HoofSearch, the index of equine foot research, has released an updated resource guide to peer-reviewed articles and theses on donkey hoof science and lameness studies. The index is free and accessible online to anyone interested in monitoring advances in donkey hoof health or improving the soundness-related welfare of working donkeys.
We know it as the Battle of Little Big Horn, or "Custer's Last Stand". Native Americans know it as the Battle of the Greasy Grass. It is quite possibly the most legendary military engagement in US history. Like the maiden voyage of the Titanic, everyone knows how this story ends.
Action Jackson, the 29-year-old breeding jack at the University of California at Davis, suffered from laminitis. He was humanely euthanized last week. (UC Davis photo)
The Hoof Blog will often note the passing of a famous stallion, when laminitis claims a life. Those are sad stories to write.
Last week the world lost another famous breeding animal to laminitis, but he wasn't a horse. He didn't live behind white board fences in Kentucky. His offspring won't run in the Kentucky Derby. They (probably) won't compete in the Olympics, either (but you never know).
This video is provided to give you an idea of the type of challenges that a charity like SPANA faces at its clinics. We do not have medical records or radiographs of this foal to document the severity of the injury. We all know that this type of deformity would be a challenge to any veterinary practice, and yet the treatment seems very simple and straightforward and the effect was almost immediate on this foal.
Far away in Morocco, a mule called Amina was born with a painful deformity to her fetlock joints which meant she was unable to straighten her front legs. Her worried owner, Bouishak, brought the foal, aged two weeks, to the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA) veterinary center.
In developing countries like Morocco, most donkeys, mules, horses and camels support the families who own them: they carry goods or produce to market, they plow land for crops or they transport people and their belongings.
Amina arrived at the clinic unable to stand on her hooves.
If an animal is born with a condition that means they can’t work, they’re of little use. Their impoverished owners simply can’t afford to look after a lame animal, so if they're unable to work, they are usually abandoned or put down.
Without veterinary treatment, the wounds to Amina's fetlocks would soon have become infected and the owner may well have had no choice but to put Amina out of her misery.
The wounds were cleaned with antiseptic cream, and then carefully wrapped with soft padding and bandages. Head SPANA vet Dr Hinnach then applied splints to keep Amina's legs in the correct, extended position while they strengthened.
The foal's pressure sores from "standing" on her fetlocks were at risk of infection.
Over the next few days SPANA's dedicated team of vets closely monitored Amina’s care and her incredible recovery surprised everyone. Amazingly, Amina was able to walk a week later, but the splints were kept on for a few more weeks to allow the legs to fully strengthen.
Dr Hinnach filmed Amina’s first steps--Amina’s joy at being able to walk is clear to see.
SPANA vets gave this foal a future.
The low-tech treatment on this young foal used simple splints over bandages.
We all know how expensive a treatment like this would be for a foal in a developed nation. The radiography, antiseptics, medication and orthopedic devices would run into the thousands of dollars. The foal would have to have a high potential value and it would need a good prognosis for an athletic future.
SPANA, however, estimated that it could offer this treatment for less than $50US to pay for splints, padded bandages, antiseptic cream, three rolls of cotton and penicillin.
Hopefully, you will donate to SPANA. That's the point of this article. But maybe it is a good idea to look beyond just donating some money to support SPANA and organizations like it.
Farrier and vet innovators are climbing a high-tech ladder that towers high above the simple tenets of basic health and care of horses' and donkeys' hooves. We have reached a point where tech-based treatments and products are available to anyone with enough open credit on their cards to purchase them.
But what if the same brain power could be used to de-engineer hoof treatments? The world needs some simple low-cost solutions to the needs of working equids in less-advantaged nations. We also need low-cost ideas for hoof protection when natural disasters hit and hooves are in danger of heat or puncture damage.
The same low-tech, low-cost solutions could be put to good use by horse rescue and wild horse sanctuaries right here in the developed world, as well.
Please, don't stop thinking high-tech, but maybe some little part of your brain power can think about the horses and donkeys in need out there, wherever they are. I'm sure that groups like SPANA would love to hear your ideas, or invite you to be part of their programs.
I would, too...and I'll tell the world what you've developed for them.
Followup: Amina's treatment was done in July 2011. Dr Hinnich recently visited the family and was pleased that she was walking normally. If Amina needs any care in the future, it will be provided free by SPANA.
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This horse is headed down the shaft of a coal mine in France, date unknown. (Wikimedia image)
If you are anything like me, you've been riveted to the news this week, and your emotions have run the gamut as hopes have risen and fallen so many times in the race to reach the miners trapped in the West Virginia coal mine.
This video shows you some of the last employed pit ponies in Britain; the voice is poet John Stafford, who eulogizes a pony named Dot. Dot was one of the last pit ponies to work at Annesley Colliery in Nottinghamshire, England.
Thinking about coal mines made me remember about the use of ponies, horses and mules deep below the ground in mines in North America, Australia and Europe. Perhaps they were used in other parts of the world, as well.
Horses and ponies weren't used much, if at all, in mines in the British Isles until 1842, when an Act of Parliament outlawed women and children under the age of ten from working in coal mines. Up until then, it had been women and children who lugged or dragged the coal out of the mines.
