Barefoot continued!!

C

Caritas

Well-Known Member
Joined
15 October 2004
Messages
604
Visit site
My horse has now had all his shoes taken off and is a little footy on the hard ground, how long eould you give it to see if he can go without shoes?? How long di it take for your horse to adjust if you have done the same?? Many thanks
 
Guess alot depends on the horse and how good his feet are?

My daughter's pony had her shoes off 8 weeks ago. She only wore fronts anyway. Farrier purposely didn't trim her feet when they removed, to allow her to keep the growth she'd got. She was a little footy for a week. They chipped back to the nail holes during the course of the next four weeks, so when he was here re-shoeing Miss P, he tended to Tweenie's front feet too.

We had him again on Thursday and I'm pleased to say Tweenie's feet hadn't chipped anymore and she's now perfectly sound on the stony track.

That said, she's a Section A and natives are known for their good hard feet.
 
It depends really. D has excellent native feet so we tried her without shoes but by the time for her next shoeing the hoof had just worn down too much so they had to go back on.
 
3-4 months after taking her shoes off, mine was hopping lame, and getting worse by the day
frown.gif
 
Well , that will mostly depend on your horse, what you do with him and the type of soil.My mare has never been shoed just because my farrier told me he liked her feet.Just make sure he does not gain on weight!
 
It does depend on your ned, you really will have to give it time though, at least a couple of months then re-assess, see if there is progression.
A friend of mine had to be patient with her horse going barefoot, she also used boa type boots, but now her horses feet are amazing, he is 20 and wore shoes for many years of his life prior
 
My horse has been barefoot for 4.5 years now (she's an ISH) and is sound on all surfaces including very stony tracks.

Barefoot will show up issues that shoes hide so it's always worth looking at the diet and making sure that you treat for thrush. The time to transition depends on the horse but make sure that you condition them for the work that you want to do and, if necessary, use hoof boots.

There are some good articles here:

http://www.unshod.co.uk/articles.php

and the 'Diet for Laminitics' article is good for everyone whether we've got laminitics or not.
 
Thankyou all so much for your replies, Im finding all very interesting and helpful. thankyou also LynneAC for the link that was interesting also. Do you mind me asking how long it took your horse to get used to being without shoes?? My horse is on day 4 now and seems a little more comfortable this morning!! Hopefully he will continue in this vein.
 
My horse went barefoot because of her arthritis in January. She is fine on most surfaces now but finds stones a nightmare. She is a heavy weight cob and the farrier says the bigger horses have a harder time. She has had to take a week off due to bruising so we have given into the inevitable and bought her a pair of Old Macs for her front feet for hacking. They haven't arrived yet so I have yet to see how she reactes to them!
 
The key thing with going barefoot is diet, if that isn't right then your horse will not get any more comfortable.
A few days in you can definitely expect a horse to be footy, especially with the current weather causing lots of grass growth, which is a big evil!!!
If your horse isn't getting more comfortable after a few weeks then look to improving its diet to help support the hoof.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top