barefoot questions?

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hamish1

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how much road work would be ok for a 5year old who has always been barefoot to do?
is it possible to keep a horse barefoot and when would you say the right time to put shoes on would be if not?
thanks if anyone has any info on this :)
 
Mine is barefoot and will happily do 10 - 12 miles hacking on roads/tracks and probably more but haven't got that far yet.

If your horse isn't used to working on roads then you may need to build up to the time worked on them, or alternatively use boots.

I wouldn't shoe at all if you don't have to.
 
Hi, I live in the Czech Republic and most the horses at the yard have no shoes on and have never had any shoes on. Seems to be the done thing here. The girls ride for hours and hours and do km upon km on the roads and stoney tracks. The horses never seem to have any problems with their feet.

Kerry
 
My hunter does any amount of roadwork that I want him to do. An hour this morning up 1 in 4 hills, with at least 20 minutes of the hour in trot.

There is no right time to put shoes on if your horse is never sore and you don't need the psychological support of studs. The studs are a matter of preference. The ability to keep a horse barefoot and rock crunching depends hugely on nutrition, partly on environment - the way he is kept and worked, and lastly by a long way, the trim.

The right time to put shoes on is if your horse is not happy and if you cannot provide him with what he needs to keep him sound barefoot, or you do not want to.

We may now be swamped with the "they can't all do it you know" posts. But the fact is that the vast majority can, it is the owners who either can't or don't want to provide what the horse would need. Please do not read criciticism into this statement, none is intended. I speak from experience. I currently own a horse who has been unable to work barefoot since the very beginning. He has always needed boots to cope with stones. He is now ten, and I took him on shortly before he was to be put to sleep, partly as a result of his desperately thin soles and flat feet. He is a classic horse that people would point at and say "they can't all do it you know!"

For health reasons, it was necessary to take him completely off grass. Six months later, he is now walking happily across a stony yard and hacking out on stony roads with no boots. This is little short of a miracle. If he can do it, so can most of them.

Whether it would be in the horse's best interest never to be able to be turned out to graze again if there were not other issues making it necessary is another question altogether. Some horses also take time to grow feet strong enough to work on harder surfaces without shoes. Whether the owner wants to wait while the horse is not capable of managing tougher surfaces, and whether they can provide working and living arrangements where the horse is comfortable while it grows stronger feet is another question too. If not, then that's what shoes are for.
 
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keanmu said:
Hi, I live in the Czech Republic and most the horses at the yard have no shoes on and have never had any shoes on. Seems to be the done thing here. The girls ride for hours and hours and do km upon km on the roads and stoney tracks. The horses never seem to have any problems with their feet.

Kerry
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Interesting Kerry. Do you have commercial molassed horse food mixes over there? Are they fed straights, or what? And what about hay/haylage?? It would be fascinating to know if you can spare the time.
 
thanks for all the replys-
cptrayes you say that it depends hugley on nutrition-is there anything inparticular you would recomend? thanks
 
Hi Hamish,
All my cobs have bare feet and have never had a problem with lameness or quality of 'horn'. Both my vet and farrier comment on how good they look.
I feed them a very simple diet: ad-lib hay (when needed) Spillers Happy Hoof, NAF pink powders and oil. I live in France, its been hot and dry for months now, their feet still look fantastic :)
 
my 5 year old was barefoot, until she went lame a few months back, she was very flat foots and down on her frogs, 3 farriers all said same thing, her feet grow out not down, tried trimming regularly for a few weeks, not improvement, in the end put shoes on, within a day or so, she was fully sound, i would rather have her barefoot, but realistically, it wouldnt do her any good.
 
I am thinking of going barefoot with one of mine so spoke to my farrier.

Your chances of success depend partly on the thickness of 'wall' in the hoof. For example, my cob has walls about 4 times as thick as the TB.

Next time your horse is trimmed save some hoof and compare with another horse who is barefoot.

I guess if you have a local horse you should be OK, but if you have an 'imported' horse you may have to be a little bit more careful.
 
My welsh hacked 11 miles round trip on the road with a ridden show in the middle with no repercussions. She has solid, healthy feet which need little attention except trimming when necessary. Out 24/7 or hay when in and hifi light or happy hoof as a reward. Never been lame.
 
hamish1 said:
thanks for all the replys-
cptrayes you say that it depends hugley on nutrition-is there anything inparticular you would recomend? thanks
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hamish1 for the ones who find it more difficult sugar is often a huge issue. Some can't manage the sugar in spring and summer grass. One of mine needs to be kept off it during daylight hours, when the sugars are highest. The terribly sensitive ones need no grass at all, and no molasses in their feed either (read the bag label not the promises on the front!). Some need their hay soaked. I hasten to add this is only a small proportion, but if they need to be barefoot for some reason, like navicular syndrome, then it can be the difference between life and death (as it was for the rehab I took on this year).

For the rest, the ordinary horses, there are very many of us who find 50g a day of brewers yeast to be the best all round supplement, producing good strong horn, with a side effect of fly repellent and itch reduction as a bonus (and cheap!). We add 25g a day of magnesium oxide because magnesium is difficult to source naturally and is very low in fast growing grass. It is implicated in nerve sensitivity and in blood vessel performance. It's efficacy is anecdotal but most of the calmers are based on magnesium, and it's harmless and the horse just excretes what it doesn't need.

