Hoof Care Day and More Truck Issues

My great barefoot trimmer came out this morning to take care of the girls' hooves and get Blaze started on the  barefoot track as well. I tried keeping Blaze barefoot a few years ago, before I knew about boots, but he was always too tender up front. With winter on and my saddle that will fit him not arrived yet, I'd gone through two sets of steel shoes without riding him and it just seemed pointless to keep shoeing him. He has great tough hind hooves, I rode him with bare hinds in all but 1 of my LD rides last year, so I was only concerned about the fronts. I finally wrapped my slow brain around it and figured why not pull the shoes I'm not even using, and work on transitioning him to fully barefoot with the aid of boots. Now that I've got some miles under my belt using Easyboot Gloves on Desire I feel confident enough to attempt it with Blaze.

Blaze, Shoes off, left trimmed, right un-trimmed

 My trimmer is also an Easyboot dealer so we fitted Blaze for boots and concluded that with his very high (too high) heels the Gloves are much too low-profile for him and the Easyboot Epics will be better. They are so much higher in the heel that they will accommodate his current hoof shape and should continue to work out as we transition him. I've never used the Epics but my trimmer said that they are much more forgiving in fit in general and they clearly fit him better than the Gloves today. When we were fitting the boot shells on he was a size 1 Glove on the left front and a size .5 Glove on the right front, Lol. In the Epic he'll just be a size 1.

Fitting Glove shells

Epic on the left front, hard to see but much better fit

He was kind of a punk to the trimmer but then it was her first time with him and he had to do a little bit of testing. She mentioned that he has a very smart eye and asked if he was a smart alec in general; he really isn't, in fact the slight lip curl and leg pulling he exhibited today is about as smart alec-y as he gets, and was kind of funny considering how peaceful he is in general. El Bandito the mini was stealing Blaze's hay out of the big feeder the whole time which no doubt aggravated him, Lol. As soon as Bandito saw Blaze coming home through the gate he was away from the feeder and down the hill in no time.

Bandito sneaking hay from the big boy feeder

The girls' hooves looked good, Desire's are really coming back nicely. Almost 3/4 of the hoof is healthy new hoof growth now, the old flare and junk is growing out so quickly. Sheza's hooves (and body!) are growing just as fast as Desire's but are in good shape and Sheza was only a brat about half the time.

 sttreeetcchh-paw

How's that for a 9 mo old Arab butt?

Unfortunately things did not go so well for The Bomber this morning. My husband took it in early to get some leaky O-rings replaced but it turned out the fuel pump and a couple of hoses were bad too, so there's yet another fun big bill to pay out of the blue. *Sigh*  So very very sick of auto repairs. Of course the fact that we buy older vehicles that are pretty much at the point where parts are expected to wear out doesn't help, but that's the budget we have. Anyway the Bomber runs great and pulls wonderfully WITH a bad fuel pump so hopefully with the new pump in all will be well and no more repairs will be needed for a while. Key word hopefully.

Hmm, almost middle of January, must be time to take down the Christmas tree...