Isn't 15 degrees of rotation pretty darn serious. I looked at a horse that has at least that and they say they are going to take this horse and turn him into a natural hoof?

I thought 5 was about the most you could correct well?

Spud

Spud,

You are correct 15 degrees is terrible and would almost have the coffin bone pointing straight done and cruching the tip. My father in laws horse is 12 in one and 13 in the other 5 years ago when he was diagnosed. Now five years later, and never truely being sound since or ridden we just redid his xrays and he is the same in both. You would have to wonder why they would put a horse that badly (15) roatated through the pain and suffering on trying to make him a bare foot horse. Sound horses that have worn shoes and then turned into bare foot horses go through a period of soreness till they become use to it, couldn't imagine what that poor horse is going through. Sometimes it is kinder to them to do the thing that hurts us the most. I just pray he is not in pain.

The last xrays I saw on a horse that was rotated that bad (15) had broke the tip off the coffin bone off due to the rotation and had starting penetrating the sole of the foot. She was euthanized after the owners spent 4 months and thousands of dollars in around the clock medical care to save her. During that time not once did she have a day without pain and that was on the max dose of bute twice a day.

Agree with P8nt-Natural trimming is not to be used as a "well lets see if this works".Especially on horses with known problems.

On the otherhand 15* would be very close to considering euthanasia.

However, rotation can be a tricky thing to measure unless there is already a radiograph of the horse's feet when they were sound. The reason for this is that there is considerable variation in conformation between individual horses, just as with people. Thus, a specific range of values for coffin bone angles in "normal" and "rotated" feet doesn't really exist, as rotation is relative to the angle the coffin bone had before disease occurred. In particular, horses with club feet will have steeper coffin bone angles that can look like rotation, but they're really just normal angles for those horses.

Once the initial radiograph is taken, successive radiographs can help monitor any progressive rotation or treatment success.