Posted by Danvers on April 04, 2003 at 18:53:29:
In Reply to: donkey feet posted by Amy McGuirk on April 02, 2003 at 11:00:22:
: I have a mini donkey with one hoof causing problems.
: Her lamenie is seperating from her hoof wall and she is very down in the back almost walking on her heels.
: The blacksmith has no idea, the vet has no idea, I am at my wits end. Could this be wld and if so, why only one hoof and why only one donkey?
: HELP!! oh, she is not lame on this foot
It seems like about every fifth donkey or zebra you see looks like this, and they're almost never lame from it!!
I have no idea what causes it, but I suspect that it's most often neglect. I'm generalizing here, not accusing. You may provide great care, but most of the ones I see haven't had much hoof care if any.
Donkeys tend to self maintain a decent hoof for long periods of time, and then they just fall apart. Anyway, a couple of things apply.
First and foremost, donkeys and horses are different species, and their hooves are different. If you trim a donkey as you would a horse, you're not trimming him correctly. The biggest confusion with this is generally in angulation. The donkey's hoof is naturally very upright, to the point that in a horse it would be considered broken forward, clubby, or even coon footed. Subsequently, donkeys tend to keep a fairly short toe with a "stacked" heel.
When I encounter one like you describe, I generally find that he has a lot of foot and that I can trim it aggressively. I'm always surprised by how much hoof you can take off of these guys.
In a horse, my inclination is to resect the area and support the boney column with a shoe. In donkeys, however, I'm more inclined to clean the cavity thoroughly (usually with Nolvasan) and then pack it with Hawthorne's Sole Pack. With regular maintenance, they tend to normalize fairly quickly.
~~Danvers