Category: Boots and inserts

Foam treatment helps laminitic horse with poor frog

Posted on: February 23, 2015

(The first clip is from October 28, and the last two are from December 26.)

Editor’s note added on Jan. 7, 2023: Read this post on using a mastitis drug for frog infections before you start experimenting with foam. The mastitis drug might be a lot more effective. It certainly worked for Kurt.

Editor’s note added on Feb. 28. 2021: This approach might help one in 50 laminitic horses, based on my experience since I wrote this, so I wouldn’t expect miracles. Perhaps the real lesson is that a small change in the loading of a laminitic foot can make a big difference, and it can be worth the time to experiment with different materials in different places on the bottom of a sore laminitic foot to see if you can provide some relief. But bear in mind that numbness can factor into laminitis, and a horse not loading a foot may be the result of numbness or partial numbness.

Heading into Thanksgiving 2014, my laminitic horse Robin Hood was getting more and more uncomfortable.

Trying to keep him alive seemed a little selfish, considering his condition.

In the previous months, I had been studying veterinarian Debra Taylor’s 2014 presentation on hooves, particularly the importance of the digital cushion and frog in supporting the back half of the foot, and I was concerned that Robin seemed pretty deficient in both. His shallow frog was bearing no weight as he walked, and its wavy shape made me think his digital cushion was compromised. My longtime solution of keeping Robin in boots with thick cushions was no longer enough to provide relief.

I decided to experiment with his boot inserts over the holiday weekend, and if I couldn’t make him better, we’d give up.

There’s been no shortage of experimentation with foam at this farm. My basement looks like a foam warehouse, and I thought I had tried it all in every configuration.

One thing working in our favor that weekend was Robin couldn’t put weight on his left front at all. Each time, I changed out his foam, he tried to put his foot down. If my treatment didn’t help, he immediately picked up the foot again. As feedback goes, that’s priceless.

Two hours into this process, I stumbled over a two-fold answer that provided a smidgeon of relief. And over the days and weeks that followed, Robin continually improved.

The foam is taped in place and does not extend beyond the tip of the frog. Two pieces of tape are showing in this image, but I also add one from the foam over the toe to prevent the foam from moving forward or backward.

The first part of the answer was foam placement. In previous experiments, I had tried to raise the whole back of the foot, as a lily pad would do, by adding extra foam in the back of the boot. What I envisioned as added support translated to added pressure on Robin’s heels. That made him worse. This time, I left Robin’s heels outside the foam.

The foam is placed inside Robin's heels, covering the collateral grooves and sole along with the frog.

The foam is placed inside Robin’s heels, covering the collateral grooves and sole along with the frog. It starts out 1/2 inch thick but squishes down immediately.

foam frog pad

The foam fills in Robin’s collateral grooves along his frog.

The second part of the answer was the foam type. I experimented with a camping mat foam (Ozark Trails brand) sold at Walmart. To my surprise, Robin seemed to benefit from it filling in his collateral grooves next to the frog as it got squished down. This collateral groove support somehow relieved his pain.

To keep the foam in place, I’m taping it to Robin’s foot as opposed to placing it inside the boot, since the boot can move around. I change out the foam every day in each foot. He also still needs inserts in the base of the boot.

Also in the past, Robin did not like me adding a frog-shaped piece of foam over the frog. Again, what appeared to work this time was the foam dispersing in the collateral grooves.

The shape of the foam insert has changed over time.

The shape of the foam insert has changed over time. I try not to cut out too many in advance in case I need to adjust.

We’ve tried to refine the foam pieces since Thanksgiving. Doubling the foam was a big no-no; Robin got less sound from that before we reverted to one layer. Robin is more comfortable if the piece does not go beyond the tip of the frog.

He’s more comfortable in general with longer heels, but now I’m seeing if lowering those long heels has any effect with the foam filling in the collateral grooves and perhaps lifting up his coffin bone.

He may need to wear the foam the rest of his life. I’m fine with that.

If your horse is deficient in frog or digital cushion and you can’t get the horse comfortable through trimming or other methods, you might try this. The cost is next to nothing.

Watch the video at the top of this page to see Robin’s movement before and after I added the foam.

No one was more surprised than I that this worked. Well, maybe Robin. He’s a trooper.

Trimming laminitic horse is success

Posted on: November 3, 2013

Robin sore at the walk on July 21, 2013

Horses with low-grade laminitis can be made comfortable and taken off bute while still having an active case of the disease. I didn’t believe that before this year. I thought the laminitis cascade had to be stopped before the horse would find any degree of comfort. I also thought the owner needed to find the trigger that caused the laminitis and remove it, or it was hopeless to waste time on the feet. I was wrong. The fact is that I may never find the trigger of my horses’ laminitis.

Success with my gelding Robin Hood has taught me that trimming the horse according to farrier Pete Ramey’s principles can help the coffin bone return to a better position and keep the toes from getting stretched out, even as low grade laminitis continues. Stretched toes put painful pressure on the front of the foot and lead to abscess after abscess, tearing the foot apart further.

Robin Hood's left front foot on May 18, 2013

Robin Hood’s left front foot on May 18, 2013.

I’m still learning how to trim, but my beginner attempt has transformed the life of my gelding, Robin Hood. He has gone from almost needing a vet to put him down at low points in April, June and July 2013 to galloping across a field with his brother (with no help from anti-inflammatories) in November 2013.

Robin's left front foot on Nov. 3, 2013

Robin’s left front foot on Nov. 3, 2013.

