Barefoot Success Stories

Faracat said:
M123 - If you had shod your horse, he could have still developed exactly the same issues anyway. I'm actually quite cross that your vet and farrier have blamed your management in this way. Being generous, they only see horses with issues, so maybe this has skewed their perception of BF and hoof function?

Have you read the study that was reported on eponaTV that showed how shoes start to negatively change the shape of hooves after a very short time of being shod?

BF doesn't mean that a horse will never have concussion related issues as you can't take away concussion completely, plus there is more to having a properly functioning BF hoof than just not shoeing. If you look at slomo videos on youtube, you can certainly see more shock travelling up the leg of a shod horse that toe first lands*, than the vids of a BF horse that heel first lands. A BF hoof that toe first lands is going to absorb shock far less well than a BF hoof that heel first lands. Rockley has had cases of BF horses for rehab.


* Interestingly Heelfirst, a Farrier on this forum states that shod horses should ideally land flat.
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They didn't blame me though, they just said this is an injury that they see more commonly in barefoot horses. Neither the vets nor farriers seemed to have any sort of agenda other than to get my horse sound - neither was keen on shoeing him other than to see if we could support him better, my farrier was actually really gutted to put shoes on him.... I think they're just reporting what they see commonly! Of course he also could have got the same issue if he'd worn shoes, they just commented they see it more frequently in unshod horses, in their professional experiences.

If it's useful to people I'll report back after the MRI and discuss it with all the vets I speak to there as well, they'll be different to my usual vet/farrier so different set of opinions. It's next Wednesday.
 
Morgan123 said:
This is a 'be careful' story.

I transitioned my horse to barefoot when he was seven, with not much trouble. Took about six weeks to get used to ground, I did use hoof boots for road hacks for several months, but basically no problems. I think we had one abscess.

He's been great - now fourteen - and we've done all sorts of things including hunting, dressage, lots of hacking, and endurance (our main sport). He has lovely healthy feet and I just fed him a hoof supplement in spring/summer and made sure he had a balanced diet - no problems except occasional mild footiness.

At fourteen he has gone mildly lame in the last six weeks and been diagnosed with sidebone, mild navicular, and mild coffin joint arthritis. the vets and farriers I've spoken to have said that these concussion related injuries are more common in barefoot horses - particualrly sidebone - and I now feel like I should have been more aware of this. I was under the impression that the hoof was BETTER able to cope with concussion without a metal shoe, but apparently this is not the case at all. So choosing to have him barefoot has contributed to my now-lame horse.

.
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How strange then, that shod and shoeless horses with the problems that your horse has are routinely being resolved by Rockley with a proper barefoot rehab.

I'll get off the fence, I think your vet and your farrier are talking total rubbish about a high mileage fourteen year old horse that would probably have been even worse off in shoes.
 
joycec said:
How strange then, that shod and shoeless horses with the problems that your horse has are routinely being resolved by Rockley with a proper barefoot rehab.

I'll get off the fence, I think your vet and your farrier are talking total rubbish about a high mileage fourteen year old horse that would probably have been even worse off in shoes.
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Maybe. He isn't particularly high mileage though. He's done a bit of endurance yes, but not masses - and the vet/farrier aren't basing their opinion just on me, but on what they have seen from many other cases in general. Another vet told me the exact same thing a few years ago but i ignored them on the basis of the same arguments you're all making :-).
 
Morgan123 said:
Maybe. He isn't particularly high mileage though. He's done a bit of endurance yes, but not masses - and the vet/farrier aren't basing their opinion just on me, but on what they have seen from many other cases in general. Another vet told me the exact same thing a few years ago but i ignored them on the basis of the same arguments you're all making :-).
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Ask them exactly how many horses with the issues your horse has they have ever seen and ask them how many of those were shod and how many barefoot, I bet there is no way they can prove that claim! I've never heard anything so damned stupid as suggesting unshod horses have more concussion related injury.
 
joycec said:
Ask them exactly how many horses with the issues your horse has they have ever seen and ask them how many of those were shod and how many barefoot, I bet there is no way they can prove that claim! I've never heard anything so damned stupid as suggesting unshod horses have more concussion related injury.
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Will do. They see a hell of a lot more horses on a daily basis than any of us do (assuming none of us are vets or farriers!) so I am sure they will let me know thier informed opinion and what evidence they are basing it on :-).

I'm going to leave the thread as I don't want to hijack the poor OP's original question with a big debate about whether barefoot is best, I only meant to impart the warning I wish I'd thought about and just taken a bit more care or something. However, I will psot back next week on a new thread based on discussions with the vet hospital etc etc.
 
