Boxy foot?

[Burnie]

I've been having a some lameness problems with Till over the last few months, but to cut a long story short the vet thinks she may have slight arthritis in her coffin joint.

When the vet first saw her, he said she had a "boxy" foot (the one that she's lame on.)

Just wondered if anyone could explain this to me please :ashamed:? Would it be something she's always had, like a conformation fault, or is it something that a bad farrier could cause?

This is the bad tootsie, shaved from where she'd had a local anaesthetic :( There's also a hole in the hoof, from where she had an abscess back in May.:(

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w205/ClaireByrne/DSCF1058.jpg

[CityLights]

boxy feet are essentially due to conformation faults, although poor shoeing can probably make it worse, good shoeing could also help it to an extent when younger, can be down to poor blood flow to a foot, such as an injury,

boxy feet are kinda small usually upright and square shaped, she has little either side of the middle of her foot if you get me? horses with bxy feet often have problems like navicular or ring bone later in life as they tend to suffer more concussion realted injuries, although not always isolated to horses with boxy feet

[Spockky boy]

Agree with SaW, She doesn't look overly bad though, although hard to tell from a picture.

[Burnie]

Thanks, yes I see what you mean. Trying to see if I have any better photos but don't have many with her feet in!

This is a recent one ('scuse cheesey grin but I was just happy to be back in the saddle.)

I can see from this that the front left is narrower and more upright.

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w205/ClaireByrne/P1010353.jpg

[CityLights]

she looks sooo much like an Ex racer i used to ride,
She hasnt got the worst feet ive seen seen horses with much suqarere upright feet that have never ailed anything

[Spockky boy]

Yeah i can see it mroe clearly now... Personally I think Spocks got worst feet his pasterns are very upright and his feet look more boxy lol

[torgrosset]

A boxy hoof usually doesn't extend beyong the width of the coronet band, if that makes sense? They kind of go straight down rather thans slope outwards. If I was being really nit-picky I'd say in the first pic Tilly does look a little boxy but really not that bad, however in the second picture it looks pretty normal shaped, if anything maybe a little smaller, so maybe the first pic makes her look more boxy than she really is. I've seen horses with much worse feet, believe me! Donkey's often have boxy feet! She has nice shiny black hooves by the way!!!!!

Boots had odd shaped/sized front hooves, although he had one which was more splayed than the "normal" one. My farrier was excellent and used to trim and shoe him accordingly, however he did develop ringbone in the "normal" shaped hoof (but he was well in his 20's), which the farrier & vet said his odd shaped/sized hooves could have contributed to it, but they would have expected him to get problems with the splayed hoof rather than his "normal" hoof.

[Bay Chaos]

Dina has a boxy hoof as you can sort of see in this picture.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g312/bridie2006/Photo-0122-1.jpg

It is thought hers wasn't helped at all by lack of regular farriery attention in her old home. Now she is accepting my farrier trimming her feet we will try and get it looking a bit better. I don't think it is that bad though. It doesn't bother her.