Rule of thumb?

[Ron Oldenbeuving]

I know that there are no hard and fast rules, but, I have to ask this.

One farrier once told me that if you dont have x-ray facilities available, you can get some idea of pedal bone rotation on a newly foundered horse using the following method -

Measure from heel to toe of the affected foot, then from toe to coronary band, working as if the horse had a normal balanced trim.
The distance from heel to toe might, as an example, be 1/4" longer than from toe to coronary band. His "rule of thumb" stated that for every 1/8" difference, there was about 2-1/2 degrees rotation, so in this instance, about 5 degrees of rotation.

I've never been in the situation where I've had to resort to this, and I hope I wont ever need to be. Your thoughts and comments please.

[Ronald Aalders]

You don't want to rely on statistics like that too much Ron. You need to be very sure what you're looking at too. A interphalangeal rotation (club) and a capsular rotation (laminitis) are very different types of rotation, so is the position of the coffin bone within the hoofcapsule in such cases.

The best advise I can give you is take each and every opportunity you get to have a look at X rays of a horse. If you have the chance to look at X rays with the horse present, drop everything you're doing and go take a look. If you get a chance to have a look at X rays of a horse you shod, it's well worth a few hours to do that.

What you'll get over the years is an eye for what's inside a foot including the relative position of the key structures towards each other. This is very important when assessing a foot with or without an X ray machine present.

Here's two pics, one describes a trick Redden promotes in his book "Understanding Laminitis" the other is from a presentation of his "Clinical Examination of the Equine foot"

O and Ron, thorough knowledge of anatomy is vital! I'd advise anyone to invest in that Glass Horse CD, Anatomy of the Distal Limb.


Ronald Aalders

[tbloomer]

A simple way to prove or disprove the "rule" is to take measurements of feet for which you already have x-rays and compare the measurements to the x-rays. My first impression is that this "rule of thumb" will not give a good result on any horse because the natural perportions of the toe-heel distance do not correlate to the natural toe length perportion in a 1:1 ratio. More likely it would be a 6.5:4 ratio - which is a natural perportion better known as the "Golden Ratio." YMMV :)

[THamilton]

Would this rule of thumb work on a horse that has stress foundered? What if the horse had just been trimmed/shod? :confused: I tend to think not. IMO

Tony

[THamilton]

Ron,

Was there supposed to be tesxt with either of those two pictures? I only was able to see the 2 photos.

Thank you,
Tony

[Ronald Aalders]

The drawing said something like the edge of the rasp giving you a trim line, and the other was just a pic of a low heeled some of a mare with the bones superimposed. (Is that how it's called?)
Just to give an idea on how some of the key structures in the foot relate to each other in different situations.


Ronald Aalders

[jvzieger]

The drawing said something like the edge of the rasp giving you a trim line, and the other was just a pic of a low heeled some of a mare with the bones superimposed. (Is that how it's called?)


Just to help with your english, yes, superimposed is the correct word to describe the picture. When asking for help on words like that (if you are interested in my help???) you may want to say is that what it's called? Instead of using the word "how". I'm only trying to help, so I hope you're not offended.

[Ron Oldenbeuving]

Thanks for the help everyone. Nice pics and advice Ron, my phone number is on file with the 2 local equine vets. More good advice from Tom & Tony. Much appreciated. As I said, I was after opinions and thoughts, because I found it hard to believe in the first place.

[diannamarsolek]

i wood look at a lot o dead horses to see if its true i am werking on a nag with it and have no X for him but i werkon geting the feet as easy on the horse as i can i cant spell so bare with me on this i have werked on founder for 15 years and have lerned there is 1 rule that is there is no rules i had a mare that had it in one foot and not the other and have werked on a horse that was founderd in the hind feet only so i werk on geting the horses as sound as i can