Barefoot and sand menage use.

Spyda

Spyda

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How do people who don't shoe find their horse's feet cope with regular working in a sand school? I work mine in a sand school for about 20 minutes 2 or 3 times a week and find that it's really affecting her unshod hind feet to the point where she's walking on her (flat footed) soles. I'm now using Cavallo boots for turnout and schooling but wondered if this was a problem for everyone?
 
I broke in and produced a barefoot horse for someone and found in sand/rubber, rubber arenas it was fine, however her arena was black sand, which is not a fine as silica sand and quite gritty. I found it really bad for his feet as it was quite abrasive.
 
There are different types of sand, but IMAO i dont like it unless the proper stuff, if its not abrasive to the feet, it can cause a reaction in the lower legs.
 
Spyda said:
How do people who don't shoe find their horse's feet cope with regular working in a sand school? I work mine in a sand school for about 20 minutes 2 or 3 times a week and find that it's really affecting her unshod hind feet to the point where she's walking on her (flat footed) soles. I'm now using Cavallo boots for turnout and schooling but wondered if this was a problem for everyone?
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This has three parts.

For a healthy foot sand is no problem
A healthy foot is rarely completely flat soled - unless the horse has some retained sole
It is quite normal for the sole to take some of the load some of the time

If your concern is that there is no 'shoe' of horn around the edge of the foot then I'd worry not. There shouldn't be more than a mm or so of extra wall height proud of the sole.

But remember the sole should rarely be flat too.
 
Hmm, that sounds odd! Sand arenas are great for my TB's hooves - gives them a good buff and rolls the edge, but definitely doesn't wear them down too much, and I usually work him a good deal longer than 20 mins...

I think it's odd that your horse's hinds should be flat soled, too, especially if she's getting regular work on sand (that sort of surface usually encourages concavity). What's her diet like?
 
Don't have any problem with it on our two - but then they have both been barefoot for over a year and have absolutly rock solid feet. Initially then yes it did wear their feet, though their feet soon grew in accordance with the work level. It never caused any sensitivity.

If your horse has flat soles then I would look very carefully at the diet. Also worth bearing in mind that a sound barefoot horse looks very different to what you would consider 'normal' if it is fairly new to you and you've come from a shod background. I have had to get my eye in totally differently and consider that beauty is as beauty does! You aren't expecting hoof wall to be longer than the outside edge of the sole, and there will usually be a flatter worn area around the hoof that continues onto the outside edge of the sole too. My mare in particular has lovely concavity to her feet, but her hinds esp stay pretty worn in appearance. Just how she seems to like to keep them so I just need to respect that.
 
I've had my pony for two years and in that time he's never had shoes on, my current yard which I moved to in July has a sand arena and his feet haven't changed in the slightest.
 
Nocturnal said:
Hmm, that sounds odd! Sand arenas are great for my TB's hooves - gives them a good buff and rolls the edge, but definitely doesn't wear them down too much, and I usually work him a good deal longer than 20 mins...

I think it's odd that your horse's hinds should be flat soled, too, especially if she's getting regular work on sand (that sort of surface usually encourages concavity). What's her diet like?
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Well here's a well published picture of one of her hinds taken in January 2012. Farrier says she produces decent quality horn and her shod fronts always have a decent amount of growth to trim off every 5 weeks. Farrier remarked that her front shoes were very 'rounded off' at the edges last week when she was re-shod and asked if I used a sand school. It's not that she doesn't grow hoof, but it's becoming rubbed away faster than it can grow.

Diet wise she's fine; 600g Spiller's Lite balancer, 300g linseed meal and specific minerals plus ad-lib soaked hay and limited grass. Her hay and grass is being analysed by Forage Plus as we speak to double check for any glaring deficiencies, but to reiterate my farrier says her horn is of decent enough quality. Since the photo he's trimmed back the sole slightly and since using the Cavallo boots this week and last, I notice a couple of mm's growth behind. Growth that inevitably would not have been there if I'd not been covering her hinds in boots when using the menage. The sand in the menage is 'builders sand'. Nothing expensive, I can be sure :rolleyes:
 
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I would have the farrier leave off her hinds totally. Next time he goes near her frogs with a knife then wrestle him to the ground!! Her feet will develop in line with the work, so might just be a matter of time. Getting your minerals done will help too - have noticed a massive difference in ours!
 