Some people supplement linseed meal for oil and seaweed for iodine but I don't. Some people have serious imbalances in their forage and their horses fail to manage barefoot because of that. To get to grips with that you really need a feed analysis. My land and water supply, for example, is high in manganese and that prevents the take up of copper and zinc. Black animals turn brown and can become anaemic, so I supplement copper. You need expert advice if you want to deal with mineral imbalances and there are companies that offer it but I don't know them I'm afraid. Someone else may point you to them.
 
All mine are barefoot and do everything i ask of them, we do a lot of road fittening work including some pretty steep hills and rough tracks, only one is foot sensitive to high fructans (sugars, growing grass etc). I haven't fed mixes or mollassed feeds for a long time. Mine are on Baileys Lo-Cal and Tiger Oats (they work hard so need the extra energy!) Then winter i add Speedibeet and TopChopLite. Supplement wise they have Linseed Oil for their coats and one has Magnesium althou using TopSpec Calmer at the moment as a go between as couldn't get usual Magnitude this w,end, incidentally the one who has this isn't the sensitive feet one but he has a sensitive grass tummy which makes him grumpy, the Mag helps him settle.

If he has never had shoes on then you technically shouldn't have any problems if you increase the work gradually, many owners haven't the time or inclination to work up and so barefoot fails in their cases. Luckily i have time while conditioning and boots if needed so it isn't a problem for me.

Roadwork on tarmac is hugely beneficial for barefeet and many will self trim as they go if you do enough work on varied terrain.

Barefoot was the norm when i was a kid at riding school, only the TB's and Hunters had shoes on, none of the ponies ever had shoes, i chose to follow with barefoot for my current ponies as they simply haven't needed them. I can spot problems a lot quicker IMO than if they were shod, i trim them myself and have a DAEP visit every couple of mths to correct any problems that i can't handle and tidy up my back feets as i am not brilliant with hinds. It isn't a money cop-out for me as he charges double what a farrier charges to trim but it's worth it IMO, no farriers round here will come out to me just to trim a few back feet every couple of mths, it isn't worth their trouble or petrol.

cptrayes - i've not fed brewers yeast for a while, my primary knowledge was that it was more of a calmer/stomach settler/conditioner as opposed to beneficial to feet is there some research anywhere that i could go and geek at?
 
My 7/8 bred has been unshod for about a fortnight now as part of an overall rehab (bonespur in jaw causing front of horse to malfunction) he has been walked out in hand down to the gate and back every day and is now walking confidently on the concrete and there is a marked improvement in his feet even after 14 days. Checking the 'barefoot diet' we tick all the boxes.
 
I took on a unbroken 5yr old 2yrs ago. He had never been shod but neither had he left his soft field.

He had reasonable feet to start with but small frogs and a very thin walls, plus no sole thickening.

He was comfortable straight away on smooth flat tarmac but struggled on stoney part. So he had boots on for a couple of months until he didn't need them and
could do most things comfortably without and could pick his way on grass when he needed.

The difference in his hoof wall thickness was the most obvious change - there was a MASSIVE 'event' line from when he started working on hard surfaces and basically a huge buldge as the thicker wall grew down. The walls doubled in thickness.

It wasn't until the new thicker wall reached the ground (6months or so) that he started to manage anything thrown at him and growing enough hoof that he needed trimmed regularly - before i had to be careful not to overdo it so his feet became too 'bare'.

He has since completed common rides barefoot with not an ouchy step, inc galloping over stoney tracks and many miles of road work. He's just done a 4hr Common ride at the weekend, over half of it on roads or stoney ground and managed just fine. In two weeks time he'll be doing the Edinburgh Common ride without shoes - 8hrs of road work. He'll be fine.

The 'right time' to put shoes on is when the horse is no longer comfortable and you cannot change anything else to make him comfortable. All most horses need is a sensible diet and conditioning work.
 
Sammi&Leigha said:
my 5 year old was barefoot, until she went lame a few months back, she was very flat foots and down on her frogs, 3 farriers all said same thing, her feet grow out not down, tried trimming regularly for a few weeks, not improvement, in the end put shoes on, within a day or so, she was fully sound, i would rather have her barefoot, but realistically, it wouldnt do her any good.
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ie - the shoes have disguised the foot pain. Agree on diet, get it sorted, (not easy!) and try again. No grass, no molasses, no sugars (even carrots & apples!) - soaked hay and soaked whole oats.
 
Boysy brewers yeast is full of the b vitamins, including biotin and there has been a lot of research into the effect of the b vits on hoof quality, hence the biotin supplements that you can buy. The rest is anecdotal again I'm afraid, but my horse has retained his concavity this summer when he didn't last, but I have seen event lines, quality changes and healed cracks in horses who were put on it with no other changes, and so have many people. It is the recommended primary supplementation by the UKNHCP founders in their book Feet First, together with magnesium oxide.
 
I think the thickness of the hoof wall is completely irrelevant. The thickness of the sole is what counts. My Boys were both shod all their lives until 17 and have now been barefoot for a year and doing great. I use hoof boots when hacking as we do hilly stony trails and actually go places I wouldn't do in metal shoes (Steep cobbled roads). Boots provide an element of shock absorption whilst also allowing the natural hoof to flex i.e. using it's own shock absorbtion capabilities. The frog being in contact with the ground uses natural hoof dynamics. This can not be compared to having an inflexible steel shoe nailed on with the frog off the grond and only the hoof wall bearing weight
 
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