Bestie takes about 2 seconds - "Yep, she looks good" - or something to that effect. This shot shows her feet a couple days prior to the visit; a little long, but not bad. Her hooves typically stay pretty well shaped and smooth, and we've never had to treat her for any thrush.
Now Dude, on the other hand, is a different story. Safe to say "Yep, he looks good" has never been said. Dude's portion of "the talk" usually starts with, "Wellllll, Dude's feet..." Sometimes they're looking a little better, sometimes they're not. Sometimes his front feet look terrible and the back look ok. Or the back hooves look terrible but the front hooves look good. It's a never ending battle.
After years of watching the cycle, I've noticed that Dude's feet don't look too bad until about a week and a half prior to the appointment. That was true with this latest visit. I had been using Life Data Treatment with tea tree oil and he seemed to be responding great to that. About two weeks prior to Justin's visit, I ran out of the Life Data and it inexplicably went missing in the local farm store. And it was really hard to find online. I ended up going back to an Absorbine product. We've used them all. I think there might have been a few stallbound days in there due to weather. That never helps his feet.
Here's Dude a few days prior to his trim. Again, a bit long. What you can't see in the photo is that the inner edge of his right front hoof was all chipped away. Love the casual resting going on with the back right left. Yup, just hangin' in the aisle.
This is his front left hoof - this is actually looking GOOD for him; there's a defined frog visible although parts of it are kind of soft. He's got super constricted heels.
And here he is all trimmed up. This time, Justin found his rear hooves to be thrushier than his front hooves. His feet got cleaned up pretty well ... the cycle of staying on top of it begins again.
The "whatcha doing" nose.
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