Thinking of taking taras back shoes off ..... what problems might I encounter ?

[horseygirl123]

Had the farrier out last thursday as tara lost a front shoe, and he said what lovely compact and healthy feet she has.
I asked him if it would be better for her to have her back shoes off as she over-reaches, and he said she would be fine and even recommended I have them taken off.

At the moment I am only schooling her in the indoor school, she lives out from 6pm - about 11am, in a field with a steep bank

I am planning to eventually hack her out, mainly off road, but when I do long distance, it will be 50/50 road/bridlepaths.

She is fully shod and has been for years, but I was just wondering if I did take the backs off, what should I expect, and how long before she will be able to do any road work?

Should I buy her any supplements to help (she's an irish cob and only has hay in the day and 1 feed of baileys low-cal balancer) and pasture at night.

[Ptaty70]

Hi, I would certainly say try it out, especially if the farrier thinks she's got good feet. The back shoes off for mine were relatively easy and we were hacking out on sometimes stoney ground. he was a bit ouchy at first, but they soon hardened up.

It will be a suck it and see situation. See how she copes.

I added biotin supplement which hardens feet. Many on here advised it and he's been fine (the front feet were a different matter, so the shoes went back on).

[Bebe]

Back shoes off tends to be fairly straightforward for the majority of horses. When my mares hind shoes were taken off (yonks ago now, originally trimmed by a farrier) I just carried on working her as normal. A couple of weeks in she did tell me that we'd done too much by going a bit short strided and ouchy so I just backed off her workload for a couple of weeks and then gradually built it back up. She's done up to 5 hours at a time over roads and tracks without hind shoes, not very frequently but it is possible. She easily coped with regular hacking though ranging between an hour and 2.5 hours long.

[horseygirl123]

Thanks for your replies :)

Guess I just want to know if I need to back off with schooling for a few days afterwards (have an indoor sand menage with stones in :rolleyes: )