"Pit ponies" are most famous for being used in the British mines, where as many as 70,000 were underground at the height of horse-powered coal mine production in 1913. Larger horses were popular for underground work in Germany and mules were preferred in the United States
The pit ponies wore leather shields over their faces, like a solid bridle shield. Bare wires could cause sparks if a pony bumped into one. One statistic said that the ponies were not blind, as most people thought they would be from living in the dark, but a large percentage had lost at least one eye from accidents. In photos, you will notice that the pit ponies had their tails shaved, and probably their manes as well.
These tandem-hitched heavy horses aren't pit ponies, but they are pulling a load of feed for the ponies stranded during a coal strike in England. Do you think they made it through that mud? Double-click to view full size. (Libray of Congress image)
Pit ponies in Britain were one of the first really big public animal welfare campaigns. The RSPCA was concerned about the ponies, and campaigned so that ponies couldn't work more than 48 hours a week. But most of the companies took very good care of them. Many people said they took better care of the ponies than they did the miners. Good pit ponies were valuable and important to the success of the operation. But the public campaigned until finally the last pony kept underground was brought up to the surface in the 1980s.
A1908 image from the Library of Congress shows us mules in a Pennsylvania coal mine. They wore ear hoods to prevent them from being shocked by low-hanging wires. No doubt, they learned to walk with their heads low. This was before there were any child labor laws in the United States. Notice that three of these young miners have whips around their necks.
In the United States, mules were preferred in the mines, and some quite big draft mules went down the shafts and stayed there, sometimes for a year at a time. Mules were especially popular in Pennsylvania. Before US child labor laws were passed, most of the miners are boys who could get into smaller spaces.
This horse was being shod by two young colliery farriers in Wales. Notice the horse is wearing a hood. His tail isn't shaved as is often seen in old photos, but his mane is roached.
The collieries in Great Britain employed farriers. They repaired equipment, made chains and spent a lot of time sharpening the pick axes of the miners. One reports states that each miner took pride in his ax and would take it to the forge to be sharpened in a particular way that suited his way of picking at the mine face. Farriers understood how to please each miner. The farriers also made shoes for the ponies.
When their work in the forge was done each day, the farriers went down the mine and shod the ponies as they finished a shift, or the ponies from another shift before they started. Ponies weren't allowed to work if they had a shoe off, so the farrier's visit was important. Every foot on every pony had to be lifted and looked at every day.
Sign courtesy of Mining Culture Educational and Research Network
This was a long, long day for a farrier. There was no light in the underground stables except for miner's lamps. The farrier would take the vessel out of his lamp and put it on his tool box, like a candle. He would have been trimming and shoeing almost by touch.
Yes, there were hoof boots long ago. This one is from a mine in the Lake District in Cumbria, England, near the Scottish border. The sole of the boot is studded with copper rivets. You can see it at the Keswick Mining Museum.
In coal mines and around explosives factories, horses were shod with copper alloy or "brass" (copper and zinc alloy) shoes and special brass nails made by Capewell Horse Nails and perhaps other companies. Brass didn't cause sparks the way that steel did. Perhaps that is also why horse amulets, called "brasses" are always made of brass.
All the shoeing below ground was done cold, of course, in spite of all the available coal. Any spark could ignite a fire or, worse yet, an explosion, because of gasses and dust in the air.
You've probably heard about canaries being kept in mines, or even being sent in ahead of the men. A canary would die from the gas long before a man or a mule or a pony, and they served as a warning of the danger in the air.
Welsh miners lamps are especially interesting. Today, they're popular on wooden boats. They have a distinctive tall chimney and usually come with a hook at the top. Once British farrier Grant Moon, who competed under the Welsh flag, brought one of the USA as a special award, and told us about how the mine's name and mark were engraved into the chimney. They are special.
The miner's lamp did a lot more than light the way through the mine. The color and height of the flame in the lamp was a means of constant feedback to the miner about the gases present in the air below ground. They were known as "safety lamps". They are small and you might overlook them. But a miner wouldn't.
Many years ago I met a lovely gentleman from Yorkshire, England named Eric Plant, FWCF. He had worked as a farrier at a colliery and he was the first person who told me about pit ponies; I had no idea that as many as 70,000 ponies were working in Great Britain's mines in the early 1900s. Later in life he was the farrier for the magnificent Tetley Shires, the showcase team for Tetley Brewery in Leeds, England.
Mr. Plant painstakingly photocopied all his booklets about pit ponies and the welfare movement to protect them and sent them to me. I always wanted to tape his stories, but I didn't have the privilege of seeing him again before he died. Most of the little facts about ponies and mining in this blog post came from my very precious file of Mr. Plant's own memorabilia.
by Fran Jurga | 18 July 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog
Susie the Mule nuzzles the jeans pocket of her farrier, Kevin Boyer, in southern California. Photo by Susie's owner, Roberta Frederick, who is a great photographer with a charming set of models in her mules and her farrier, who is a longtime subscriber to Hoofcare & Lameness Journal. (I realize his friends might not recognize him from this angle.)
It was nature vs nuture in Winnemuca, Nevada yesterday...and nature prevailed. It wasn't even close. The two cloned mules, first ever to race, and genetically identical to each other, finished third and seventh in an eight-mule race yesterday.
(See yesterday's post for more on this story.)
Wait a minute. Maybe the story here is that there were eight mules entered in one race at all. Around here, eight horses entered in a race would be big crowd.
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