5 Critical Hoof Conditions You Should Know About

It’s important to catch hoof diseases and vulnerabilities as early as possible to provide effective treatment needs for horses. Here are five hoof conditions that everyone needs to know about.

1. Sub-solar abscesses are the most common cause of lameness, ranging from minor to life threatening.
2. Laminitis takes many pathways and levels of severity, but knowing how to provide needed aid is essential.
3. Thrush, which is causes by fusobacterium necrophorum and dichelobacter nodosus, must be treated quickly and effectively.
4. Keratolyitic diseases of the hoof wall (white line disease, seedy toe, hollow hoof).
5. Hoof cracks come in many forms and have many causes that you need to address.

— Simon Curtis, Newmarket, England

If You Feel “Burned Out,” You’re Not Alone

When it comes to job burnout, farriers probably aren’t any different than workers in many other trades or businesses. In fact, burnout is a widespread problem among most workers regardless of their choice of careers.

Some 76% of general business workers experience burnout on the job at least occasionally. Some 28% say they are burned out “very often” or “always” at work. Another 20% of workers say they are rarely burned out while only 4% say it never happens.

Among workers who frequently experience burnout, 63% are more likely to take a sick day and 23% are more likely to visit an emergency room.

The common wisdom to recover from burnout is to work fewer hours. Yet data from Gallup polls show the number of hours worked each week does matter. This is because the risk of burnout increases significantly when workers exceed 50 hours and climbs even higher after 60 hours of work a week.

Even so, how workers deal with their workloads has a stronger influence on burnout than the number of hours worked.

— Gallup Poll’s 2019 “Employee Burnout: Causes and Cures” report