Joint Care Archives - Life Data® Blog

June 2, 2022June 2, 2022

Correlations Between Equine Hoof and Joint Health: PART 2

In Part 1 of “Correlations Between Equine Hoof and Joint Health,” we discussed how nutrition and body condition are two major factors influencing the health of equine hooves and joints. In part 2, we will concentrate on external and mechanical elements that could be creating stress on your horse’s hooves and joints. Many of the hoof and joint problems we see today can be attributed to the long-term effects of offloading, exposure to hard terrain, and unbalanced hooves.

Offloading

Offloading occurs when a horse “offloads” its weight onto one side to compensate for pain, injury, or discomfort. This is common for horses suffering from a joint injury or a hoof issue such as an abscess. The horse’s anatomy is designed for the entire weight of the horse to be evenly distributed between all four legs. The weight distribution becomes unbalanced when the horse offloads, causing the opposite leg(s) to bear additional weight. Over time, the extra weight may adversely affect the health of the hooves and joints. Some of the problems that can develop are:

Joint Injury
Hoof cracks
Chronic Arthritis
Laminitis
Poor hoof quality
Hoof imbalance
Joint inflammation

Offloading: What to Do?

If you witness your horse offloading weight, contact your farrier or veterinarian to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Your farrier and veterinarian can work with your horse to discover what is causing the pain and discomfort in the hoof or joint. If there is no permanent damage, they can work towards a solution to bring relief. Depending on the initial issue and severity of the problem, your farrier’s expertise in balancing and/or correct shoe application will assist in reducing the effects of offloading.

Terrain Impact

Although wet and muddy environments take a toll on hoof health, terrain also plays an essential aspect in the longevity of the joints and the health of the hooves. When the hoof strikes a surface, the force from the landing is absorbed throughout the leg. Higher levels of concussion occur with the harder landing surfaces such as frozen ground, concrete/pavement, and rocky terrain. Frequent impact on hard surfaces can weaken hoof and joint integrity, leading to one or more issues such as:

Joint deterioration
Bruised /swollen joints
Arthritis
Road founder
Sore and bruised soles
Hoof cracks
Hoof abscesses
Lameness

Terrain: What to Do?

The most straightforward answer is to reduce the amount of time your horse spends on these hard surfaces. Unfortunately, this may not be possible due to your location or the horse’s work. The best way to prevent damage from hard surfaces is to build healthy hooves and joints with nutrition. A healthy, stronger hoof is much more resilient to hard surfaces. Healthier hooves also reduce the amount of impact felt through the joints. Stronger joints are also more likely to stand up to wear and tear. Utilizing nutrition and hoof and joint supplementation is one of the easiest ways to promote hoof and joint health. Regular exercise and maintaining balanced hooves are also keys to prevention.

Unbalanced Hooves

A horse with unbalanced hooves is like a car out of alignment, driving down the road wearing down the tires. Unbalanced hooves predispose horses to hoof and joint issues. Ideally, the horse’s hoof contacts the ground as a unit, distributing the weight impact force evenly across the weight-bearing surface of the hoof. An unbalanced set of hooves will lead to an uneven distribution of weight and force across the hooves and the lower limb joints. The imbalance adds additional strain to the health of the hoof and joints. The risk of injury from tripping, stumbling, or an unnatural landing is more likely to occur, especially in performance horses who are actively running, jumping, and exercising. Unbalanced hooves can affect both barefoot and shod horses, and several problems can develop from this issue:

Hoof distortion
Increase risk of thrush and white line disease
Hoof abscesses
Hoof or joint-related injuries
Laminitis
Joint deterioration
Hoof wall defects and separation
Heel bulb displacement
Microbial invasion

Unbalanced Hooves: What to Do?

The best solution is to work with your farrier to balance the hooves. Horse owners should pay close attention to their horse’s hooves. Clean and pick the feet daily and examine the hoof for changes or problems. Never be afraid to bring up a hoof balance concern with your farrier or veterinarian. You can learn more about the importance of well-balanced hooves in our previous blog.

Protecting hoof and joint health is essential to the longevity of your horse. If you believe your horse has sustained an injury or has developed an issue, consult with your farrier and veterinarian. Contact us if you have any questions regarding this article.

June 14, 2019August 9, 2021

Equine Joints: Prolonging the Career of a Working Horse

What is a Working Horse?

