I think the horseowners, vet students and farriers alike saw a dramatic difference in this horse after the shoes were applied........do I think this shoe is right for all horses, NO, but it does allow a horse to lay down a lot of sole and choose it's own breakover point as Dr Meyers has suggested
: as we progress into the age of venograms I believe we will see more benefits to the use of this type of shoe since it appears to restore good circulation to the foot through proper biomechanics, especially in the laminitic horse
: the horse that Phil had with them was IMO a mis-application of the shoe and he was correct to remove it and replace it with a full support shoe to stabilize the hoof capsule
: Derin
Does anyone know if banana shoes are normally used by farriers to regularly shoe horses without laminitis or other persistent problems? A blacksmith I know seems to universally use this method on horses without any issues under the supervision of a chiropractic vetrinarian and I wondered if there is any data to support this as a general practice.
L.