irrigated pasture and shoeing--help

[momofsix]

I am brandnew to horse ownership. I just bought 2 mares, 7 and 11. We live in Northern California. I was so excited when I found a boarding stable in the area that was affordable and offered irrigated pasture (In our area of the country it basically doesn't rain from April to October and most horses are on completely dry very hard dirt ground, being fed hay to supplement the nonexisting grass). I thought my horses would be so much happier if they could graze during the day and they seem happy. Their pasture is mostly a grass and clover meadow, with some more muddy terrain next to the irrigation ditch. Their feet are not in standing water or anything. However, one of them lost a shoe the first week. I called her old ferrier just to find out if there is anything her new ferrier should know and he asked me if she was in pasture and then he basically very rudely told me off about putting her in pasture, telling me that was the worst for the horse and I would end up completely ruining her feet. Is he right? I know there is owners from England on this site where the climate is pretty wet. How do you manage? Am I making a mistake here?

[Rips]

Erm... no shoe expert or anything but my horses shoes would stay on longer if she was out in a field doing nothing then they would if she was in doing work!!

Were they stabled previous to this? Sometimes if they are really fresh, runnning, rearing, bucking, playing etc they can pull their own shoes off. If the ground is muddy, it would have to be really muddy now, that can sometimes pull shoes off. We have callow fields (they are underwater in winter) and when then get wet, the layers of mud are deep and wet enough to pull shoes off.

Could your farrier be annoyed that you have a new farrier?! Is your new farrier shoeing your horse right?

If it was me, I'd definately choose to have them where you have them now then somewhere with no grass.

[Bay Mare]

I don't know how having a horse living out (like they do in the wild) is going to ruin it's feet! My girl is barefoot now (I'm in the UK) but had front shoes on over the winter without a problem. Our field is clay soil so gets VERY muddy over the winter and very hard in summer. Apart from problems caused by shoeing (a crack up the front wall due to poor medial/lateral balance) her feet aren't bad at all and she's adapted to going barefoot very well.

The thing is that horses lose shoes, it happens. Contrary to popular opinion ;) the skill of a farrier ISN'T measured by how long the shoes stay on (yes, I HAVE heard people say that their farrier is great because they had shoes that stayed on for 12 weeks :eek: ). Maybe he thought that you were criticising him because a shoe came off?

[Jessey]

So long as your not using any oil on the hoof it should be able to cope (under normal conditions) with keeping its own moisture balance correct, if however the horse was standing in water all day and the foot got water logged then yes you would expect the shoe to come off the very soft foot.

But as your horses are not stood in water or knee deep mud or permanently on dry sandy soil, I would expect that the shoe should have stayed on, have you found the shoe? if you have you can often tell if its been pulled off, generally if it just come loose due to poor horn or bad fitting it will still be flat, if the back foot has caught it and pulled it off then it will generally be all twisted up, this is only a rough guide but it can be helpful for you and your farrier.

If your horses were used to being in a stall alot or a small corral (which old farrier may have been aware of) they may have had a mad run round the pasture, these things can be very exciting for them :D so it may have just been and accident and the shoe got pulled off.

If you are concerned about your horses feet talk to a good farrier and also the other people at your barn, ask them if they had any trouble when they first took their horses there and if any of them do anything special to keep their horses feet in good condition, they will know what the local conditions do to horses feet and whats best to help it.

sorry for the long post but just wanted to highlight that there are loads of reasons to loose a shoe and putting your horse on good pasture will only HELP the hoof quality as they are getting what they would naturally - grass :p

J x

[momofsix]

Thanks for the input. I have since become aware that the ferrier was real friendly with the old owner who had to sell the horse due to divorce and being way behind in boarding fees. I think there may be resentment there. This horse has been in a box stall previously, but was turned out for a few hours each day in much smaller pasture. The new pasture is huge and she has a new buddy, too, and the owner of the barn said he has seen her run around widly with her new buddies. Plus I guess the shoes had been on for 2 months. My husband talked to the new ferrier today who come highly recommended by my vet and trainer, so hopefully, it will all work out. The ferrier is coming out tomorrow to take a look. We are considering going barefoot or partly barefoot, my husband is reading up on it.

[Bay Mare]

We are considering going barefoot or partly barefoot, my husband is reading up on it.

The Barefoot forums at Enlightened Equitation (http://www.enlightenedequitation.co.uk) are excellent resources and will give you all the other links that you need to look up about barefoot.

I've only just taken my girl barefoot and she's doing really well. She's lame at the moment but because she slipped in the field and pulled a muscle in her shoulder NOT because she's gone barefoot. There are another couple of liveries at our yard who are barefoot too and both horses are doing really well on it. It is a commitment, though, so you do have to put more effort in than when they have shoes on. I do think that it's worth it, though. I hadn't told my trainer that I was going barefoot but he was very supportive as he said that her action was much, much better and that was BEFORE the trim!

[momofsix]

We had a long talk with our farrier and decided to try barefoot on the one horse, shoes on the other. The farrier was very nice and openminded and talked to us at length about all the options. The stable owners were also present and helped us out. We kept shoes on the one because she has a pin in one leg and the shoes help her actually stand flat. We will see how it goes.

[mayS]

Here in maryland there are times during the year where the fields simply don't dry out. Add to that stickly, clay mud! But it's silly to keep the horse stabled that whole time.

Shoes do come off sometimes. Your farrier was very rude about it. He should've come back out promptly to fix it (whether he did it for free or not is another story).

Both of my horses are barefoot, and I've been very happy with it. Why not try it?