Planning to use my
own horses as guinea pigs for the demo, I took stock of the herd. I have a few with those cast iron hooves that
no matter what, go barefoot year round and their hooves stay perfectly shaped
and handle the rockiest terrain without a misstep. I have a couple who are tough enough to go
with just front shoes and a couple who require shoes all around – or so I
thought. A very interesting situation
caused me to take my “pet” and use him as the shod-to-barefoot guinea pig. My favorite horse – the one who has packed my
daughter around for 6 years and made her the good rider – and good kid – she is
today, came up lame. Really lame. Having an excellent vet,
we pulled out all the stops to find the cause. We removed the left front shoe, took
radiographs and found nothing - no navicular changes, no rotation of the coffin
bone – nothing that would have resulted in such an extreme lameness. And no apparent abscess. As
great a horse as he is mentally, he has a few challenges physically and one of
those is his feet. For his height and
thickness, he has a foot I’ve always considered to be a little too small. Not extreme, but the one major thing I’d
change about him. And he had a tendency
to grow a disproportionate amount of toe which caused him, in his constant
state of “energy conservation”, to tend to stumble especially when he was near
the end of a shoeing cycle. And his feet
were tender – during a campout last summer, he lost a hind shoe and was so sore
after a couple hours on relatively good terrain, I ended up leading him the
last hour back to camp. I tell this story not to be “telling my story”, but
because it’s everybody’s story – I hear similar accounts from so many people!
I’m happy to report that after 10 days of supportive care, he
recovered. But a most interesting thing
happened when we removed that one shoe - almost instantly, his foot changed
shape. What used to have been a somewhat
narrow and elongated foot, suddenly became very much round again. I have a really
good farrier – even the barefoot trimmer who did our field day demo remarked
what a good shoe job he still had as she removed the three remaining
shoes. But when we took off that first shoe and his foot became more balanced and normal looking than I had seen in 6
years, I was motivated to take the
chance and see how he’d fare barefoot. After removing the remaining three shoes and
receiving a very well-done barefoot trim, I’m happy to report no tenderness
issues, better hoof shape, better movement - happy and healthy hooves and
horses! Stay tuned for progress reports…
I admit, money was the initial motivator. But while seeking the science to support a
more economical hoof care option, I have found a lot of information (see the links
below) to support the philosophy behind returning our horses to care standards
more closely resembling those they would experience on their own in nature (can
ya tell I dislike the word “natural”?!?)
From nutrition to housing to handling, we have made great strides in the
last few decades to try our best to recreate for our horses what makes the most
sense to them and for them. Without many
exceptions, the problems our horses present to us are most likely caused by us
and the way we ask our horses to adjust to live by our standards of care rather
than us taking the effort to provide care that most suits their physiology and
psychology. Not saying any of us would
intentionally do something to harm our horses, but we should always strive to
know better so we can do better.
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