Kentucky Horseshoeing School Therapeutic Module 1. Rood and Riddle.

You may want to read the introduction article here.

Dr. Scott Morrison of Rood and Riddle and staff.

Presentation: Heel pain. Club feet, laminitis (and their similarities). Low (compressed) heels. Quarter cracks. Keratoma. Infections. Foal and mature limb deviations.

Scott Morrison presentation

Some of the notes are:

Heel pain:

High heels:

• Poor colateral cartilage and bars. Bowker: bars produce palmar sole.
• Upright hoof = small surface area of navicular bone.
• Osteosclerotic lesions = inflamation (hardening and increased density of bone)
• Studies show check ligament surgeries have no effect.
• Bad 3′s and 4′s = consider inferior check ligament less than 12 months

Low heels:

• Osteoarticular, osteosclerotic, cistic, ligamentory
• Negative palmar angle.
• Rocker toe shoe works. Wedging low heels does not work.
• Collapsed heels can be helped with distal hoof wall bypass proceedure temporarily.
• Roller motion with heartbar shoe relieves compressed heels. Roller motion must allow stable stance.
• Consider onion heels loaded for use with prolapsed frog.

Laminitis:

• Acute = swelling and chronic = lamellar failure.
• Acute phase after care = wedge and soft boots for 2-3 weeks.
• Chronic phase = rail shoe. Height of rail equals abount of heel removed.
• Cast shoe if fungal infection for breathability.
• Tenotomy: Support to proximal P1. De-rotate to line of 0 degree palmar. Resets for tenotomy needs radiograph to verify angles. Keratex hoof putty to pack bad spots.

Foot infections:

Chuck Jones hoof soaking demonstration

• Soaking solution: Using a 5k cc IV bag add bran (works best) or cotton to bottom, a couple handfulls epsom salts, squirt of xenodine, squirt of DMSO, and a gallon of warm water. Wrap with elasticon.
• Quittor: infection of colateral cartilage.
• Osmotic sweat on animal lyntex against cloth side.
• Paint sole with blister/keratex on carpet felt.
• Copper sulfate in A.C.S.

Toe extensions: Forward of widest part of foot before 3 months.

Quarter crack stitching technique is rod wrapped in fiberglass.

Navicular bursa infections: need to be wedged for clinician to perform smoother surgery. Septic navicular bursa infections require adjustable (bolt on) patten shoe with treatment plate. 1/4″ carpet felt is used to go against insensitive tissue.

Keratoma: Shoe with open heart bar before surgery.

After the presentation we worked for several hours on welding. There were several tig and mig welders on hand to practice various techniques on aluminum and steel. I didn’t take any pictures because welding masks and cameras don’t go together so well. I do have some other ones for another time, however.

Tab Pigg gave us an overview of the use of Equithane products. This is Mr. Pigg applying a steel horseshoe with only equithane (no nails).
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I’m sorry, but I don’t have this German fellow’s name, but he demonstrated the use of Sigafoos shoes from Soundhorse The inventory required to be capable of reliably applying Sigafoos shoes is very expensive, and we need all of it to be successful at it.
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After all the demonstrations, we all got a chance to try our hand on lots of different products and therapeutic modalites with the help of all of the staff and clinicians.

hands on time

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Next up is the following weekend’s Module 2 with George Platt, DVM. It is an entirely different clinic. If you are at all interested in this post, the next will be very interesting too.

Contact the Kentucky Horseshoeing School http://www.kentuckyhorseshoeingschool.com/kcontact.shtml