Last year Mag and Bellis' hooves fell apart, in a strange circumstance that I later learned also occurred in Wuppertal, where I boarded last Winter. They called it "Hollow-wall syndrome" but I could find nothing about this in English, I think it's White Line Disease, but even now I'm not sure.
I'm sorry to say this is Mag's hoof last July, and not the only one with this problem.
It was an odd Summer for hooves, because I heard reports from all around, of hooves opening up, separating.
I blamed it on the grass, cuz why else would it affect horses in our entire region, suddenly. And as Rockley says, "Hoof health is 80% diet, 20% trim."
The hooves across the region (also in Wuppertal) were trimmed into "claw" shapes, as above. To try to scrape out the disease. If you've ever experienced this in America, please let me know.
I blamed having no hay at this time last year, and letting my animals graze on lush pasture in late July. I thought that it would be OK, I know horses can survive on grass this time of year.
Well, not in 2016. We had vet and farrier bills every single week, all Summer long. We tried everything.
Experimentally, my animals are eating mostly hay this Summer, with the grazing strips as usual. OK, as you know, normally we make hay this time of year, and we did, the first cutting. But our (slacker?) hay farmer said it's not worth it to come back for a second cutting. So...what to do with all this lovely grass.
A few hours per day I've allowed them, starting last week. We're in the position, for the first time in 8 years, to ask someone at random to just come mow and either take the hay, or leave it. Obviously leaving it as mulch is a huge waste.
About the hooves....I'm so scared. Wait for the photos, you'll see why.
I had no chance to start to ride my horse 2016 Summer.
Donkey was also not immune.
AND NOW?
I watch the sun, the number of sunny hours per day. I watch the rain. I am a weather hawk, trying to determine if I should let my animals on the pasture. Early morning, only, that's obvious.
Thankfully, they come in every day around noon, to escape the bugs and heat.
I don't want to experience 2016 ever again.
So far so good.
Oh, and I'm force-feeding Mag beet pulp and hay pellets. Every morning he gets a 5 gallon bucket full of mash, with vitamins and salt (cuz he never licks salt).
It takes him an hour to eat his mash, and sometimes he trembles.
Mag eats his bucket, trembling all over. Poor little sensitive thing. I'm the opposite. I'm thrilled when it's cool and breezy out. I had to fetch my cooler from my attic to cover him in the less-hot mornings.
A photo of his body condition from July 2016:
See the 14 brand? Honestly, this was July 2016. His first Summer here. With free access to the pasture that was not cut. And due to the hooves, no exercise. This sucked.
This year, forced hay, and forced beet pulp/hay pellets. My dear husband came home today with two sacks of beet pulp in our car. This seems to be exactly what Mag needs to keep his skeleton from sticking out.
I have no photos comparing body condition exactly, trust me that his ribs, hips, and SI are no longer obvious. He's not fit, but he's not an anatomy lesson this year, yay!
The hooves, so far, so good. But I'm looking every day, and also at his pasterns for Summer Scratches (photosensitivity due to sunlight in addition to ingesting certain plants, which we ALSO had to deal with last year.). Mag has shown sensitivity to almost every med I've rubbed on him, including Baby Diaper Zinc Creme. *sigh*
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6 comments:
Yup, it's white line disease. Yes, I've seen my fair share of hooves trimmed like that. Yes, pasture can be a factor, but constant moisture is an even greater factor. White line disease is a CONSTANT problem in the summer in South FL where we had t-storms every single afternoon for 5 months straight. All of the horses in my barn were in sand lots with access to deeply bedded stalls with concrete floors and rubber stall mats (not a blade of grass to be seen anywhere), on tested low starch grass hay (we actually had access to hay that was already tested for us) and low starch feed. 50% of the horses in the barn still had white line disease at any given point throughout the summer. When it was so humid and wet all the time, even with the perfect setup, we still couldn't just lock them up in the afternoon and at night just bc their lots were wet. So the horses would stand in puddles in their lots and we just dealt with it. Funny enough my TB with her TB feet was one of the few horses in the barn that didn't get white line disease...but she's also always been somewhat of a princess about standing in water.
Last summer was so traumatic for you. Have you talked to the Wuppertal people to see if it's happening again there?
Saiph, Florida summer storms! My horse has TB feet, they tend to grow long toe low heel and flat. I can't do much about it, it's the way he is. Strange, in those photos from last year, the ground looks dry. Right now it's a sloppy black mess out there. J was telling me today we are too far from the Mediterranean to have dry summers here, and indeed I bought a lawn sprinkler my first summer here, and haven't had to use it, it's a joke, why would anyone need to water grass in Germany in summer!
Aarene, I certainly will at the end of August, when the problems hit their worst and then started to lift.
Major difference for certain! Mags is having a vastly different summer in every way this year. All for the good too. Oh, try doing a cloverleaf pattern in a cart lol. Only at a walk so far thankfully.
It's also called wall thrush, or hood wall thrush and is a form of thrush that attacks the white line area of the hoof. An outbreak of wall thrush would explain why it happened in the area, regardless of what they horses were eating.
The reason I keep connecting the hoof problems to the diet is because the diet differed that year - no hay at all, and why did it happen in the Summer and not the always-wet Winter?
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