A working horse can be classified as any horse involved in labor or athletics. This includes horses that participate in the following activities:

Jumping
Racing
Pulling
Trail riding
Farm work
Long distance riding

Reining
Barrel Racing
Driving
Eventing
Dressage
Many other occupations

These athletic activities put extra strain on equine joints and muscles. The horse’s joints will begin to wear as it continues to work and perform, often leading to discomfort, loss of mobility, and bone-on-bone movement. Unfortunately, the deterioration of the horse’s joints often lead to a shorter career.

Younger horses are physically strong but are immature and lack experience. Older horses are mature and well trained, but their bodies are no longer in peak condition. Although different for each discipline or workload, there is a short window of time where the horse is in peak physical and mental condition. For example, most Dressage horses perform between the ages of 8-10, where racing horses tend to start competing and retiring much earlier. This can be frustrating for many horse owners who are continually training new horses. After investing so much time, money, and love into our working horses, it’s understandable that we want to see them stay at the top of their game for as long as possible. So, how do we extend the working life of our horses?

Prevention = Preservation

It is much easier to prevent a joint injury than to fix one. Therefore, prevention is key when discussing how to extend the career of a working horse. By taking the necessary steps to protect equine joints, you are protecting the investment you have made into that horse. Below are a few tips on how to extend the career of your working horse.

Supporting Equine Joints with a Balanced Diet

A balanced diet is one of the most important factors in extending the career of your horse. Improper nutrition can lead to a range of hoof, joint, skin, and health related issues.
- For example: Excess protein in a horse’s diet can cause inflammation in the joints.
Providing proper nutrition supports the energy and strength needed to meet extra physical demands. This can make the horse more resilient to injury, recover faster after work, and provide essential nutrients for proper health.

Pregnancy and Birth

Many aspects of your horse’s health can be influenced during pregnancy. This is particularly true in the case of joint and bone health. Fetal development is dependent of the nutrition and health of the mare. Ensuring that the mare is healthy and receiving proper nutrition can help the development of a newborn foal.
The health and development of a young foal is a foundation for a healthy adult horse. Improper nutrition and care can negatively affect this development and lead to future problems.
- Learn about feeding Barn Bag® Broodmare and Growing Horse.

Hoof Care

A horse cannot perform at its full potential with unhealthy hooves. Horses inflicted with a hoof related issue can experience pain, discomfort, or become lame. Even a small hoof crack can lead to serious issues if left unchecked. Attempting to perform with unhealthy hooves can also lead to injury.
If your horse is inflicted with a hoof related issue that is causing pain, it may begin to distribute its weight to the other hooves for relief. This weight imbalance can weaken the other hooves and apply more pressure to the joints.
Unbalanced hooves can also create future hoof and joint problems for your horse. Balanced hooves evenly distribute the weight of your horse across all four hooves. If the hooves become unbalanced, this distribution becomes uneven, and adds extra weight to certain joints. If this uneven distribution continues, joint and hoof problems may follow.
A regular farrier schedule along with daily hoof care, a balanced diet, and hoof supplementation can all help maintain healthy hooves.

Supplementation and Remedies for Equine Joints

Supplementation for equine joints can be used to help ensure your horse is receiving the nutrients needed to maintain healthy joints, hooves, or maintain body condition. Providing a joint supplement or formula is especially important for the working horse. Feeding a quality joint formula regularly and early in the horse’s career can help protect the joint from injury and extend the life of your horse’s joints.
When supplementing with a joint formula, it is also important to be mindful of over supplementation. Especially if you are feeding a separate hoof supplement. We recommend using a combination hoof and joint formula that not only helps lubricate and reduce inflammation in the joints, but also strengthens the ligaments that support the joints.

Proper Training

It is important to know the limitations of your horse while training. Don’t push your horse too hard too fast, and always warm up before going to work. Start out slow and work your way up. Pushing your horse past their limitations can damage the joints and lead to injury. An injury early in your horse’s career can lead to future problems, and an injury late in your horse’s career can end it.

If your horse is injured or begins experiencing joint pain, it is important to consult with your veterinarian. Feel free to contact us if you have questions regarding equine health at cservice@lifedatalabs.com.

February 22, 2018May 4, 2022

Does My Horse Need A Joint Supplement?

Farrier Supporting Horse's Joint Some of you may already be asking yourself the question, “Should I be providing my horse a joint supplement or formula ?” Maybe you’re noticing that your once energetic horse is slowing down and seems to be stiff and not as nimble. Perhaps your award-winning steed is now taking longer to recover after a competition or a long ride. Maybe your horse is young and thriving and you want to prolong its life and career.

