The farrier came

Farrier came this morning (eventually, over an hour late). Got the ponies in from the field, it's a wild wet and windy day here so they were a bit skittish but settled down with a haynet by the stables.

Took some pics of Ebony's feet before the trim

Bit of a mess.......

She was a good girl for him mostly

only tried to rear a couple of times......!

Her feet are a lot better now, he said she's had laminitis, you can see where the laminae have come unravelled at the toe from this pic of a bit he cut off.....

Ruby wasn't too bad either, she only tried to bite him the once

.

 A couple of times when the wind really got up she didn't want to stay still so he had to let go of her and she flinched away, clearly expecting to get walloped for moving :-(

So now they have nice trimmed feet

Pretty good girls considering how awful the weather is!

Barefoot trimmer

The trimmer came today to check out the troops, he says none of them really have any serious issues, they've all been tidied up, most of them were well behaved (apart from Sky). Took lots of pics.....

Fina

Sky, showing some flare (you shouldn't be able to see daylight between the rasp and the hoof!)

One trimmed, one not:

Gandalf, bit of flare....

...but generally pretty good for a horse that's been shod til 3 months ago

Here are some pics of Tanya's pony Polo, showing some serious flare:

He said Kinna has beautiful feet. She was interested in the anatomy lesson too.....

So which one is the good hoof and which one the bad?

Oh, and the best thing for their feet is a gravelled area in the paddock so it looks like I am going to have to dig out all the mud in front of the stable and replace it with gravel......that'll keep me busy!!!

Chester gets a haircut...

Chester has been scratching his feet a lot recently, there's no evidence of mites or mud fever, I think it's just that when his feathers get wet, they itch. So we decided it was time for a trim.

He was a very good boy, stood still when I tied him up, didn't attempt to go and eat hay (!), let me trim most of it off with scissors. Then we got the clippers out to tidy up, they're actually designed for dogs, they were a bargain in Lidl, I  bought them to do some training with the girls, but they did a good enough job. He was good as gold.....

....fine with me picking his feet up too

Now he looks a bit less hairy!

And his feet are so white! Won't stay like that though.......