Lucy is spoiled

I have been getting 10lbs of carrots a week from a local farm. Lucy gets
carrots with her breakfast and dinner, and for photo taking purposes
she even got to stuff her face with them straight from the bag.

She thinks this totally rocks.

She got her tootsies done today. About 6 months ago I started her on a hoof supplement. I actually really hate buying supplements, even though SmartPak owns my soul, so I tried to fix her feet without adding yet another supplement. I tried painting her feet with hoof hardeners and all sorts of conditioners and still her feet looked like crap. She was losing shoes left and right. At one point despite being on a 6wk schedule, the farrier was regularly coming out to re-shoe her at 3.5 and 4 weeks because she couldn't keep shoes on her feet. The hoof wall was crumbling around the nails and the foot was falling apart. It was really bad. Finally I realised that I had no other options but to try a hoof supplement, so I added one to her SmartPak (and that monthly bill is over $70...UGH) and crossed my fingers that it was going to help.

So before she started the supplement, the farrier would compare her feet to soft cake. When he hammered the nail into her foot, the foot hardly resisted the nail. He barely had to tap the nail with his hammer to get it in, which is a bad sign. You want a hard foot to drive the nail into so that the nail stays put!

Today, my farrier exclaimed, "wow, this foot is actually making me work today!" What he meant is that her hooves have hardened up so much since starting the supplement that they were much more difficult to nail into. This is great news!

Her feet LOOK much better, too. She is growing nice heel, something that has always been a challenge. You can actually see lines on her hooves that signify big changes. These changes are moving barns (back in January) and starting the supplement. They're easier to see in the second photo.