Seedy Toe

[Charlie1]

I am interested to hear back with regards to Seedy Toe and if farriers have used a product such a Cleantrax.

I have used this on hind feet to help witha slight WLD, and intend to do soaking of my horses front feet, which had a minor resection done a couple of months ago to allow the air to circulate and then use Cleantrax to hopefully eliminate it, prior to full removal of shoes.
I am in the process of conditioning my horse to go BF all round and this is the last stage before removal then conditioning will start on the fronts as soon as this is carried out.

The write up of it which is an American Product, which I have obtained via a web site Equine Poditry. The feed back in the UK via a BF web site seems to be very useful and successful.

[Donald Ruff]

IMO seedy toe comes in conjunction with distrotion of the toe. the toe is usually streched forward and evertyhting else is following it. the heels, bars and frog are all distorting as well. when the toe distorts the laminae becomes streched and vulnerable to insults. seedy toe

medications IMO do not fix this issue. proper trimming and hoof preperation will. not saying that your horse hasn;t been getting that.

take a look and see how much wider the hoof wall is at the toe than the rest of the hoof. i think you'll be suprised

my $0.02
don

[Forgewizard]

Charlie1,
Clean Trax is a great product, but not a cure all! The best thing to deal with seedy toe is like Dinald Ruff mentioned- get the hoof properly aligned and balanced totake the strains and stresses off of it! The clean trax will kill the bacteria that have set up homes in the hoof cracks, but to eradicate the infections altogether you'll need to "chase" the infection sires. In other words: dremel out the infected fissures, otherwise the infection and cracks will keep coming back. Your horse's feet will look rather funky, do NOT fill inthe excavation sites with any kind of acrylic or epoxy- leave them open to the air. But in a few months the hooves should be well ont heir way to becoming healthy! :)

[old heller]

Claen Trax gets my vote but it is a very long process a full 1 and 1/2 hour project per foot but everything was dead after foot was resected prior to using clean trax

[Professor Plum]

My farrier has found seedy toe in my horse. He's dug it out and the vet's coming tomorrow with the farrier to treat it further - they spoke about cutting more horn away, putting some form of crystal (??) on it to dry it out, then sealing with acrylic. From posts above, I see that sealing isn't a good idea though??

I've been told that it has to be kept dry too. The horse has to be turned out - and he needs shoes. He has no heel. My worry is that there won't be enough hoof to shoe, though my farrier showed me aluminium shoes that he could glue on.

The horse has very flat feet, and one splays out more. He also has navicular and has been shod with wedges in front - which hasn't helped with the heel growing. The seedy toe is in the off fore.

I've read that seedy toe could have been caused by small stones? I don't know if this is true but we were on a yard during last winter and spring, which had tiny gravel on the way to the fields - a total nightmare. He's been shod by excellent farriers (usually under veterinary supervision) so I don't think that bad shoeing is the cause.


Any ideas? Advice? I'm in the UK and feeling pretty desperate. This is the latest in a long line of problems.

[caballus]

If a hoof is balanced, leveled and in good health there would be no way for the gravel to enter the capsule as the capsule is just that ... a sealed capsule; encapsulating the inner foot. Seedy toe is the result of wall separation ... which is the result of leverages upon walls that are left too long and weight bearing by themselves.
The walls of the equine hoof are designed to share the leverage of the weight load with the sole callous; similar to your fingernails, if you were to walk on long fingernails, the nail would soon begin to separate from the nail bed. Equate that with equine hoof walls and the sole ... the walls are being pryed away from the sole, stretching and tearing the lamina which is the connectivity that holds the hoof capsule onto the foot.

One can treat the seedy toe and gravel but until the hooves are properly maintained then the same issue will repeat, over and over again.

--Gwen

[matryoshka]

I agree with Don. I had a young horse who suffered from seedy toe for several years--also had a farrier who believed in leaving the toe long. Since the dam also had seedy toe (same farrier, hmmmm), I figured my horse had inherited the bad feet.

It turns out that a new farrier, who brought his breakover (and toe) back, was able to get rid of the seedy toe. In the process she also rehabbed the hoof capsule, which had gotten elongated from the long-toe trim. Until the hoof grew in steeper and more round, she kept a shoe on while the crack persisted, and I treated it with Coppertox. Once the crack grew out far enough that we didn't have to worry about it splitting up to the coronet, the shoes were pulled.

It's been two years now, and no more seedy toe! It takes 6 months to a year to grow the hoof wall all the way from the coronet to the ground, so complete recovery can take that long. It's worth it, though.

Incidentally, the horse also stopped stumbling, and moves great now. He used to look like a stork when he walked. I thought is was from his overly long neck, but it was his long toes! :eek: Live and learn.

Are you sure the horse has no heel, or is it underrun? Long toes (and a stretched white line that invites infection) kind of go with underrun heels. If so, ask your farrier about where the breakover should be. It's possible to bring the breakover back with a shoe (actually, it is probably easier with a shoe), and the white line should tighten up, which may help prevent seedy toe in the future.

Pam

[Professor Plum]

I suspect he has no heel AND underrun heels.
I bought him 5 years ago as a 9 year old, with truly awful flat, splayed feet. I knew I was buying a whole load of trouble, but sometimes you just do things you know you shouldn't...

Ever since I've had him, farriers have tried to keep his toes back. Is it possible that the seedy toe has been brewing for a good while? I've noticed that the affected hoof has always been warmer than others.

His hoof quality is bad too. He doesn't grow a lot - hardly any. He's always been on a good balanced diet, and supplemented with Farriers' Formula/biotin/Formula4Feet (I've given each supplement at least a year to work - to date none has made any noticeable difference).

[matryoshka]

Hey Plum,

I'm not an expert; I do trims only and am still new at that.

We saw a Toroughbred in my farrier class that had feet like you describe. It had numerous cracks that did not go away. The horse was about 18 years old, and the farrier instructor kept shoes on it. There is no way it could have withstood a trial at barefoot. We students weren't allowed to touch those feet, and I gathered it wasn't easy to get the shoes to stay on. This horse was in excellent health, had great care, and was ridden fairly regularly. I think some horses just got bad feet handed down from mamma and pappa.

Maybe if you start a new thread on this topic, you'll get some of the experienced farriers who have dealt with these feet to reply. Good luck!

Pam