Time is not a friend when a foal is presented with crooked legs. Growth plates close relatively quickly, which doesn’t leave a farrier and veterinarian much time if intervention is necessary.

There is more to farriery than just looking at the horse’s hoof. To treat horses properly, it’s necessary to look at the whole horse and consider its gait, conformation and body weight and how those factors affect the hooves and how the trimming and shoes that are applied can affect the rest of the horse.

As a knifesmith, Matt Mauer receives many questions about hoof knives. The one he receives the most regarding upkeep is, “What angle should I sharpen my knife?” Mauer, a farrier based in Argyle, Wis., says that is a hard question to answer because the angle of the tool is individual among users.

An experimental study with 22 ponies was conducted to investigate the effects of feeding a diet high in nonstructural carbohydrates (starch) on the laminae of lean ponies compared with obese ponies. The ponies were sorted into lean (body condition ≤4) and obese (body condition ≥7) groups and half of each group was fed either a low starch hay diet or a high starch diet with added sweet feed and plant sugars. After 7 days, laminar tissue samples were collected and analyzed to measure the activity of naturally occurring substances that trigger inflammation (inflammatory mediators) and the expression of genes that control inflammation.