Please remember!

The information presented on this blog represents "learning in progress" on my part, a horse owner, who was not satisfied with professional farriers and took matters in my own hands. As far as I am aware at the time of the post, the information presented is correct, but may change with me understanding more about hooves, in which case I will edit or remove the post. In order to follow my learning and understand everything about Molly's hoof, you need to start reading at the bottom.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

"geometric" vs. "result-oriented"



This paper describes the two methods that I used to balance Molly's front right hoof:

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1874681

J Am Vet Med Assoc. 1991 Jun 1;198(11):1980-9.

Factors involved in the balancing of equine hooves. 

Balch O, White K, Butler D.

Department of Veterinary and Comparative Anatomy, Pharmacology and Physiology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Washington State University, Pullman 99164.

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The two methods are: the "t-square (geometric)" method and the "result-oriented" method.

The 2 pictures below are taken from that paper. The case shown is very similar to Molly's case, "base-narrow and toed-out". And this horse too lands on his lateral quarter/toe just like Molly does.

This sentence was especially encouraging:

"Use of Moyer and Anderson's result oriented technique is often more successful in treating lameness than the geometric procedure."

If it treats lameness better, it must be better for Molly, who thankfully never was lame.




3 comments:

  1. I'm dealing with the same thing with my pony and trying to figure out the best way to trim. He is not lame :) but want to keep it that way.

    Is having the coffin bone balanced laterally the key? How accurate is the collateral groove test? It's hard for me to measure that depth exactly. I could be off slightly in measuring so I hesitate to start rasping away if my measurement isn't perfect.

    The lateral sides on the fronts tend to look longer, so I shorten them. But it keeps growing back that way again. So, does this mean something is wrong with this method? Shouldn't they be wearing evenly?

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  2. From my limited experience with Molly, I would say that the collateral grooves are giving the correct estimate of wall length medial and lateral. So I first trim according to those and then see how Molly loads the foot. I want a small "flip" between when she lands on her lateral side and then flips over medially. For me it is too early to say if the lateral side keeps coming back higher than medial. SO far I have not observed that..

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  3. Why are you wanting a small "flip"? Are you saying that she will land on the outside wall/heel and then rock over? I thought you didn't want the rocking med/lat?

    I've got 3 hooves landing evenly med/lat. Now it's just the right hind. He lands on the outside heel and rocks over during the stride. According the the lateral groove depth, the outside is deeper..so the coffin bone would be further off the ground on the outside. I took the outside heel down slightly but but the hoof still seems to rock. I just don't know what to do now?? Stumped :(

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