We have a 3 year old quarter horse that we purchased last January. In July he turned up very lame on his left front foot, in fact, he could barely walk.
After going through the process of eliminating the usual suspects that would cause such lameness, we had digital x-rays taken, which revealed a rim fracture of P3. In fact a small piece of bone appears to be separated at the edge of the coffin bone. Our veterinarian suggested that the standard treatment would be to put a shoe on the foot in order to stabilize it during the healing process. We elected to continue stall rest and put Easyboot Epics on him.
Another issue that we've been battling with him since we got him is a great deal of separation at the white line. The x-rays revealed that quite a bit of separation and so we went ahead and trimmed him back to relieve the pressure from the hoof wall. This of course added some tenderness to the mix, as he was walking on his soles.
After about 4 weeks since he came up lame, he was walking without any discernible lameness. We then let him back into the pasture, again with the Epics on his feet. Because of our concern for the whiteline issues, and because of his walking freely, we started turning him out without the boots. We have continued to treat the white line issue during this time and he remains trimmed short to prevent any further separation caused by hoof wall pressure.
This last week, approximately 7 weeks since he initially became lame, we checked him at a trot. He was clearly still off and the left front seemed to be the issue.
We are now concerned that we are doing the wrong thing. We are committed to our horses being barefoot. It is hard for us to believe that nailing a shoe to his foot would be the best thing to do but it is very difficult to find good advice concerning this issue in the context of a barefoot philosophy. In general, does a P3 rim fracture represent a condition that requires a shoe to heal properly? Is there a better barefoot remedy that we've overlooked, or are have we not given enough time to the healing process to be able to expect improvement at the trot?
We want to do what is best for our horse. Any thoughts you can provide would appreciated very much.
Thank you.
Doug
You’ve been doing the right thing using the hoof boots instead of shoes on this horse. The concussion from steel shoes, even with pads, would only serve to worsen such an injury. Shoes, of course, would also cause all the other regular bad things such as contraction, infection and worsened laminar separation. I would take the horse for walks/lead him off another horse with boots AND COMFORT PADS inside the boots.
I would say you need to give things more time to heal and grow out. Depending on that coffin bone rim fracture, realize you may have a defect in the corium in that fractured area. Thus continued separation of growth may be a long term problem in this horse. This is generally not enough to cause long term lameness problems though.
I have had the best results keeping these horses in big turn out areas with at least one or two other horses (that aren’t the bullying type), allowing them to move enough to trim themselves at least half-way. Then when you go to trim them all you have to do is follow the wear pattern already established. Grass hay, a vitamin-mineral supplement three times a week (not every day), free choice trace mineral salt... constant methodical movement... at the three to four month point. I would expect significant improvement to continue little by little over the course of at least one to one and a half years. This young of a horse needs this time anyway to grow and mature before being trained/ridden anyhow.
Tincture of time is your best ally at this point.
Dr. Tom T.
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