Robin Hood always seems to have chronic low grade laminitis, as evidenced by the continuously growing rings around his hoof and the steady, strong digital pulse that never goes away.

And, yet, I took him off bute in October 2013, and he didn’t get sore; he just continued to improve. My previous attempt to wean him off bute in July 2013 ended badly. He was in so much pain, he was shaking when he tried to get up. Success this time around has been from the trim.

Robin actually was doing fairly well in January and February 2013, but his toes got longer in the spring, and I failed to see it. One day in April, he couldn’t get up, and he was lying down, grunting and moving his feet in a circular motion as if he couldn’t stand the pain. It was heartbreaking.

I spent years trying to understand equine feet but never caught on enough to try to trim one.

As I noted in my previous post on this topic, a kind farrier named June started helping me by email in May 2013. Read the previous post to review the easy principles she provided for understanding the equine foot.

In this post, I want to show you the result.

When I look back at images of my trimming over the year, I see how slow I was to follow June’s directions. I was really scared. But once I did, Robin came around very quickly.

I also have to fess up to the fact that my farrier tool of choice is a belt sander. Think electric nail file. It’s a piece of sand paper that is looped around a machine that spins it.

It has its drawbacks. Sometimes, I sand things unintentionally. If I accidentally hit my pants with the sand paper, that section of my pants disappears, and I’m looking at my leg.

That speed and power are also the sander’s strength. With a laminitic horse that can’t hold up a foot for long, speed and power are a big plus.

The sum total of my life-changing trim on Robin has been sanding around the outside of the foot to remove the damaged hoof and then sanding the bottom of his foot at the toe, or beveling it, so his toe doesn’t touch the ground in front of the point of breakover.

Robin walking Oct. 20, 2013

Robin walking barefoot Oct. 28, 2013

Robin trots briefly on lungeline on Nov. 3, 2013

Robin galloping in lower field with Kurt on Nov. 3, 2013

My other post talks about marking up the foot with a marker to have guidelines. When I first started trimming Robin in May 2013, he was mostly lying down, and you’ll see in the video below that the lines I drew weren’t straight because I was kneeling and leaning over his feet. Still, I had some target for how long I wanted the hoof to end up when finished.

Robin's left front toe after a trim on July 23, 2013

Robin’s left front toe after a trim on July 23, 2013.

At the front of the hoof, I wanted to get rid of the stretched white line area. I put the sander on the outside of the front of the hoof at the toe and pressed as I moved the sander around the toe. Rasping would have accomplished the same thing. At times, the hoof “wall” that was left looked really scary, but I just had to believe that all that bad wall would go away eventually.

On the sides of the hoof, I wanted to get rid of the flare. What is flare? If a laminitic horse has a groove, or gutter, around the bottom of the hoof where the white line used to be, the wall outside that gutter is flare. That detached wall is hitting the ground and likely feeling about as comfortable as a loose fingernail. It needs to go.

Robin’s whole hoof got noticeably smaller. Because I was so timid and Robin so sore, I did a teeny bit every night. Now, I work on him once a week to maintain what I’ve accomplished. He can stand on each foot for a long time.

As for the bottom of the foot, I left it alone.

As I described in my other post, the principle behind this is to allow the sole to become much thicker and put the horse’s weight on that sole, not on what’s left of the compromised wall. The loading of the sole pushes the dropped coffin bone back up in the skeleton. Sounds crazy, but it works.

Of course, when you make a horse walk on its sole, the horse pretty much has to be booted and given padding inside the boot or fitted with some sort of styrofoam taped to the feet.

The change in Robin’s feet has been remarkable. If I didn’t take the photos in the video below, I wouldn’t believe this was the same horse.

If I use the grooves next to the frog as a measurement for where the coffin bone is, as farrier Ramey suggests, it’s easy to see that the coffin bone has moved higher in the foot relative to the ground and the sole is actually starting to slough off some of the extra thickness as it works to become concave again.

Watch the video below of his foot transforming. The video is less than 90 seconds and rolls through photos of Robin’s left front foot from May 18, 2013, to October 12, 2013. I’m amazed.

Robin’s left front foot evolves from May 18, 2013, to October 12, 2013

Boot inserts for laminitic and foundered horses

Posted on: October 14, 2011

If you use any sort of therapeutic boot on your laminitic or foundered horse, I think I’ve found a good solution to the problem of the inserts always wearing out.

I spent months testing material at a company called McMaster-Carr, and the 1/4-inch neoprene rubber appears to be a winner as a basic insert.

You can order online. The material is shipped the same day, so you likely will have it the next day. Return the product if it isn’t what you needed.

The right material needs to be thin enough that it doesn’t add weight to the boot but thick enough not to fall apart. It needs to have some cushion for sore horses but again not fall apart. And it needs to have enough stiffness that it won’t bunch up under the horse’s foot.

What worked perfectly for Robin in 2012 was a medium-strength neoprene rubber plain back, 3/16-inch thick, 12-by-24 inch and 40A durometer (which is medium soft) for $19.74.

The website is www.mcmaster.com, and you can order by phone if it’s too confusing.

I have since tried the 1/4 inch thickness in the same material and liked it, too. And when Robin’s feet got sore recently, we went with 1/2-inch thick neoprene foam on top of the thinner neoprene rubber.

I have no affiliation with this group. I love its service, and I’m not spending $10 to $70 for boot inserts when I can get eight for $20. I thought others might share my concern for the cost of equine boot inserts.