6 week old filly down on her heels...

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Calekio

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My little filly foal was very down on her feels when she was born, as she was very crumpled i just keep an eye on it, hoping she'd come up.

However she didn't and by 4 weeks old we had the farrier out, he said she wasn't great but not the worse he'd seen, he trimmed her and said to monitor her, she might come up with just corrective trimming, however there would be chance she'd need supports to bring her up.

That was 2 weeks ago and although when she stood she was down on her heels the back when she walked she was on her hooves.

Past few days though i noticed her go right down and now when walking she is on her heels and when i was looking at her this morning it looked like she was starting to go on the heels at the front as well!

Called farrier who said time to get vet involved so she is booked in on thursday, will be guided by vet/farrier on how we go about correcting her.

But this is the first foal we've ever had go down on the heels, so no experiance of this. Do they come up eventually? What sort of treatment might be looking at? And is this something heredority? Neither parents have ever had foals who have done this but not really sure about all this!

Advice/Experiances please.
 
I would definately be calling my vet for his opinion. I have heard that selenium deficiency can cause this...so if you are lucky, it might be repaired easily with a few shots...

Here's hoping.
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Hi, I have had experience with foals being down on their heels a couple of times. It seems to be associated with one stallion that seems to be producing this. His first filly was very down and her feet seemed to roll from her heel to her toe. What I did was trim the toes only until the heels had a chance to catch up. It took a good year of corrective trimming but now as a two year old she is perfect!

This year this stallion also sired a colt that was even worse then the fiily. He needed his toes trimmed as soon as his feet hardened enough after he was born. He has been trimmed 3 times since and is gradually coming a long. Again I only trim his toes and maybe touch up the heels with a rasp. The key is to closely watch your foal and you may need her trimmed a touch every few weeks.

This has just been my experience and not a replacement for you vets opinion. You may want to have them out to check her and give you the right plan of action for your situation. Good luck with your filly. Joyce
 
I've had to acrylic shoes on several and all except the dwarfs end up okay.

You can order magic shoes, but your farrier can make little egg bar shoes out of plastic pads and acrylic them on.

If you're farrier hasn't done this before, you can pm me and I can tell them how I do it.
 
I second the use of acrylic shoes. I work for a vet who highly recommends using acrylic to build up and support the heel region of foals who aren't coming up on their own. We had a standardbred foal born on his farm this year who walked on her heels from day one. Now , after using acrylic shoes for only a few short weeks, you can't even tell that she ever had a problem.

Talk to your vet and your farrier. Hopefully the two of them will work together and help you out
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Well she is booked it for the vets, then the vet will be talking to the farrier.

My farrier said that he wouldn't have wanted to touch her before 4 weeks, to see if she'd come up on her own, she was trimmed 2 weeks ago and her toes were long, but now i can't see that its her toes causing her to go down.

All in all, all 4 legs have some degree of problem, she is down more on one back heel, and the other toe points out, her front one she is going down on the heel on one and the other ones points out (oppisite front & back are pointing out)

Pics..

Her one day old

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Taken tonight - She kept moving so they don't look as bad as they do in the flesh so to speak.

From looking at pics of foals who are totally down she could be a lot worse actually, so hopefully she'll come up quickly enough.

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I think the recent pics look much better than the first pic - her toes are not pointing to the sky with space in between.

Many things cannot be corrected with just one trim, but I do think she looks better than she did. I would still go ahead and have your vet take a look to make sure the trim is a balanced one (as to why her hoof toes out perhaps?) and see what else can be done and if there might be something else that is going on.

Keep after it, she will continue to improve with good trimmings.
 
My seven-week-old Shetland filly is doing something similar. I have been having the farriers trim every three weeks or so, but she just was wearing her heels and not the toe. It was making me ill just looking at it so I told them to FIX IT. I can't imagine what those little bones would look like in x-rays.

I had my farriers take pictures before and after, there is NO trimming in these photos between.

