thinking of going barefoot ...

popularfurball said:
Yes but the wearing of shoes alone is often enough to not make the feet healthy and robust by the nature of the shoes...thus there is a transition period for most horses to barefoot from shod.
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ditto. i think this is where the confusion earlier in the thread came from :) i don't think a hoof that's been shod for years and years will be 'robust' enough to behin with and of course there will be a transition period. but it doesnt neccessarily mean there's anything majorly 'wrong' per se or that the horse has metabolic issues (sorry, i thought that's what you were getting at jaime).

im not worried about riding up until spring grass comes through in about march, at which point, if her feet aren't up to it, i'd have her shod again (daily exercise along with watching her grass intake was the only thing that kept her lami at bay), because i dont want to pursue the hoofboots route (great if it works for some people, but it isnt for me). we're also lucky enough that the nature of our field does a lot of the conditioning for us (others in the herd have successfully gone barefoot, my youngster will probly never need shoes as her hooves are excellent and nicely conditioned).

really hoping it will work out for angel as i do think it would be healthier for her without shoes!
 
But surely a horses foot isn't designed for what we ask of it. I mean, we humans evolved without shoes ourselves and then progreesed to wearing them. That doesn't mean that after a period of transition we should be able to run across stoney ground carrying a heavy weight. The feral/wild horse will surely avoid walking on more challenging terrain but if it were just as comfy on such terrain then it wouldn't? Of course it could be debated that this is because it isn't managing itself properly. Barefoot, working and human management isn't natural either although done well I still reamin convinced it is better for the horse.

Take those breeds that evolved to exist in marshy ground, should they be able to to remain completely unfooty on all terrain. Sorry guys but I'm not convinced :redface:
 
Completely agree jc :) I do think shoes have a place in equine management - if I didn't have the set up we do, I would on a conventional yard (or the ones locally) would probably be forced to either stable 80% of the time or have her shod. They don't have restricted fields or corralling and they wouldn't appreciate me trashing a small part of a field either.

Keeping her on mud and fed hay only in summer allows her to stay barefoot. If it were just my ideal it would IMO be selfish of me to keep her like this. However, she would be a prime candidate for lami, and she trips a lot with shoes on and summer grass seems to exacerbate her mood swings/ allergies so there are actually other benefits for her to be unshod. If that wasn't the case, if keeping her weight managed wasn't enough to keep her sound (probably not as it's triggered massively by grass) then as long as I didn't think we were at risk of lami I would put shoes back on
 
It is important I think, to always under promise and over deliver.

If peoples expectations are too high, disappointment is inevitable and too many people 'try' barefoot and go back to shoes after a couple of months with the impression that it just will not work for their horse. Truth is they haven't really given it their 'best shot' as there are very, few domestic horses that it will not work for. In some cases it does take time and that depends of course from where you are starting from. You also need the correct advice for the individual horse (and yes they are all different and in different situations) and as I'm sure we all appreciate by now, this involves getting the nutrition/management/environment/conditioning etc right). Sometimes, for whatever reason, it is not possible to get these things right and the horse will inevitably remain 'footie'.

That said (and the barefoot evangelists will jump on me for saying this, but it is true) you do occasionally come across a horse that will not come fully sound even with the perfect conditions. This is most often because the hoof capsules have become so badly deformed over along period of shoeing from an early age (say sixteen years from age two) that they are simply not recoverable. Hopefully as we increase our knowledge this may become a thing of the past but I doubt it somehow. And I am talking about a very small percentage of horses, typically ex racers.

We should not forget that shoes do mask lameness. One of the best farriers in the country once said to me that the first thing a farrier should do, once he has taken the shoes off, is to trot the horse up on a hard surface. If the horse isn't sound, it isn't sound, and his job should be to make it sound before he puts a new set of shoes on. Very wise words!

Of course 'sound' to one person is 'lame' to another. To me a sound horse is one which can do whatever you want of it and that may mean going out for an all day (seven hour) hack on mixed surfaces and being perfectly able to do the same thing the day after (yes this is possible, barefoot).

