HORSESHOEING. 



203 



shod horses is the use of too large nails in shoes that are punched 

 too fine. 



Every coronary crack becomes in time a low or plantar crack, 

 and this has an important bearing upon the prognosis, because a 

 renewal of the coronary crack will be followed by a low crack. 



In order to remove these cracks it is sufficient merely to 

 shoe the horse. Upon, shod horses they may be prevented by 

 using properly punched shoes and thin nails. The lower border 

 of the wall near the crack should be relieved of pressure by 

 cutting out a half-moon-shaped piece of horn. To prevent the 

 crack from extending farther upward we may bum a trans- 

 verse slot at the upper end of the crack, in as far as the leafy 

 layer of the wall, or cut such a slot with a small hoof-knife. 



2. Clefts. 



An interruption of continuity of the wall, at right angles to 

 the direction of the horn-tubes, is called a cleft. 



Clefts may occur at any part of the wall ; vet they occur 

 most often upon the inner toe and -pj^ 2oo 



inner side, as a result of injury 

 from sharp, improperly placed 

 heel-calks (see page 173). How- 

 ever, suppurating corns, or other 

 suppurative processes situated at 

 the coronet or which find their 

 point of escape at tlie coronet, may 

 from time to time lead to separa- 

 tions of continuity and the forma- 

 tion of horn-clefts. 



Horn-clefts, though the result 

 of lesions which are often very 

 injurious and interefere with the 

 use of the horse, are of themselves 

 not an evil which can be abolished 

 or healed by shoeing, although, in many cases, proper shoeing 

 would have prevented them. A horn-cleft is not a matter for 



Hoof with clefts of the toe and aide wall. 



