September Hoof Care and Sheza Giant

Here is Shezy filly, out for her pedicure this morning. Oh yeah, Desire is standing behind her, too--you know, mostly hidden by her 16 month old baby!!! Desire herself is 14.3, just shy of 15 hands, by the way.

Yep, D confirmed it, since her last visit 5 weeks ago, Sheza has definitely gone through a growth spurt. It's hard for me tell since I see her almost all day, every day, but I had been feeling a bit dwarfed by her lately..

Always participating..mostly not with her teeth

 Looking so grown up, and btw she has GREAT feet!

 Sheza and Desire are both good at the ole rigid leg trick, it's like trying to bend a cement post when they're in that mood. 

 Sheza always starts out a little squirrelly for her trims but usually settles down. Today she tried a few push-off-D's-hand into a half rear but that didn't get her anywhere and D still had her hoof she gave that up. A great trick for her is paralyzing her with neck scratches. Her hooves get done in no time!

 Mom and baby portraits are getting more alarming every month..

 As D said, can't I just ride her now? She's the right height already! ;-)

 Desire and Blaze had uneventful trims--typically tense, and lazily unhelpful, respectively--and then it was Joey's turn. He got a little nervous about his Precious right side as usual but D got both fronts nipped and rasped with relatively minor theatrics.

She handled his left hind leg as usual, not trimming the hoof since she can't trim the right yet, but today she also handled The Precious itself, the right hind leg/hoof. The first time he stepped nervously away but the second time she ran her hand all the way down and rubbed his fetlocks for a brief moment and he didn't move a muscle! Gooood stuff. That was enough and everyone went home with tidy toes.

I have some rasping instructions to implement on the herd in the next few weeks, to work toward stretching the professional trims out and maintaining their quickly growing hooves. Lately it has just seemed silly to let them grow enormous amounts of toe for 4-5 weeks and then correct it all at once, as opposed to some continual maintenance when I have the time and strength and tools (well everything but nippers and a stand, working on that). Also, I don't know about you but it's hard to afford professional hoof care every 4 weeks for 4 horses, and I do mean every 4, max 5, weeks or there is so much new healthy hoof things start to get too long and messy. So I shall be brave and sally forth, rasp in hand!