I'm a fairly new farrier and never run into this before so seeking the sage advice from those with more experience. I just got a new client and this is one of her babies. You can see what the last farrier did as far as trimming the hooves but would someone be willing to mark up these photos to show how far I should go? I have seen other posts where you are in essence trying to get the hoof back to a normal looking foot. I guess what is throwing me off is the lack of frog or anything from the underside that I can use to guide me.

Thanks for your help.

Find someone experienced in your area and have them go w/ you. That way you can ask questions in real time. Hands on education is the best education to get. Pay them if you have to. It will come back to you ten fold.

The reverse is true as well, muck it up and that will hang w/ you a long time. They say a satisfied customer will tell 5 people about their experience, a dis-satisfied customer will tell 35!

Forgot, if you didn't like that answer.........cut till you see blood and STOP! Make sure you carry iodine and blood stop powder.

Speakin of lill minnys
BOY di I end up wif a friggen cracker of a shinner on Mundy mornin

doin the lil bugger wif feet like olmates here on the thread and workin on me hands n knees the near side fore
well lill mate objects and decided to rear up strikin out wif his fronts struck me twice in the left eye drawing blood on the cheek n closein the out side half of my eye
best black Ive ever had and a week later its still a bute ay he he

He also hit his handler in the gurrers and stomped his foot
quite a giggle

To the OP cut em short as you think sensible this time n come back in a fortnight n do it again and the next fortnight then every 4/ 5 weeks after that

Like Clints first answer good o advise that mate

Feet don't get like that without a lot of neglect. The important thing is to charge enough. People like that just aren't worth messing with unless you charge them a LOT. Don't do this for no thirty or fourty bucks.

The trimming...about all that stuff that's curling up can come off. Some guys use a saw but I stick with my nippers. They rock back the way they do because the heel has grown so long and so far forward that they're falling off the back. Cut it off.

You should be able to tell if you're getting close (you have a long way to go) but do it over more than one trim if you're not comfortable. It's not rocket science, just quite a bit of work.

Early on one of my mentors advised me regarding feet like these to "imagine what the foot should look like and cut away the rest of the stuff around it, its all dead anyway" With a few refinements this policy has worked well for me.

Seems I have done more than my share of these which says something about the class of clientel that I apearently cater two. IME these come in two types: the ones you see at the vets, those quit being able to get around, and the rest, they are still hobbling around the pasture. Theres times I'm glad I'm in the business shoeing peoples horses and not that of saving their souls

I'm of the buck saw using contengent, I got a short one that also takes a coarse hacksaw blade that I use for the inital cut and then get after it with nippers, half round nippers and then finish up with a 36 grit disc on a 4" grinder and rasp. I operate the grinder with a sewing machine rehostat control so I can keep the speed low enough that heat is not a problem.

On feet that are really long I have found that having a helper hold on to the tip of the foot with pull offs while I saw puts a lot less stress on the horses articulating surfaces. I generaly try to take everything I can off in the inital trim, A number of these I have never seen again and tried to do as much as I could before returning it to the whoever let it get in this shape in the first place.

To me the important first step is to get the base of support back. The red line is the current base. It can move to the green line. Like Dutch, I have the confidence to get pretty aggressive at the toe also, but that toe has been off the ground and the tendons stretched for a long time now, If you'd be more comfortable moving slowly, it's of less importance than addressing the heels.

Jack Evers wrote:
I agree, and was I doing the trim I would leave the toes for last to give myself more of a handle to hold while carving all the inner curvature out of those heels. I use a razor sharp knife and a sanding wheel on a Dremel tool and remove any horizonalish horn tubles and trim the heels till you can almost see the bottoms of the hair roots. Once the frog is peeled/ trimmed out of there there should be a fairly substancial frog in there or the potential for one and hhe heels will be encouraged to grow normaly. The toe seems to reflect the attitude of the coffin bone for an inch or two down so I would shoot for that as a refrence in trimming the toe.

I don't know if I would feel compelled to use a saw on these feet or no, they are not really that long, but when using a saw for the inital cut the hardest thing is to get the angle of the cut shallow enough, the blade ,being flexable tends to turn inward, sometimes becoming one of those blood occasions. If it gets to this point its important, as another poster mentioned, to have treatment available for such an eventuality. As important, IME is to have a ready supply of reassuring things to say like: "Thank God!, we got bloodflow! I was SO afraid the vascular system was all dead." Or: "Its a long way from the heart", depending on how hysterical the owner might get. This is as much about Farriery as judging people. And with this kind of neglect you will get some interesting ones to judge. Expect a little blood and you won't be supprised by the supprise package these feet can become.

Luckily this one dosn't seem to have a lot of additional neglect issues. A lot of times I see heels that are just a big running sore/proud flesh omlette.

These cases are facinating for me because you have the shock value of the grossly misshapen foot combined with the wildly implausable excuses as to how it came to be.

Thanks for all of the replies I am going to be going out tomorrow to work on these feet and seeing as this is my first one like this I will be going slow and easy.

I'll post pics of how they end up.

dkforge1 wrote:
Please do post pics. I just hate, for your learning experience part of it, that you didn't get some really long ones to work with. My record is 14" of sawed off toe. These are fun to collect and at one time I had my record 14 incher and several lesser ones strung like trophy bass on a wire. Props like these are great for subtley educating customers as to the fact that there are bigger *****s out there than themselves, but dogs tend to carry them off long before the educational experience in them is used up, IME

Slow and easy is good policy but you have a lot there to work with and none of it that dosn't look like a normal foot is of any benifit in preserving

I didn't realize that the cussbot filtered out the word i-d-i-o-t-s

perfect timing on posting this, i just got a call on a mini like this. im in the same boat! ive already been out once, i have to go back out there again on tuesday when the vet can knock the little guy out and i can get on the bottom of the feet. the heels seem to be folded under covering the frog and sole, and runs out the side, so he's walkin on hoof wall.. tuesday looks like its gonna be really fun.

cowgirlfarrier wrote:
And it WILL be however, as noted you will be tired when you get done. Start with a new rasp.

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one n only trim I was to give this poor beast as the owner never got me back
the attending Vet was chuffed with the job Id done in one sitting
get in and have a go
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I could have cleaned up the hooves even more but the vet called me off as the seditive was weekening saying owner will have you back shortly yeah right
we did all four hooves the two back being the worse