Welcome to The Thoughtful Horseman, dedicated to Healthy Horsekeeping in San Diego, California

Jewel came out of shoes about 5 weeks before I first saw her. I wish I had seen her then, so I'd have a better idea where we started. When I met her, she was about a week post second trim, and she was very tender footed. Her vet diagnosed her with pedal osteitis, but I tend to agree with the late Dr. James Rooney's skepticism regarding this diagnosis:

"Pedal Osteitis is an equivocal condition, too often a diagnosis of desperation for the foot sore horse. Pedal Osteitis is said to be an inflammation of the laminae of the hoof wall which shows itself as areas of radiolucency ( loss of bone) along the distal border of the coffin bone. This is difficult to assess, at best, and too dependent upon X ray technique. I have never seen a bona fide case of this condition at post mortem and doubt that it really exists." (Dr. J. Rooney, "The Lame Horse")

We fitted Jewel with boots and pads, and she wore them almost 24/7 for a number of weeks. She is still not comfortable, but she is improving.

Jewel was very thin-soled when I first saw her, her wall showing pronounced growth rings indicative of laminar inflammation, with very upright hoof conformation. After her trim 10-15-08, her collateral groove height at the heel is within the acceptable range, but we still need to build sole under the coffin bone. I've beveled the heel on her left front, which shows the clubbier conformation, to encourage her to use her heel more effectively and lengthen her stride. Her frogs were extremely soft and thrushy, but diligent chlorine dioxide soaking and scrubbing have made a tremendous improvement in her frog health; you can see the difference in the photos, and even note some heel expansion!

There is a metabolic component here; Jewel has been switched to a mostly-bermuda diet, and it will be important to keep her away from excess non-structural carbohydrates or sugars, but my gut tells me there may be another culprit, possibly and iron overload.

Jewel -- and all of her herdmates -- are producing hoof wall ring after ring after ring. They're all on similar forage (mainly bermuda hay), and their supplementation, while not addressing proper mineral balance, doesn't seem to offer any glaring issues. They are on city water, not well water, so it's unlikely a water issue. But the soil in the big turnout is as red as it can be, and when the horses are turned out, hay is spread over the ground to encourage them to move around. Could the high iron level in the red soil be creating a copper, zinc and manganese deficiency? Our typical local hay profile is already significantly high iron/low copper, zinc, manganese. Adding more iron without addressing the imbalance could easily account for the issues I'm seeing in this group. The soil is the only common denominator I can identify that differs from other horses in the area.

I'd like to see Jewel and her herd stop eating off of the ground in the turnout, and start on a custom mineral blend formulated for our regional hay profile.