Benny's Story

Benny is my donkey. I've had him since I was 5 years old. He's about 30 now (2005). My parents aren't 'horse people' in the least. I suppose the donkey stud gave them some instruction when they bought Ben, but I can just remember my Dad showing me how to rasp Ben's feet with a wood rasp when I was not very old. I don't remember if there were any principles at all that I was supposed to follow, other than to shorten the foot. From then on, I was responsible for the care of Benny, feet & all!

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THE PROBLEMS

When I was around 17, I finally became a 'horsey girl' and later, with the purchase of my first horse, I started to learn about hoofcare and I finally started to see the terrible state of Benny's feet. All his feet had huge cracks, from the ground up to about an inch from the coronet band and 2 feet were twisted & ridged. There was lots of separation around his toes. This was filled with black stinky stuff. His tiny narrow frogs were also gooey & stinky.

I consulted a number of vets, farriers and donkey people over the next few years, as I was often worried about his feet, even though they rarely seemed all that worried themselves. I was told a vast array of different opinions, all stated as fact from the 'experts'. These statements included;

"donkeys feet should be very steep & nothing like a horse's"

"you should never trim a donkey's heels"

"cut an 'x' at the top of the cracks to make them stop"

"he'll need shoes to heal those cracks"

"his feet are OK - you're too used to looking at horse's feet"

"his feet are deformed and there is no hope of change"

"donkeys don't get 'seedy toe' or laminitis. That black stuff's meant to be there"

"he's got seedy toe and laminitis"

Confusion plus! We ended up deciding to keep the farrier that instructed us on healing the seedy toe - there was apparently not much hope of fixing the laminitis. We got the farrier every couple of months instead of me trimming him myself and he cut out the seedy toe as far up as he could, cut 'x's at the top of the cracks and packed the holes with cotton wool soaked in a mixture of Flints Oil and Stockholm Tar. In between visits, we were to soak his feet in water with iodine and change the cotton wool weekly.

After nearly 2 years of this, the condition had barely changed and I again searched for another 'expert'. Around this time in 1998, he also became a bit lame in one front leg and that knee was a bit swollen. As he hadn't been 'lame' before, I figured he'd bashed his knee on something & treated the knee for bruising with Arnica. After a few days with no improvement, I called the vet. He told me that it was nothing to do with his feet, that Ben actually had osteoarthritis in that knee and gave me a course of Bute and pain medication to apply directly to his shaven knee.

The condition persisted and he actually started to have swelling & lameness in the other front leg as well & there seemed to be little flexability in his pasterns. After about 6 months of this, with Ben doing OK some days, but really sore on others, and the vet trying heavier doses of Bute & pain releif, we found a level that kept him comfortable, but the vet said there was absolutely no chance of improvement and that I should think about euthenasia!

I found other 'experts' to consult for other opinions. Basically they all agreed with the local vet this time, that it was incurable arthritis due probably to his age(he was now about 21) in his knees and pasterns and he would need painkillers for the rest of his life. Some even said I was cruel to keep him alive. No one gave me the idea that his feet were behind it, or that they were even a big problem at all.

I had previously had lessons from a couple of farriers, until they deemed I was experienced enough to shoe my own horse, which I had been doing for years now. At this time, I was a member of a horsey forum. I was discussing the 'fact' that my horse had such good feet that I only needed to shoe him part-time, when someone asked me why I shod him at all. I explained that I did some long, rough rides on him and that shoes were necessary for this. She told me shoes were NEVER necessary for any horse. I didn't beleive her, because 'everyone' knew this was not 'true' and that you were very lucky indeed if you had a horse that could go barefoot.

I kept replying to this woman with sceptical 'yeah-buts', but she kept coming back with logical arguments. I decided to look further into it.

I studied avidly and learned what effects metal shoes actually have on the hoof - bad news. I learned what happened when toes or heels were left too long, I learned that you could even heal laminitis through 'correct' hoofcare. I learned how to trim and condition a horse's feet so that they would cope barefoot in any conditions..... in theory.

I still had many 'yeah-buts', especially as this information went against just about every conventional opinion. There also seemed to be some different schools of thought in the 'Barefoot' world. Never the less, it was mostly logical and sensible sounding, so I kept digging and decided there was nothing to lose in trying it on my crippled donkey and a pony I had recently adopted that had twisted, ski-shaped founder feet and was becoming lame with no hope from the 'experts'.

I found some websites & books that had some trimming instructions and went to work on my pony, shortening her high heels. I felt I knew what to do here because there were plenty of photo examples to look at of foundered hooves and how to trim them. Over a couple of months I was able to shorten her heels a bit and I felt that she was more comfortable.

Poor Ben puzzled me though, because of what I'd previously been told about trimming donkeys and the fact that there was precious little information about donkey hoofcare on the web. I trimmed him a little shorter in the heel, which made his toe angles approximately 80 degrees in front and under 90 in the backs(!!!). His sole actually bulged in the toe callous area - the part that apparently must never be trimmed. I assumed this was just because I'd kept the toe wall shorter to heal the cracks. The cracks were finally just about gone, the seedy now 'mild' but I kept the walls off the ground still, as this was apparently also how you healed the separation. I thought his feet were in reasonable shape so didn't change them overly.