We all want to see our horses live a long, healthy, and enjoyable life, but can a joint supplement really make a difference? Would your horse benefit from receiving this form of joint support?

What is a Joint Problem?

Before we go on any further, we first need to establish what is a joint problem. To make the joint work, it takes the collaboration of tendons, cartilage, bone, soft tissue, and fluid. Any number of these working parts can develop problems and create discomfort in the joint. Some of you may not consider a joint problem an issue until it’s just that – an issue, but a joint problem begins at the first signs of discomfort in the joint. If you ignore the first signs of a problem, it will likely bring more discomfort and develop more issues for you and your horse. If you pay close attention, you can catch the signs of joint discomfort before it develops into something worse or creates irreversible damage.

Does Your Horse Have a Joint Problem?

So, how do we know a problem is there? As the horse owner, you will spend more time with your horse than anyone. You are familiar with your horse’s personality, habits, the way it walks, and so on. You are the first person in a line of checks and balances concerning the health and well being of your horse. Watch the way your horse walks and runs. Keep an eye out for any changes to it’s gate or any initial signs of discomfort.

These signs of discomfort can especially be seen when you pick up the foot to clean and pick the hoof. Also discuss your horse’s health with your farrier. If you’re regularly maintaining your horse’s hooves, your farrier will be working with your horse’s feet and legs on a regular basis. Your farrier will see the signs of discomfort in the joints as they watch your horse walk or pick up the foot to work on the hoof. Your veterinarian can also assist you in determining if there is an actual problem. Horse Jumping

Preventing Joint Issues and Injuries

It is also important to note that it is much easier to prevent a joint issue than to try and fix one. Prevention is all about protecting the joint before a problem can develop and extending the life and durability of your horse’s joints. Prevention is especially important for horse owners that are regularly using their horse for competition or for work. Competing with your horse in the form of racing, jumping, dressage, three-day eventing, reining, roping, barrel racing, or other athletic competitions and training will regularly apply stress to the joints of your horse. These horses are at the highest risk of developing joint issues or suffering from a joint injury.

Just think of a human athlete. How many NBA, MLB, or NFL stars have we seen fall early in their careers due to an injury involving a joint? Today, these stars are taking precautions to extend the life of their careers. Eating healthier, stretching, taking supplements and staying in shape. It is an investment for them to prolong the life of their careers. We can do the same thing for our athletic horse and extend the life of their athletic careers through their diets, training, and supplementation.

Providing a joint formula like Farrier’s Formula® DS Plus Joint will deliver the ingredients important for the health of the joints and will make the joints more flexible and less prone to injury. These ingredients will also help your horse recover more quickly after a competition and compete at its peak performance. By providing a joint formula early you’re not only preventing future problems but investing in the longevity of your horse.

Joint Supplement for Horses

Supplementing will also help relieve discomfort and pain for a horse that has already developed joint issues. If you have an athletic horse that developed an injury during competition or training, the ingredients in a joint formula will help rebuild and strengthen the connective tissue within the joint. Providing a joint supplement or formula will also support relief to the problem areas, allowing your horse to regain movement that was once too painful to make. This is especially important for the older horse who may be arthritic or have problems due to the build up of past injuries. This will prolong the longevity of your horse, strengthen the joints, and help prevent issues from worsening.

Factors that affect horse joints

You may not be jumping hurdles or taking your horse on week long rides, but it doesn’t mean problems can’t occur. Providing a joint supplement or formula is never a bad idea, especially if you are seeking to extend your horse’s ability to work and compete or wish to address issues developed from injury or age. If you are looking for joint support, we recommend Farrier’s Formula DS Plus Joint.

Farrier’s Formula® DS Plus Joint strengthens the connective tissues of the joints, tendons and ligaments and contains ingredients to promote lubrication of the joints. The inclusion of proline, ornithine, and manganese provide targeted joint support. This product contains the sulfur needed for joint health in the form of the amino acids methionine and cysteine. Farrier’s Formula® DS Plus Joint also provides ingredients important for hoof growth and joint repair without the concern of over supplementation that could occur from feeding a separate hoof and joint supplement. If you have any questions on Farrier’s Formula® DS Plus Joint, proper supplementation, or on joint health please call us at 1-800-624-1873.

February 1, 2018July 19, 2021

How Important are Well Balanced Hooves?

If you own a horse or grew up around horses, you have probably heard the saying “No Hoof, No Horse.” Many of us horse lovers take this statement to heart. Without healthy feet, a horse is unable to be a horse. Running, working, riding – all these activities become a chore; a painful chore at that.