BeckyMason97 said:
I've had my pony for two years and in that time he's never had shoes on, my current yard which I moved to in July has a sand arena and his feet haven't changed in the slightest.
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I know some people will argue but the breed and type of feet a horse inherits from its genes does influence how easy their feet are to keep comfortably unshod for all types of work. My TBxCob has large feet with huge concave soles. Hard as rock. This WBxTB has very small feet for her size and weight, and very thin, flat soles to boot. Even with the best possible dietary and management needs met, her genetics must make a difference to how well she copes unshod. It MUST do.
 
Where I work we breed horse.
One of the broodmare was a lovely horse, but horrible feet, just full of cracks and very weak. She had never had shoes on in her life.
Her daughter is the same, horrible feet, even though she was kept with her half brother and sisters in the same field, on the same diet and trimmed by the same farrier (and their feet where all quite good). Good (or bad) feet can be bred into horses.
 
ThePony said:
I would have the farrier leave off her hinds totally. Next time he goes near her frogs with a knife then wrestle him to the ground!!
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:D Funny you should say that! I'd been away for a month in January and came home to find her trimmed like this on my return. It hasn't been done since, trust me. I took the photos on my return home, as evidence of how I didn't wish her frogs to be trimmed. Apparently the farrier hadn't touched her hoof wall or sole, just trimmed back the frogs :mad:
 
dominobrown said:
Where I work we breed horse.
One of the broodmare was a lovely horse, but horrible feet, just full of cracks and very weak. She had never had shoes on in her life.
Her daughter is the same, horrible feet, even though she was kept with her half brother and sisters in the same field, on the same diet and trimmed by the same farrier (and their feet where all quite good). Good (or bad) feet can be bred into horses.
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....or they can both be grazed on the same, mineral deficient or unbalanced land which affects the quality of their hooves. Some horses suffer badly with imbalances, some don't. If the mare was mineral deficient, then the foal would be.

There are a bunch of horses with 'crap feet' who have spectacularly turned things around with a low sugar, balanced mineral diet.....
 
Spyda said:
:D Funny you should say that! I'd been away for a month in January and came home to find her trimmed like this on my return. It hasn't been done since, trust me. I took the photos on my return home, as evidence of how I didn't wish her frogs to be trimmed. Apparently the farrier hadn't touched her hoof wall or sole, just trimmed back the frogs :mad:
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Oh dear, think some just feel like they need to tidy up!!

I def agree with you re genetics. Both of our girls are barefoot, under same management and both hunter types. One has been a total doddle, the other needs absolutly everything to be completly perfect (every hair in place, planets alinged etc lol!) or she is footy. Her diet needs to be completly perfect and balanced, she really suffers if anything is amis and it has taken her longer to grow a good quality hoof. She is just brilliant now, but it has taken longer to get everything right and she has needed boots while the other one was totally storming right out of shoes. If we hadn't taken the easier one barefoot first then I would totally believe it wasn't right for some horses, I think though that some are just much harder to get right. With hindsight I can see that our tricky one had metabolic problems for a long while, we just didn't pick up on it until shoes came off and everything was much clearer to see and respond to.

P.S. just seen Oberons post - def agree with some being much more sensitive to imbalances, can only guess that it is at least down to genetics? Tricky mares up bringing was less than perfect diet wise (rich field full of grass, obese and broken in at 6), but would her up bringing caused her sensitivity to imbalances or would it have at least in part been down to her genetics?
 
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Oberon said:
There are a bunch of horses with 'crap feet' who have spectacularly turned things around with a low sugar, balanced mineral diet.....
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And here's hoping my WBxTB will be one of them once my Forage Plus diet report has come back! :)
 
ThePony said:
One has been a total doddle, the other needs absolutly everything to be completly perfect (every hair in place, planets alinged etc lol!) or she is footy. Her diet needs to be completly perfect and balanced, she really suffers if anything is amis and it has taken her longer to grow a good quality hoof. She is just brilliant now, but it has taken longer to get everything right and she has needed boots while the other one was totally storming right out of shoes.
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So encouraging. Great to hear it's all been worth it :)
 
Oberon said:
....or they can both be grazed on the same, mineral deficient or unbalanced land which affects the quality of their hooves. Some horses suffer badly with imbalances, some don't. If the mare was mineral deficient, then the foal would be.

