This is Natan and she can move out, buck and enjoy her life.  But, it is a life with compromised feet.  In her young 4 years a 1/3 of her coffin bone is gone and she occasionally has abscessing.  Because of the circumstances around the hoof care she got in the beginning of her founder.  She was left with more damages then most with her amount of rotation from founder.  Above was last year and she was still wearing either epics, or Soft Ride Boots to cushion her thin and bulging bottom soles in the fore's.  She has since gone totally barefoot and lives in a better hoof and sole with the aid of White Lightning and occasional Crossapol. And significantly better after the laminar wedge was reduced to a fraction of what had developed.  The use of White Lightning treatments was how she was able to turn around her diseased capsules.

     When Natan foundered from Potomac Fever both front hooves rotated the coffin bones pointing down to 6:00 and one actually had begun to reverse past that.  The owner went along with her veterinarian and long time farrier as guides to what next.  Things were not better and the picture below is the result of what it had come too when I got involved.

She no longer walked with a normal stride but, floated her front legs using all the weight on her hinds.  The front legs would crisscross as they moved forward.  She was only resting her lateral walls to the ground, she knuckled completely over with a step avoiding weight.

     After I started to trim her, thank goodness for all the teachers and mapping tools I had at this point to help me.  I trimmed the hoof and began to re-teach her to walk without the crisscross.  Each step she took the owner and I would push the opposite leg out before it crisscrossed making her shoulders swing forward.  This took about 5 days for her to begin to move forward with some weight on those toes. They were her posts like a ballerina to put weight on.

Very extensor bearing and still is after 4 years.  But, weights her heels a lot more and can move fast when she wants too.

     As time goes on she improves but, her hooves are somewhat deformed,  her laminar wedge though small is still there and has another hole recently. Her soles are not convex but, lack concavity because her rotation is putting pressure down there, she is most comfortable in the front of her foot unfortunately.   Her heels are contracted but you can move her lateral cartilage and her digital cushion is healthy in both feet.  It is the disease in the toe that continues to plague us off and on.  With regard to her capsule shape.   We would think we did a good job trimming and then the capsule toe would migrate back to the lightly damaged typical foundered toe. 

     Anyway here are a few of the 1000's of pictures we have from her.  She has become one of our blessed teachers.  Natan's name means, "God's Gift " and she has been a blessing to our learning so that we can help others.  She has never given us a clue that she would rather die because of her lameness.  She experiences pain of periodic and rare abscessing with what it is.  She is content to live her life as she knows it which is free roaming with her equine family. 

     The owner who after seeing the amazing results from the Equine Challenge supplements with her is now a distributor.  Natan was always fit and never overweight.  But, in the few months with the EC supplements her back, legs and look is improved even more beautiful then she always was.

Both front hooves had been grooved                        The wall on this hoof was reduced as the laminar wedge was pulling the heel forward

and then shod and allowed the dorsal                        By only removing the wall 1/4 inch up and through the pigmented and unpigmented

wall to collapse creating more leverage                      capsule wall to the sole.  The leverage was released and the wall tubules will

against the coffin bone position. She was                   straighten out in the natural diagonal

a young horse just over 1 year when she

foundered from Potomac fever

Bacteria was one of the worst problems we have had in                Stuffing cotton balls with white lightning solution into the  small holes

helping the capsule.  The bacteria that enters the hoof eats             after also squirt the white lightning solution inside through the holes

tunnels inside the laminar wedge.  See:  Laminar Wedge                The problems deep inside were treated for bacteria and fungus.

                                                                                                    The section on Laminar Wedge will feature what happened after

                                                                                                     these treatments.

Prior to starting the White Lightning treatments and because

Natan is very extensor bearing.  Her heels were in contraction

as above left picture.  When the Laminar Wedge came off the

front of the hoof it allowed without even being that weight bearing

to let the heels expand as shown here a couple of months later

The hoof has better form and health since the addition of

the product White Lightning was added.  but, in this x-ray

you can see the coffin bone is de mineralized.  And since

this x-ray the ones taken in 2007 show more bone

loss.