I was of course concerned whether I was doing the best thing with my pony, after learning how bad her feet were, even though there was some improvement. I started looking for instruction from someone experienced in this method. Though there were precious few people in Australia experienced in following this 'method', I found a couple of people willing to come give us some guidance.

I knew my pony was still in bad shape and I learned that while I was on the right track with her, her heels were still nearly 2" too long! I was told to trim her very little, but every other day to bring them gradually down!

I'd brought my old tough footed riding horse in, to show my teachers an example of great feet. They burst that bubble as soon as they saw him! His feet were unbalanced medio-laterally(side to side), as no farrier had ever taught me about that. His heels were very long, but I hadn't seen that, because they were actually crushed and flattened under his foot(farriers had advised me that 'he just doesn't grow heel'!), and his toes were flared and long.

I had thought I was doing a good job until these ladies came to instruct me! It really goes to show that even with some great websites & books on hand, nothing is as good as hands on help.

I'd also brought Benny in, to get their opinion. I asked if they knew much about donkey's feet and they said "A hoof's a hoof. Donkeys aren't much different to horses." That set the alarm bells ringing, as his feet hardly resembled hooves, let alone anything you'd see on a horse!

I think Benny really shocked these women, as his feet were so terrible. It sure shocked me to learn just how bad they really were. His hooves were actually so contracted that they were base narrow - the coronet circumfrence was actually bigger than that of the ground surface!! His frog at the heel was only about 1/2" wide and that bulge in the sole was actually the rotated coffin bone beginning to penetrate the sole!

After another few months, I had dropped Ben's heels down drastically, considering how they were. They were still quite high, but he was now moving with some fluidity, which I had not seen in him before for many years, and he was running with the other horses, instead of hanging back & hobbling along. He was able to go off the painkillers for the first time in years.

I was at work one day and uncontactable when my friend noticed Ben was VERY lame. She called a vet, who came out, diagnosed an abscess and dug holes into the toe callous, poulticed and bandaged it. Apparently she used hoof testers to find the most painful area, assuming this was the abscess, but she didn't find one there, so dug around a bit more. Of course this was the most painful area, as it was right where the tip of the coffin bone was!

I was supposed to change the bandage after 2 days, but when I took it off it was already infected. I decided to leave it open, as the ground was dry, and after cleaning, packed the hole with healing clay for protection. Thankfully the infection cleared up quickly, but Ben stayed very lame.

The vet had put him on a course of Bute for the pain and I learned that the anti inflamatory properties of this may be preventing any abscess from bursting, after speaking to a holistic vet. I decided to take him off the Bute and the very next morning there was swelling and heat in his fetlock and he was obviously in more pain, which I had been told to expect, but this was still hard to watch. However, by that afternoon, he was suddenly much better. I went to inspect and found an abscess draining on the coronet band at his heel...not very close to where the vet had thought!

A few days later he was lame again. This time however, when I went to redress his foot where the vet had dug, there seemed to be a flappy bit of his sole that was painful to him. The next day, the whole sole of this foot came away in my hand, leaving pink flesh underneath!! I freaked and went to ring my teacher. She put my mind at ease that while it looked terrible and he needed TLC, it wasn't the end of the world and would soon be regrown.

I was to keep Benny where the ground was reasonably level and soft for a while and soak his foot in ACV twice a day. After only a few days I noticed a whitish, kind of downy look to his sole corium, which thickened and hardened over the next week to become his new sole horn. It was amazing to see it happen so quickly. Of course it was a few weeks before it was thick enough for him to be comfortable on rough ground with the others again, but he was OK.

Over the next few months, Ben had a number of abscesses. I found a herbal pain releiver that didn't suppress inflammation and he got over each successive abcess quickly and with not too much pain. The last abcess he had erupted on the toe coronet of his back foot. The whole coronet band right around to the back of the quarters separated and I again got worried. I was told he may lose that whole hoof capsule. All I could do was to trim him & roll his toe more severely so that there was no ground pressure at all & hope that it would hang in there until the new horn above had grown down.

It took about 10 months for the crack to reach nearly to the ground and when it finally came off, there wasn't a problem. This was in late 2001 and his feet were actually looking like hooves by then. Still very ordinary hooves mind you. The heels were short and his frogs were hardening up and getting wider and flatter from ground contact. He still had heaps of separation of the laminae, but this was no longer right the way round each foot. There were large patches along the sides of strong, tight growth....

Now, in 2005, Ben has been constantly sound for a few years and his feet look quite decent. There is no separation, his coffin bones are likely back close to ground parallel and even the calcification of his joints has worn away. I never got xrays, which would have been interesting, to see how much bony changes there were/are and how whole or otherwise the coffin bone may be. They are still not - and probably never will be - good looking feet, but they do the job for him now & at 28 he acts much younger than I can remember him being throughout my adult life.