Is going barefoot always difficult?

a+e

a+e

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Jul 3, 2007
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I spoke to my farrier today about taking off my mares front shoes. I have been thinking about it for quite a while now.She only wears fronts and has been without backs for about 3 yrs.
She has nice strong healthy hooves and has never had any foot problems whatsoever.
I only ride about twice a week in winter on the roads, and summer is a bit less as i do more hacking round our fields. Ive read a bit on here about others going barefoot and it seems quite a complex and sometimes difficult process to take. However, when i mentioned it to my farrier he just said we;ll try taking them off next time he comes and see how she goes.
I asked about having to use special boots/extra cleaning of hooves etc and he said theres no need. If she gets foot sore, i will easily know and we can put them back on. Is this right??:confused:
Im not very experianced when it comes to hooves/feet and am now wondering if this is the right decission to make after all??
 
For a horse with good feet it should be pretty simple. You might need boots for a while as the feet get used to being without shoes depending on how much work you want to do but a lot just have their shoes off and barely notice, some even do better without. Its when the feet have some problems that it takes a lot more faffing but there are ways to minimise the faff even then.
 
hi

i took my horses front shoes off 6 weeks ago(rising 6yr old, never been shod at the back) and i'm so glad i did! His movement seems to have improved loads and he seems fine. I am inspecting them every day just making sure they are picked out and kept clean, i have been using hoof hardner but only once a week on the fronts, he has slight chipping on the fronts but i expected that due to the nail holes.

i am just a bit more careful when hacking, just rode him in the school for the lst few weeks and took him out on tarmac for 20 mins twice a week to help with the hardening, i am careful not to take him on very stoney ground at the moment though, trying to ride just on tarmac and grassy verges if i come across stoney areas and he is doing really well, i have adjusted his feed slightly i.e only feeding a couple of carrots and have put him on Mag ox as suggested by some people on here.

Hoping he carry's on doing as well in the summer when the ground is harder, his backs are rock hard and nicely concave so hoping the fronts end up the same!

i have read as many articles as possible regarding going barefoot and now i think i am alot more knowledgeable! i was thinking of purchasing boots for his fronts but touch wood haven't need to!

Good luck you can only try it!

p.s just to add he had front shoes on for a year before i took them off
 
a+e said:
I spoke to my farrier today about taking off my mares front shoes. I have been thinking about it for quite a while now.She only wears fronts and has been without backs for about 3 yrs.
She has nice strong healthy hooves and has never had any foot problems whatsoever.
I only ride about twice a week in winter on the roads, and summer is a bit less as i do more hacking round our fields. Ive read a bit on here about others going barefoot and it seems quite a complex and sometimes difficult process to take. However, when i mentioned it to my farrier he just said we;ll try taking them off next time he comes and see how she goes.
I asked about having to use special boots/extra cleaning of hooves etc and he said theres no need. If she gets foot sore, i will easily know and we can put them back on. Is this right??:confused:
Im not very experianced when it comes to hooves/feet and am now wondering if this is the right decission to make after all??
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YOU GO FOR IT! What are you waiting for?
You have a horse with good feet, a co-operative farrier and no need to do much road work - a perfect combination of circumstances.

Your horse will thank you for it, so will your bank account, and so will the farriers back. Just ask him to be sure to roll the edges of the hooves at the front a little more than he already does at the back (minimises chipping and stops the owner worrying so much).

Think about it - all horses were born barefoot, so you are only returning your horse's feet to a more natural state. Why should this be difficult or problematic?

I have my mare shod two times a year as for part of the summer we ride mainly on forestry tracks, which are very hard, sharp and stony, and uncomfortable for her sole as well as damaging to the wall of the hoof.

The rest of the year, when we ride on tracks, fields and minor roads, she is unshod. If we are doing a long distance on the roads then I pop boots on her fronts.
 
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Joy has good feet and I thought the transition would be relatively easy compared to many.

The problem is that now I can't take her good feet for granted.

I'm permanatly questioning myself and her way of going and have lost a lot of confidence in hacking out. I also don't ask her to work properly from the back as I would normally and she will be quick to get lazy about this if it continues.

I think most of our problems are because I'm unsure and not taking to the change very well. She picks up on my uneasyness as she is a sensitive soul.
 
Ok you need to be strong!!! TBH if the horse gets a little footy you have to push through to toughen up the feet - think of it as you walking barefoot, to start with can be a little odd with the occasional 'ouch' but soon feet toughen and adapt!

Ive had Indie barefoot for about 4 months now (thought it was longer!) and its the best thing we done. I wouldnt say theres any special care. i just check carefully around the white line for grit - a wire brush is the best tool to brush it all with! Indie has extremely good feet and we do mainly roadwork - he no longer slips or trips like he did with shoes.

The only thing my farrier recommended was to give a supplement for a few months to help the hooves grow to strengthen and grow out the nail holes (i use Farriers Favourite which is fab), to brush with wire brush to ensure there is no grit in.

Luckily so far so good with Indie and im pleased and he is going much better! I would advise it as shoes can always be put back on if it really is not working but it needs a fair trial!

Good luck for when you and Joy take the plunge!:D
 
I had her back off in December.

Tbh I don't really want to be pushing her through being footy to toughen her up if she can be comfortable in shoes or boots.

I'm just a softy and probably not cut out for this :eek:
 
Pushing a horse with poor feet 'through it' risks causing inflammation, abscessing, body stiffness and behavioural problems. It's also rather unfair, the horse doesn't know there's any future benefit to its discomfort.