A year because it can take that long to grow a whole new hoof capsule and that may be what is required maybe longer if the capsule is badly deformed. This can be the case even when the management is perfect. Of course we are talking about extreme cases but typically in these cases they have come to the end of the line in terms of what shoeing can do for them and the choice is either try barefoot or be PTS.

As I say the vast majority of horses can come right within three months and many much sooner than that. Most people tend to jump back on before I give them the OK and most often they get away with it. As I've said I tend to err on the side of caution and with hindsight most people come out with the comment that they probably should have left it a few more weeks. We are such an impatient species!

Joyscarer:- Totally agree with you that jumping on a horses back is the least 'natural' thing we could do with it (unless the intention is to kill and eat it!). But the truth is that most 'natural' horses have appalling feet. Sure occasionally you will see a picture in a book of a perfect natural foot but they are few and far between and usually on a very young horse in an arid environment. Check out the feet on Welsh mountain, Bodmin, Exmoor, or New forest ponies and you will see what I mean. With proper trimming and management we can give them feet that are better than they would be in the wild, which means that they can cope with the extra stresses of riding. And the truth is most domestic horses are ridden a very small percentage of the time most often less than two or three times a week and even barefoot their feet would be in better condition of they were ridden more. It is often the last significant step in 'the journey' when I finally manage to pursuade people that they no longer need the hoofboots.

So yes once again, a healthy, well developed, well conditioned, robust foot should be sound (my definition of sound) on any terrain. Whilst most horses don't need feet that good, it is possible to develop them.
 
thanks, jaime, glad you post longer posts now :)


both of mine are exmoors btw :D

angel is 19 this year, not sure how long she'd been shod for, i had her for 8 years now, she always had fronts on for that time.

i had a good look around this evening (albeit in torchlight!), its actually quite fascinating to see her front hooves in the nude and compare them to my youngster's! i noticed angels are a tad flatter than baby's so hopefully she'll grow some more hoof!

re: deformed hoof capsules, what sort of indication is there to know how bad/damaged/deformed a hoofcapsule is? how would one know?
 
Founder is indicative if a deformed capsule. As is stretched White line. Though both are "correctable" with carefully managed new growth.

Surely if they were so deformed that they wouldn't come sound barefoot they wouldn't keep shoes on because wall etc would also be badly damaged? Sorry, just interested on that point, not meaning to be difficult!

Agree with notpoodle though, nice to squeeze a full lenth post from you Jaime ;) hehe :)

It sounds harsh, but reality is a hoof is healthier without a shoe... But we can't provide their "natural diet"... I don't think the average leisure horse really is affected by domestication negatively - for example, ridden intermittently, movement when sufficient turn out provided and often given supps to help. What is negative mostly with domestication is our inability to provide grazing appropriate to the system of that specific horse. Mine have never looked so good as when they were out on hilly scrubland, they were fit, slim with healthy coat and feet. That showed me how much we put on their digestive systems by domesticating them and they live on dairy pastures with luxurious rich grass when natives in particular, were bred tp survives on rough moorland an mountains.

Eta: just re read my post, I meant leisure horses feet not affected negatively by riding - as it helps to maintain mileage they would normally cover to self trim.
 
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I own a barefoot failure :D She might have been more successful in a better environment than I could ever provide for her but we effectively had two and a half years of one step forward one step back. Needless to say she's a teenage thoroughbred :D (although not an ex racer).

The thing about wild hooves isn't about wild hooves per se, it's about wild hooves in horses that live in ideal conditions, in rocky scrubby arid semi deserts areas. The horses that live in those conditions have perfect and incredibly strong feet that have never been near a trimmer and they are oblivious to rocks and rough surfaces. If you study the best feet in nature and understand what creates them then the idea is that you might be able to replicate some of it in the domestic horse and there's plenty of evidence that there's merit in that.

When you think about it there's a lot wrong with a domestic animal that can't operate comfortably on its own feet without artificial assistance, it's just that centuries of tradition has made us lose sight of it.
 
walked her inhand on the road a little bit today to see what she was like - suprisingly good! not footsie, just a little bit careful but looked perfectly sound in walk. this is encouraging!! i must be doing something right, years ago, when she lost a shoe she was literally crawling so it looks like the complete u-turn in management a few years ago has done her soundness the world of good!

bit muddy but here's a hoof! the sole is more concave than it looks btw, and some cracks where the clips and nails went (she had natural balance shoes with clips on the side rather than one clip at the front)

Image1007.jpg
 
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I suspect also having natural balance shoes on will help... from what I can gather they keep the foot lower to floor so frog gets more use and is allowed to expand with weight bearing etc?
 
