gobarefoot: Deconstruction of traditional Farriery/Veterinary approach to Hoof Distortion

Here is an article from Fran Jurga's excellent HOOF BLOG. Its about the current AMERICAN FARRIERS' CONVENTION being held in KENTUCKY, USA.

I've taken the opportunity to deconstruct the traditional approach. Thanks to Fran for her report of the opening session. Perhaps next time the AFA might consider presenting an alternative barefoot approach in parallel with its traditional offerings....

Anyway, here is my commentary on Fran's report. I've sent them to Fran also.

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Dr Scott Morrison of Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, KY was the AFA convention's first speaker.

Predictors of a low turnout at this year's AFA Convention could not have been more wrong, if attendance at the convention's first lecture this morning is an indicator of how many people are here.

Kentucky is coated in snow/ice and I know some people were not able to get here, but many hundreds braved the elements!

I attended the kickoff lecture this morning, wedged into a crowded lecture hall. I was privileged to sit next to Blaine Chapman of Lubbock, Texas, son of the late-great heart bar expert farrier, Burney Chapman. Blaine's running commentary at a low whisper was approving as Dr Morrison sprinted through a 90-minute narrated slide show of interesting cases from the Podiatry Clinic at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital here in Lexington,Kentucky.

Cases that drew the most comments and questions were the ones where he showed correction of negative palmar angles with roller motion shoes (what can the shoes provide that a simple trim cannot?) and his preference for the use of hoof casts on hoof wall avulsion and heel bulb injuries.

Much of the wall/bulb injury lecture really was based on the encouragement of new growth, what Dr Morrison calls the foot's ability to "epithelialize" (if you understand that maximizing the ability to expand and contract, and using frog pressure and release you will increase circulation to the foot, then you ‘get’ the concept of maximizing growth. More circulation equates with more growth. A shoe impairs expansion and contraction of the hoof capsule and therefore impairs growth vis a vis that of an unshod hoof.) (generate new epithelial tissue, as in skin; epithelial simply means cells that form the outer lining of an organ or body structure. Endothelium is the inner lining.).

He recommended using tissue-friendly antiseptics, rather than iodine "...and not kerosene" he added with a chuckle.

Inventing another verb, Morrison said he "domes" the foot surface of his foot casts. Under the casting padding on the wall is povidene creme or a similar antiseptic, covered with gauze, with carpet felt under the sole. He also "domed" a wet leather pad before shoeing, inserted hoof packing from a gun, so the pad bubbled outward, forming a domed ground surface.
Barefoot trimmers are using domed pads [www.easycareinc.com] in boots but DON’T cast the hoof.

While some criticize the use of casts, Morrison saw no problem with leaving them on, and was confident in the healthy growth that he would find what it was removed. He said that if the coronary band is not under pressure from weightbearing, the growth will be more rapid. (This is correct according to Dr Robert Bowker’s research. Which is one of the reasons why he argues that horses should NOT be peripherally loaded. Any shoe peripherally loads the hoof as it is nailed to the wall)

A big hit was his slide of a racehorse with an interference injury: the front shoe was imbedded in the coronet of the hind foot. Also food for thought: he showed a severely neglected miniature horse with grossly overgrown hooves.After a cleanup trim, the horse required extension shoes to stand because the collateral ligaments of the coffin joint (and probably the fetlock joint as well), had been so stretched by the deformity. (Barefoot trimmers call in a chiropractor or body worker to do adjustments so that a horse which has been so muscularly and skeletally stressed can be assisted to regain a normal posture. This is particularly the case when the horse - having had high heels trimmed, continues to walk on its toes. Instead of wedging and thus keeping the DDF contracted, they get the body adjusted so the horse can ‘let down’. And of course this is in boots and pads to minimize discomfort.)

At the end of the lecture, a line formed to ask questions.

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It would be very interesting at a future conference to have a well-regarded barefoot trimmer give a presentation in parallel with a conventional farriery/veterinary approach. It would have been GREAT to see how somebody such as Cindy Sullivan, or Pete Ramey or Jaime Jackson would have approached the same or similar cases.
- Rebecca Scott (www.gobarefoot.typepad.com & www.gobarefoot.com.au)

Comments

Hello, you have misinterpreted what I wrote and what Dr Morrison said. He was referring to a dome on the bottom of the foot, creating a rounded ground surface. He was not referring to your pad. Two completely different things.

Your comments on my article have been reprinted as if I was suggesting that barefoot trimmers could have countered Dr Morrison with that pad.

I did not say that. I understand what Dr. Morrison was saying and it was you who misinterpreted.

Could you please remove your quotes from inside my article, since people obviously think that I said what you said, which is not the case?

Please let me know when this correction has been made.

Thank you.

Fran Jurga

Posted by: Fran Jurga | June 11, 2008 at 12:07 PM