Going barefoot doesn't have to be complicated at all, it only becomes more so if the horse doesn't initially cope and you don't automatically slap the shoes back on. Unfortunately good strong feet don't automatically mean the horse will take to it like a duck to water, there are lots of factors that affect the outcome.
 
TBH if the horse gets a little footy you have to push through to toughen up the feet - think of it as you walking barefoot, to start with can be a little odd with the occasional 'ouch' but soon feet toughen and adapt!
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Depends on what you call the occasional ouch. I wouldn't push any horse who obviously wasn't happy over a certain surface, in fact I've been known to get off and come home when this has happened with my mare. There's a fine line between conditioning the hooves and just hurting the horse, and it's far too easy to do more harm than good. You'd do far better to condition the hooves in hand with a controlled programme and use hoof boots for anything else if you think your horses hooves need to be conditioned.

But to answer the original question, no it doesn't always have to be difficult. I know more horses who cope fantastically well, and have done from day one, than I do who struggled.
 
My friend's connemara has real stone crunching feet straight after having the shoes removed, my 16 year old pony (arab x welsh) has the same after just being turned away without shoes for a year (in a field), but my TB is taking it slowly. She had her shoes removed last June, has good feet and no real problems with her hinds but footy with the fronts. She's absolutely fine in her hoofboots and OK with roadwork without. The trimmer I recently had out suggested that I needed to ride her more often on short rides without the boots which I was thinking of doing anyway. There is a bit of a problem in that even horses with really good hooves will occasionally pick their way a little across very stoney ground (as they do it the wild) and this can be very off putting to riders who are used to having shod hooves which feel nothing especially if they are worried that they are doing the right thing for their horse anyway.

My trimmer also wasn't that impressed with special supplements but thought a good general vitamin is better as good hooves are a product of a healthy horse. However I feed Formula for Feet.
 
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Don't forget it takes 9 months for a whole new hoof to grow down, the hard bit is getting past the nail holes growing out (chipping) then when that's gone you never look back!
 
Thanks, thats helped a lot.
I think im just concerned that i might cause her unnescersary discomfort and like joyscarer said i dont want to lose confidence in hacking out or have to limit our riding.
The other thing i wasnt sure of is if i should change to a bare foot trimmer??...not that i know of any round here:confused:
 
it is difficult - i rode honey without boots last night for a track, road work and stubble fields - she was fine on the road and stubble but a bit ouchy on the track as it is basically a smooth track with a scattering of about inch sq stones randomly over the top...
i was panicing as whenever she trod on a stone she obvioulsy felt it... i thought back toriding her on the same track with shoes and remembered that she was exactly the same as the shoes did not offer enough clearance for the stones! :rolleyes: it's amazing how paranoid you can get once you take the shoes off!
obvioulay with boots she's fine along it but i'm trying to alternate boot use/barefoot a bit so she's still riden without boots a few times a week
 
I wouldn't say that barefoot has been difficult for my horses, it's probably been harder for me in some ways :eek: When my old horse JS first went barefoot his feet had been trimmed & shod quite badly for years, so the first thing that happened was that all the weak bits of wall fell off. He looked like his feet had been in an arguement with a crocodile, they looked awful, I was stressing like mad and for a week or two all I would do was walk slowly on the grassy bits of the xc course because I was sure he must be in pain. How wrong I was! JS got sick of this nonsense and bombed off with me one day, so I let him do what he wanted and he took me over some jumps :eek: After that I calmed down a bit! I was forever fretting and worrying about his feet though, despite all the indications from him being that he was about the happiest he'd ever been - I can't remember him ever seeming footy. Then when Mrs P went barefoot I was a bit more chilled about it, but I was still very conscious of her feet looking worn and worried about doing damage. Again, she doesn't seem to have missed a beat :)

You won't know until you try, but do bear in mind that the best time of year to go barefoot is when the ground is quite hard. Both of mine did very well after having had their shoes off in June, so in your shoes I might hold off for a few months.
 
I think "difficult" can be caused by environment. If your horse has to walk over a stone strewn track to get anywhere you are going to have problems.

Both my horses came out of shoes and into work with no boots no special treatment. I do have alot of roadwork but also have good(ish!) verges and few stones. So no, it doesn't have to be difficult - I just backed off the intensity and listened to the horse.

There are trimmers that cover Suffolk - Jackie will - info@phenomenalhooves.co.uk most travel far further than farriers will!
 
Caroline DAEP said:
I think "difficult" can be caused by environment. If your horse has to walk over a stone strewn track to get anywhere you are going to have problems.
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this is my difficulty - but i'm moving to a yard on sat that has 6miles off road grass tracks and a sand school - and no stone strewn tracks! :D i suspect life will be a lot easier then and we'll both be happier!
however - i will try to find a good road work hack to continue to ride her on - i'm not sure no road/tarmac work would be a good idea!
 
There is a bit of a problem in that even horses with really good hooves will occasionally pick their way a little across very stoney ground (as they do it the wild)
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It depends, it is possible to get paranoid and pick up on things you didn't when you had shoes on and weren't thinking about it, but in general I think really good feet will be oblivious to stones unless they're unstable footing, as with shoes. I always know when I'm starting to have trouble with grass when Rio stops stomping and starts picking and avoiding.
 
I just took mine off in just the way your farrier suggested (are you in Norfolk, it sounds just like my guy too?).............. and we've been fine. I'm sure it will all be ok - just run with it.
 
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