XXXII. CONTRACTED HEELS.
To expand a contracted foot or quarter the first thing to do is to get the foot soft by poulticing or stuffing with “Whiterock” for a couple of nights. Use hoof expanders that are stronger than the hoof, some feet are so strong and stiff at the quarters that the foot has to be weakened between the bars and frog so that the expanders will expand it. If you want the inside quarter expanded leave the last two heel nails out of the inside of shoe, put a toe clip on shoe and a clip back at the outside heel and do just the reverse to expand an outside quarter. In this way you will be getting all the expansion on the contracted quarter. If this shoe is fitted so that the expander can be placed in the foot after the shoe has been nailed on, the contracted quarter will be expanded over a quarter of an inch before the shoe is clinched up. Nails should not be used back towards the heels of a contracted foot that is to be expanded. When the foot expands wider than the shoe, reset shoes and renew the position of expander to act stronger. The softer you keep the feet the faster they will spread, do not let them get dry and hard. The expansion you get in the foot of a yearling or a two or three-year-old can be kept after the expander has been discarded by not allowing the heels to be kept too high for too long a time. But in aged horses that have had contracted feet or quarters for years and have become set, you can expand the feet or quarters, and when you stop using the expanders the heels and quarters will contract right back to where they were before, in the majority of cases. In cases of this kind in aged horses after the feet have been expanded the quarters should be cut down low and the coronets blistered on both inside and outside quarters.
There are lots of horses with contracted heels and the heels become so high from the coronet to the shoe bearing surface and have stayed this way for such a length of time that they cannot be cut down without hurting or injuring the horse, until after the feet have been expanded. The sensitive part of the foot gets a long ways down from the coronet in a contracted foot, and to cut or lower the quarters and heels to place the foot at a proper angle, it cannot be done until the foot is expanded. The more you expand the foot the lower you can cut or rasp down the heels. The more you expand the heels the higher up you are driving the sensitive interior of the foot at the quarters. In many aged horses after the feet are expanded it will be well to continue the use of expanders, to prevent contraction, for a period of six or twelve months.