Locking stiffles....

I already asked "fred" about this since shes' a farrier but thought i'd put it out here for a bigger population. Ok so I have a 3 year old colt that has locking stiffles. Last fall we had a very very muddy wet fall up here and He was locking up A LOT. to the point i really thought he was either going to have to be put down or have SOMETHING done. It was like every few steps he'd lock up and he'd have to fight with it or drag it around for a little bit. I gave him some "time" because i know it can be somewhat age related... Then winter hit and it seemed to go away almost immediately and he's been fine ever since. I was excited thinking maybe he'd outgrown it or something was just going "right" for him. I assumed it was the mud was causing him to slip and maybe make the ligaments in the stiffle malfunction. Well yesterday I trimmed his feet and he's a little bit of a turd and and likes to try to pull his feet away from you so i just held on. I felt the stiffle pop. He was locking up after and today. Since this i've got to thinking i did his feet in the fall i think before all this happend so badly. I don't remember him "popping" but maybe that irritated it.. ANYWAYS one way or the other i was wondering if having their feet trimmed and having their legs picked up in that possition causes it to flair up more or whatnot. Anyone observed anything like this?

Almost every case of locking stifle I have seen comes and goes. That's probably why some breeders justify breeding horses with locking stifle... because it's not consistent. It's not a glaring problem that they have to see every single day.

I won't have a horse with a locking stifle (lost money on a horse I sent back, no money returned) even a show gelding because unless you do the surgery, your horse might or might not walk into the ring and lock up. Even the surgery... with the demands of performance and conditioning... puts a lot of strain on the joint.

Squaring off the toe/keeping the toe short definitely helps relieve the condition.

Andrea

yes..i've followed some of the stuff on here with people that has problems with it. He will not be bred that's for certain. Though he also only has one testicle..he's a problem child that's for sure. I"ve been having a blast driving him but he'll probably be more of a pet than anything while he's here since I have numberous others that i'd rather focus on. i just hate the fact that maybe by TRIMMING it's causing it to flair up..but you certainly can't NOT trim them.....

I've never had a horse with a locking stifle, but I do have a little gelding here that hurt his stifle a couple years ago--he got down & cast & kind of hung up in the plank fence, and in the process he did something to his stifle. He's never locked up nor even had a problem with the stifle "catching' momentarily, but he had a few weeks where he was very very sore on that leg. He's better now but there are times when he holds that leg a bit awkwardly & I know the stifle is bothering him. This definitely shows up more after he gets his feet trimmed; in fact while I'm trimming I can tell that it's uncomfortable for him to have his leg up that way. I'm careful about how I hold his leg up and try to let him keep it as low & straight as possible but even then it does bother him.

So yes, I'm sure that trimming (not the trimming itself, but holding the leg up for trimming) could very well bother a horse with a locking stifle problem, and particularly if there's any tug-of-war with the foot when you're trying to hold it up & he's trying to take it away. As you said, you can't not trim him--all you can do is try to hold the foot up so that the leg stays in as natural a position as possible--don't lift the foot too high, nor pull it sideways at all, and don't hang on too hard if he tries to pull the foot away.

I have a TB that locks up on occasion. Only when she is stalled up, this condition seems to pop up. She just started doing it at the age of 3.

The best thing to do if you are leading your horse and this happens is to push him/her backwards a step or so. This will unlock the stifle, instead of it snapping into place.

backing has never worked for him i've just found I have to let him come out of it on his own..nothing i've ever done will unlock it.

We have a horse that has had this since birth. He is now a yearling. It is better than it was last year. Someday he doesn't haven't it at all but other days it is very noticable. He was just gelded and is a very sweet boy. Hopfully in time we will find someone to take his as a pet.

Traci and Family

I have a mare who had a locking stifle. At first it was simply a little "catch" in the joint, and she could usually take a step and sort of kick it back into gear.

But one day the stifle became permanently locked. We took her to the Univ. of Wisconsin Vet School and Clinics, and they injected it with some ungodly black concoction that was the consistency of tar. The purpose of this was to "irriate" the locking ligament so it would swell and more easily slip off the femoral protusion. This was a dismal failure, and I would never subject a horse to it again. The mare had to be laid on her side, and the needle was HUGE, in order to carry this tar-like substance, and it took 27 minutes to get it all inside.

So, after bringing her home and realizing this hadn't worked, we went back to our regular vet, and he talked about cutting the ligament. Our mare's leg was now permanently locked, and pointing straight out under her belly. He cut the ligament, and that was a dismal failure as well. Our vet was very upset and said he would never preform this type of surgery on a horse again. There is a newer type of surgery in which instead of cutting the ligament, they only cut slits in it, and he said he was going to do a lot more research into it.

She is still going around with the locked stifle. She puts all her weight on the other rear leg, but when she DOES go into a trot or canter, the bad leg *will* touch the ground.

She doesn't seem to be in much pain, but her musculature as seen from the rear is definitely lopsided, as the weight-bearing side is much more built up. She gave us a foal this year. I had my doubts about breed her last year, but two different vets said a foal shouldn't be a problem. The mare had a very easy delivery, but I was more concerned about her carrying the extra weight of a foal on only three legs. I had not bred her the year before, as that's when she had her surgery. She seemed so despondent when the other mares had foals and she didn't that I decided to breed her last year. She really seems very happy and not in pain, but it is a problem to do her feet. We must lay her down on her side when we do the *good* rear leg, as she can't put any weight on the bad leg. We hate doing this to her and are considering rigging up some type of sling or hoist from the ceiling instead of laying her down.

My 7 year old shetland has had locking stifles since he was 3. He did the splits in the mud as far as we can figure out. We could not afford a surgery because no local vets did it and we would have had to drive a 5 or 6 hour (one way) trip with no guarentee of it actually working and a painful recovery. I would really like to give the new ligament slicing thing a try but once again very expensive and no local vets. So we had an equine massage therapist come out. She charged 75 dollars and did sooooooo much good. If i could afford it i would have it done on him once a month. But that one massage helped so drastically. He never "outgrew" it but he leads a happy healthy life and very rarely locks up for more than a second or 2. The only problem with him is that when i am leading him and we stop then thats usually when the stifles catches when we start walking again. His case is not as severe as many cases so i am training him to drive.

Sandy--I've never heard of a locked stifle allowing the leg to point straight out under the belly? I thought everything I've heard/seen/read indicates that when a stifle locks, the leg is stuck out behind the horse--stifle & hock joints are locked in a fully extended position, unable to flex.

Was the vet able to free the patella by manipulation? I've never heard of a locked stifle being impossible to free manually, though it may require general anesthetic in a few cases.

I have heard the blister isn't very successful in the long term, but the tendon cutting surgery does work. The medial patellar ligament is responsible for holding the patella in an upward position, so severing this ligament is supposed to make upward fixation mechanically impossible.

I do trimming on a miniature gelding, for a friend of mine that owns one with this problem.. Every step he takes seems to give him trouble.. Sometimes he will move quickly, and unlock himself temporarly.

He is a product of poor breeding selection, as it is heriditary.. When I do his back leg, he has to unpop it, so I can hold it to trim. (and I hold them low), as he cant even lift them slightly with out unpoping them..