Appreciation post: Heard a vet say something about hoof wall separation that clicked for me

I was at a clinic in Lexington last month, just grabbing coffee, and overheard a vet talking to another farrier. She said, 'You know, we treat the crack, but we often forget to ask WHY the wall is pulling away from the white line in the first place. It's a symptom, not the disease.' That hit me hard. I've spent so much time patching and gluing quarter cracks, but her point was to look at the whole hoof capsule health. Now, when I see that start, I'm checking the diet for sugar, the trim for balance, and the ground they stand on all day. It made me slow down and think about the root cause before I even pick up my knife. Has anyone else had a case where fixing the environment fixed the crack better than any patch job?

2 comments

2 Comments

skylerr233d ago

That's a really good point about looking for the cause. Just one small thing, the vet probably said the wall was pulling away from the laminae, not the white line. The white line is the space between the wall and the sole, it's not really a structure that gets pulled from. The laminae are the Velcro-like stuff that holds the wall to the coffin bone. When that fails, you get separation. But yeah, totally agree, you gotta fix the reason that Velcro is letting go, not just slap a patch on the crack that shows up later.

nina8343d ago

Oh great, so now we're all getting corrected on hoof anatomy by the coffee shop vets? Guess my whole career is a lie.