BACK SHOES

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derricks

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The last 2 times that my new horse has been shod he has not been able to hold his back shoes on. He is only 5 and I this is our first summer together. several times the hooves have broken away and the nails have just fallen out. His back feet are splitting from the nail holes down. Not sure there is much foot left to nail to now and he is now missing one back shoe. His feet have been great all winter. I have not hacked him out for 5 weeks trying to reduce the risk of the shoes falling off but this hasnt helped as he has still managed to loose a shoe together with half his back foot. My farrier is great and comes highly recommended by many of our local vets and I have used him for many years.
I have been useing cornucresine daily together with a deep moisturising water based cream as my farrier did comment on how brittle his feet had become, he is now on his second tub of formular 4 feet.
I was wondering if leaving his back feet unshod would help improve his back feet, we only do road work about once / twice a week. Do you think he would cope with no back shoes on.
my farrier is not due for another 10 days, should i leave the one back foot without a shoe and see how he goes ?
Has any one else got a horse that is only shod infront and do you get any problems.
Any ideas how long it will take for his feet to get used to not having any shoes on ?
Any ideas / comments please
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It takes about 6 months for enough new foot to grow, during this time you need to condition and protect the feet.

Google barefoot horses, you will find lots of info.

I have 2 barefoot behind, the difference is they have never worn shoes (they both have flat front feet so need fronts) and have good feet.
 
One of mines back shoes came off the other day and that hoof is very split too. Farrier recommended to feed him seaweed and apply cornucresine
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2 of ours are completely barefoot,
Capella was fully shod untill about 6 months ago and as she was out of work we took them off, she's never had them back on and is doing really well, the first 2 weeks she got a few chips and things but they have grown out and touch wood she's sound and doing well.
We Cornucresine twice a day and Feed a seaweed and rosehips mix from www.purehorsemanship.co.uk
Cause rosehips has natural biotin in it.

xxx
 
I never have hind shoes on my horses, they grip better on the roads and less injuries in the fields. I bought a new horse 3 months ago whom was shod all round, I had him re shod but left the hinds off, they are usually less foot sore without hind shoes than they would be without fronts for a while. 3 months on which is technically 2 shoeings he is coping brilliantly on the roads, I do avoid big stoney area's but his feet are self filing and his heels are starting to come up a bit more, (barefoot horses that have been bare foot for years usually have a decent amount of heel and lovely spongy frogs) The one thing my Farrier did at first was to not take off too much hoof so he could file them himself on the roads. I hack 3 times a week and he is an Anglo so not brilliant feet.
 
One of mine is shod on all 4 (he came to us that way, and we've carried on) The other came to us barefoot and never shod before in her life, we ended up putting fronts on her as her workload increased with us and her fronts were wearing down a lot and unevenly. Her back feet are absolutely fine, the farrier doesn't see any reason to start shoeing them. She does a lot of roadwork, we have to to get anywhere and is coping absolutely fine.

I am thinking that if (more) economies need to be made in the future that trying the other one on just front shoes might be a possibility...
 
of our 8 horses, none are shod behind. My sister's last horse was a tb who was shod all round due to a conformational defect behind, but other than that we took all our back shoes off a few years ago and haven't looked back since. They all hack out on a regular basis and we compete about twice a month. We also have far fewer kick injuries. (touching wood quickly!!)
 
Thanks for all your replies, I am defo going to give back shoes a miss for a while and see how he goes. Hopefully the condition of his back feet will improve by not trying to nail onto already week hooves. will speak to my farrier, hopefully he will agree with my decision.

One question for those of you who have removed your horses back shoes - did you just carry on as normal or did you not do any road work for a while or did you use hoof boots until the feet were hardened off ?
 
I just carried on hacking as normal but was careful were I went ie avoided riding in edges of the road as you usually get lots of small stones etc there. I also carried a fold up hoof pick in my pocket as well.
 
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