There are a bunch of horses with 'crap feet' who have spectacularly turned things around with a low sugar, balanced mineral diet.....
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Well how come the others horses had good feet then? And the foal is now grown up and still hasn't got great feet even though they are slighlty better.
I disagree with you completely- genetics does come into to some extent.
 
dominobrown said:
Well how come the others horses had good feet then? And the foal is now grown up and still hasn't got great feet even though they are slighlty better.
I disagree with you completely- genetics does come into to some extent.
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I think Oberon states that some horses suffer badly with dietary imbalances and others don't - which would reflect in the feet. So technically genetic but not quite in the way you are suggesting. (hope i've interpreted that correctly)

Trina x
 
I'm a relative newcomer to the whole barefoot thing, but my boy is currently down at Rockley with Nic and having seen the horses she has there and what she does with them I'd have to say that whilst I agree some feet are harder to manage than others, I think it's possible to do it in the end.

I've been told of many types of horse that 'won't' go barefoot, and yet few people seem to want to agree that most horses can, which is what I've seen from being at Rockley, reading on the blog and talking to others on here.

Good management plays a huge part so I have everything crossed for you that you can get it all sorted. :)
 
IR horses tend to produce poor quality horn until the IR is managed. An IR mare will produce an IR foal. And a mare with nutritional deficiencies is also likely to produce an IR foal.

OP I would disagree with your farrier (sorry) but from what little we can see from your photo the horn doesn't look great quality to me. At least not compared to what I am used to and I travel far and wide looking at some really horrible feet (and lots of lovely ones too).

I will have another look at the photo in case I see anything else. I too was not happy with the frog.
 
Thanks for the pic. Agree that it's best if the farrier does nothing at all to the hinds, sounds like your mare's already got it covered! ;) Good news about the forage analysis; you may start to see an improvement if you replace the spillers balancer with balanced minerals, some horses are sensitive souls and do seem to need everything to be just so.

I have a TBxWB too btw, but his feet are great :D. So many things influence foot growth, and I'm sure genetics do play a part, but I'm equally sure that it's possible to find an arrangement which suits any particular horse. But it's by no means always easy!
 
Spyda said:
And here's hoping my WBxTB will be one of them once my Forage Plus diet report has come back! :)
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Fingers well and truly crossed for the effort you are putting in. :) I said my thoughts on your other thread but don't forget the importance of getting dietary sugars and carbs low as well as sorting out minerals. I think you're right to boot for work atm. x
 
I had an arena deliberately surfaced with grit so that it would wear my horses' feet down. I miss it dreadfully in terms of foot quality now that I have a fibre surface instead.

I agree completely that genetics plays a part and some horses are easier than others, but no horse should have problems working in a sand arena, it "should" just grow more foot to cope - but maybe this one also needs some banging on the road to encourage faster growth??
 
dominobrown said:
Well even though apprently genetics affect every other part of the horse, feet are excempt!
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I just don't agree that we can scratch all horses with 'crap' feet down to genetics. It's banded around too much and makes people think they should just give up and accept crap feet on a horse.

Why do these horses with 'genetically crap feet' suddenly grow fab feet when diet and stimulation is corrected?

There is some thought that even the truly genetically challenged foals are that way because of imbalanced nutrition inutero.

Genetics play a part, but they can't be the only answer, surely?
 
Of course genetics plays a part, but it isn't the be all and end all. It produces tendencies, not absolutes causalities. Just as some people are genetically more at danger of getting diabetes, like my husband, but who if they manage their diet and exercise, can reduce the chances of getting it. Unlike many of his relatives who have not done so.

Lifestyle is much more important than genetics.
 
Yes my horse is barefoot at the moment but not for much longer! He is ridden 2-3times per week in a rubber/sand manage and hacked once max per week.

Farrier has said his hind feet are bad and fronts are pretty bad. I am now having to put a full set on my boy :-( mainly for the manage! He said that it is very common especially in unshod dressage horses!
 
Our sand school is in the liddle of our field. I just leave the gate open and they often sleep in there :) They've been barefoot for about 6 months and we've never had a problem. It's just sand - nothing fancy and rubbery.
 
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