The importance of a healthy hoof is well established, but what about a balanced hoof? Can an imbalanced hoof create hoof related issues? If so, what issues can arise from an imbalanced foot?

Farrier’s on Balanced Hooves

We took this question to Darren Owen, a professional farrier, and asked, “Is a balanced hoof important to hoof health?” Here is what he had to say:

“In my opinion the answer would be yes. The imbalanced foot may become predisposed to the invasion of Thrush or White Line Disease. When the hoof of the horse has greater weight responsibilities placed upon it in an uneven fashion it may distort.

This distortion will promote the separation of the wall from the sole and allow for bacterial / fungal invasion. I recently had an opportunity to speak with a number of farriers on the topic of “Hoof wall separation.” While this conversation was taking place, imbalance and distortion were discussed as a cause of the wall separations that harbor tremendous bacterial / fungal invasions.”

We took the same question to Dave Giza, another professional farrier, and asked him about his experience with imbalanced hooves.

“When I trim and shoe a horse, I always pay very close attention to the placement/balance of the heels, how deep the cleft split of the frogs are (the groove/split that starts in the back of the central sulcus of the frog that transitions up the back of the heels and between the heel bulbs), and to the movement of the heel bulbs themselves.

If a horse has well balanced feet, with both heels contacting the ground at the same time, there will be very little independent movement of the heel bulbs, frog cleft/split will be shallow, and the horse will be sound. If the trim is out of balance, with the medial side hitting first and then the lateral side or vice versa, there will be independent heel bulb movement and separation that will cause lameness issues.

Hoof Imbalance with cleft split starting at the frog central sulcas and splitting up into the hair line.

Separation of Heel Bulbs — Insertion of narrow blade vet knife into the frog cleft to show depth and separation of heel bulbs.

If you look at the hoof from the back and visualize a triangle (the base of the triangle having points at the medial and lateral side of the hoof and the top of the triangle at the apex of the frog cleft), this will present a better picture of what is actually happening.

When the base of the triangle hits evenly on the ground, there is no movement at the top of the triangle, just compression as the bulbs move as one unit. However, if the triangle base hits the ground, one side first followed by the other, the top of the cleft will be forced to move from right to left or vice versa.

This imbalance will cause tearing and or shearing of the soft tissues between the heels, and deep heel splits that cause the heel bulbs to gap open and allow debris to enter into the cleft gap. Now the stage has been set for infected/swollen sheared heels. The debris that is lodged deep into the frog cleft becomes Thrush, the constant independent movement of each heel bulb and shearing causes the heel bulbs to become irritated and swell closed, the developing thrush is entrapped, and the result is a very sore heeled, lame horse.”

Dave Giza’s Recent Client

Balanced Trim — Balanced trim with infected central sulcas and frog cleft.

“I recently drove 700 miles to treat a horse named Cody diagnosed with equine Canker; however, Cody was misdiagnosed and rather suffered from infected, sheared heels. Without a doubt, Cody’s issues were caused by improper trimming.

Upon examination, I found that the heels of each hoof were out of balance, causing heel bulb displacement with deep frog clefts penetrating up into the hairline and entrapping infection. The infection not only compromised the heel bulbs, but had also started to compromise each frog. I trimmed, balanced, thoroughly cleaned and treated each sheared/split heel on Cody’s hooves.”

Farrier Conclusion

Both farriers agree, balanced hooves are important to hoof health. As a farrier, it is extremely important to properly trim and balance each hoof. If this is not done correctly, more issues can arise and create further problems for you down the road. Horse owners must also pay close attention to this detail and do their part in picking and cleaning the feet on a regular basis. If you believe your horse’s hooves are imbalanced, do not be afraid to bring it up to your farrier or to seek the opinion of another farrier or veterinarian. If your horse’s hooves were trimmed improperly, it is important to have this fixed as soon as possible. A hoof supplement combined with a safe anti-microbial hoof clay and liquid will help the hooves recover from cracks, splits or other hoof related issues that arise from the hoof imbalance. Using a hoof supplement will also promote the health of the hoof and increase its growth rate.

A special thanks to:

Darren Owen, CF, APF
Indian Fields Farrier Service Inc.
Phone: (757) 478-1399
Email: indianfields@msn.com

Dave Giza, APF-1
Genesis Farriers
Phone: (571) 921-5822
E-mail: GenesisFarriers@aol.com