Well... I've been off work with the flu... so I had some time on my hands. back to work next week so I won't have any time as I've got horses queing up...

Just some thoughts...

The word 'Founder' is a vague word and consequently often misunderstood as it depends on who is defining it, in the US it just means laminitis, some people use it as another way of saying rotation (of the pedal bone in relation to the dorsal hoof wall) and others to mean chronic laminitis, the 'founder distance' is the amount of sink of the pedal bone. ... and you don't necessarily have to have all (or any) of these to have laminitis, which is exactly what it says, i.e. inflamation of the lamella.

Hooves can become deformed in many ways typically contracted, underslung heels, flat thin soles etc etc... The walls don't neccessarily need to be badly damaged and you can certainly nail a shoe to a deformed hoof. Of course in order to tell if a hoof in deformed you need to know what a normal one looks like and the argument goes that because most of us are so used to looking at shod hooves (which as a consequence will always be deformed to some degree or other) we believe a deformed hoof is 'normal', which confuses out perception of what we should be looking for. So most people seeing a 'normal' hoof would think it was odd shaped... if that all makes sense...

I won't comment on an individual horse unless I've actually seen it in real life (photo's and internet descriptions can give very false impressions) but from the info on here so far it seems fairly clear that your pony really would be better off without shoes (in fact I can't imagine why he had them on in the first place) typicaly his problem in laminitis and you seem to be well aware of and on top of that. You should have no problems. Most domestic horses are overweight especially native breeds so keep his weight down, low protein low carb diet (typically fresh air), be very careful with ow much grass he has access to and stay vigilant.
 
no rotation in her (she was x rayed twice) :) she's technically underweight (trying to get this up, but she is a pain to keep weight on which is not an easy one to sort out with the lami proneness) so no danger of overweightness here :)

@ jaime - thank you for your encouraging words. i, too, would love for angel ( a her, btw!) to be able to go barefoot eventually!

interestingly, i did a bit of a whip-round with my exmoor contacts. it would appear that the majority of ridden exies have fronts on because they are footsore / not up to working otherwise! i am now thinking, maybe there's a chance they have LGL brewing which nobody notices when they're in the field but that becomes apparent when they're taken out and ridden?
 
It is certainly down to environment a lot of the time. When Frayne is at home (we have a dairy farm where most of the fields are fertilised and very green) she has to have her grazing time either severely restricted (by amount of time and also wearing a muzzle) or cut out totally (when she will then be on a concrete yard with hay). I always ensured she wasn't turned out on frosty mornings.

Now she is up in Brecon - where the grazing is far less rich and she also spends time in a stable or yard - she is completely fine without her muzzle. She is getting more exercise now - a lady is riding her several times each week - but there is less fussing about, and I don't think she is wearing rugs at all (despite being clipped and in all the snow!!).

We need to move to somewhere with a mountain!!

Ali xx
 
definitely!!

angel is doing better than i thought she would with the shoes off! i had a very brief ride on the roads at the weekend to see how she'd go. she was perfectly fine on the flat, but a bit wary on a slight incline/decline (which is normal i would have thought). on the plus side, not once did she head for the grass verge (despite me leaving a long rein to see where she'd go), which is a good thing!
 
little update - still going well :) also had friend explain to me what to look out for, where concavity should be and whatnot - very interesting, i can see myself turning nerdy with this! basically, not enough concacity where it should be just yet but overall picture is looking promising!

am now seriously thinking about hoofboots to 'tie us over' ...

julia
x
 
We don't have any boots and manage ok - in a similar situation not footy, but lacking concavity in places and such like.

It is miles to easy to get geeky and nerdy about this... quite frighteningly so!!!! :eek:
 
I would always have a set of boots available, you never know when you might need them and they can take the worry out of the situation if your horse starts to struggle for any reason and you want to keep on exercising them normally.
 
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