They basically used SuperFast to glue on a tiny bit of a wedge pad to get her angles right, and there is no pad on the toe so it can hopefully wear normally. We will see how it works. If it works okay I will continue to get pictures. They are hoping these little shoes will stay on for four weeks to evaluate at that time.

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Andrea
 
I have successfully used half of a suitably-sized strap hinge to make an 'extended heel' shoe of sorts for just this sort of thing. It is 'low tech', but has worked QUITE well, without expensive farrier costs...

I helped an acquaintance put this on a half-Arabian foal years ago; using the properly BENT half hinge(bent to match the properly TRIMMED toe of the hoof, and so that the 'rings' of the hinge(placed down) would extend behind the heel a ways once it was in place, then firmly DUCT TAPED to the hoof(NOT up the leg, however!). It didn't stay on over a day or so, but it was easy to re-do, and wasn't needed but for a few days, when done early enough.

I also, on more than one occasion, SERIOUSLY 'squared the toe' of a foal that was having this issue. I did it myself, on my vet's instruction, and it also worked VERY well; however, I do NOT recommend trying this unless under your vet or knowledgeable farrier's expert guidance and advice.

I can say that I have had foals quite literally BORN needing their feet trimmed, and further, TRULY 'needing' trimming as often as every 10 days-2 weeks for a time afterward. I did not worry much about toeing out a bit, esp. in front, in a very young foal, as that is kind of a 'typical' stance, usually due to a narrow torso(chest), long legs, and a 'relatively' short neck (watch a foal trying to begin to reach the ground to graze!), so one has to be cautious about 'overcorrecting' a very young foal for such 'supposed' toeing out. However, the overlong toe growth, coupled with 'underrun' heels, esp. behind, do need to be addressed early on.

Margo
 
Many farriers have access to an acrylic product much like what is used for women's fingernails.It is put on wet and dries and hardens just like a hoof .It can be rasped and even nailed into.The heel is built up like it is normal and in a correct standing position-then rasped and filed just like a normal shape hoof.We used it successfully many years ago and also used something similiar to glue aluminum shoes on a dwarf.I think Jeffers sells the prducts.It is often used for quarter cracks on big horses.Good luck and keep us posted on the progress.
 
You mean like this??????????

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I have never seen a foal born so screwed up in my life and he had to be mine. My first born.

I was sure he was a dwarf.

THIS IS TIMMY!!!!!!!!! When he was a baby.......I was just besides myself until a forum member called me and told me exactly what needed to be done. Now mind you, my vet wanted to put all kinds of shoes and braces on him and glue junk to his feet and that freaked me out too; but I chose to listen to the forum member and thank heavens I did.

This was due to a selinum deficiency around here that is actually in a lot more places than you'd like to think. This is what I had to do.....all it took:

1. Feed up the lacktating mare a lot more than what I was feeding and top dress her food with good free choice minerals/and/or/a good broad spectrum vitamin. The feed I was giving was just not enough in this case and it was depriving Timmy of nutrients he needed which caused this mess.

2. Put out a 50 pound white salt block and red trace mineral block. (Timmy went for it like you cannot imagine and he could have all he wanted) plus free choice minerals. I also got him to eat some out of my hand. It was Purina 12 12 minerals.

3. Weekly feet trimmings. It became a Wednesday night ritual. NEVER use nippers! Just rasp the toe straight across SQUARE. It is no big deal and we never did feet before. Just rasp straight across plain and simple. As for the bottom of the feet, same thing, just a little 2 or 3 swipes across the bottom of the foot.

Just as forum member predicted, this corrected in just a few short weeks and before you knew it he was UP and completely normal. Its not happened like that ever again because I learned a much better feed program for pregnant mares than what I had Timmy's mother on.

Who knew such a screwy looking horse would grow into a gorgeous animal........Timmy is drop dead gorgeous and in hindsight, I could shoot myself for gelding him now.

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Good luck! You'll be fine.
 
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Just let them out to play al day and preferably also night, they will straiten up while they get stronger.

Ofcourse do the corrective trimming.

And yes sometimes selenium can help, also adding it to the mares feed when she´s in foal.
 

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