The thing is, you need to know the % of the BF population that suffers with that problem V the % of the shod population that suffers with the same issue. A vet saying, well I see 20 BF horses a year with this issue and 10 shod horses, therefore BF are twice as likely to suffer with this issue, doesn't work unless you know how many shod and unshod horses/ponies there are in total.

It would also be helpful to grade the health of the hooves too and see what difference that makes with the hoof health within both the BF and shod population.

Plus taking a large group of horses very, very similarly healthy hooves from horses of the same breed (50% shod/50% BF), with the same management, feed and exercise levels and then monitor them over several years to see what % develop the problems. You have to try to get it so that the ONLY difference is the shoes, only then can you truly say that it's the shoes making the difference.



Regardless of all of that, I have a horse that was nearly PTS with hoof issues and a BF rehab has brought her back to soundness. Even if she does develop navicular in the future (for example), I wont regret taking the shoes off as I've already got four more years with her than I would have done.
 
Morgan123 said:
Will do. They see a hell of a lot more horses on a daily basis than any of us do (assuming none of us are vets or farriers!) so I am sure they will let me know thier informed opinion and what evidence they are basing it on :-).

I'm going to leave the thread as I don't want to hijack the poor OP's original question with a big debate about whether barefoot is best, I only meant to impart the warning I wish I'd thought about and just taken a bit more care or something. However, I will psot back next week on a new thread based on discussions with the vet hospital etc etc.
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Look forward to hearing back from you discussion with the hospital. Physics would dispute your farriers claim. Was the horse xray'd prior to you taking him BF?

I've gone to five finger shoes myself and wow the difference, I have dodgy ankles and my feet are soo stable in them, my netball has improved and I'm surprised at the lack of concussion. I wore my sensible but nice looking sandals and rolled my ankle grr. Highly recommend vibrams. I found prior that being BF as much as possible improved my flat feet which is why I gave the five fingers a try.
 
Dumbo said:
Please share yours!

I am going to transition by boy to barefoot in the coming weeks.
I'm in the process if changing his diet to a high fibre and oil, low starch and sugar.

He is a 15yo TB with dreadful feet. The lowest heels, flat as pancakes and bar shoes have made them worse so I'm hoping barefoot is the solution.
However, I know he's going to be very sore.

I'd love to read about your barefoot successes - how long were they footy? What time of year? What were you feeding? Did all 4 shoes come off at the same time or backs off first? Did you need to bute? Did you use boots?
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Hi. Firstly - good luck!

My horse's situation was a bit different - cob with crumbly feet. Sorted diet, and had him on straw chaff, speedibeet and pro hoof for a couple of months before taking his hinds off in the autumn. He seemed to move better in the school straight away, stopped the horrendous brushing behind, and once the nail holes started growing out and his feet looked less ragged, the hoof quality was better almost immediately. The rate of hoof growth went through the roof compared to when shod - and we never looked back. I had made up my mind to take it easy and let him find his own pace through transitioning, but aside from taking hacking easy for a couple of weeks, then slowly building back up, there was no routine change. By the following summer, we were doing 10-20miles a week hacking, at least half on the roads, and his back feet still needed trimming at 6 weeks.

He was doing so well bare behind, that I decided to take his fronts off the following autumn after doing a lot of research. I had his fronts taken off end of the summer, so not much grass coming through, no frosts yet to mess around the grass sugar, and ground not too hard. He took a little longer to transition the fronts, and had a brief setback around 6 weeks after shoes coming off. Not lame, just a bit tender. Again, mentally wrote off the winter to let him get used to it, and transitioned well. He's now doing everything happily barefoot - unaffiliated dressage, a bit of jumping, hacking on the roads and blasting round the farm. I didn't need to boot at any point - just kept an eye on him and the lami app on my phone to see what made him uncomfortable. Keeping a diary was really handy too.

The biggest problems I encountered were:
* reminding myself not to rush him or be disappointed/panic at any setbacks - let him tell me when he's comfy and ready for more
* lack of support. My otherwise fab farrier was not really on board, and the others on my yard thought I was being a bit weird and hippy.

Finding a farrier that was happy with a working barefoot horse, and trimmed appropriately was the hardest thing. My new yard is a lot more supportive about being barefoot - rather than it not being mentioned as a little weird, people notice and ask about it, and a couple have started looking into it themselves :)

The hardest thing now is doing enough work to keep his feet trimmed between farrier visits - new yard doesn't have as much lane hacking to keep his feet nice, but much better farm hacking and turnout.
 
Have given it a go, but without a massive amount of success. My cob has great feet, in the 10 years of owning him he has lost 3 shoes only, and those he pulled off in his trailer, until we made the connection that he hates travel boots and will pull shoes off in an attempt to get them off. Lesson learned there. About two years ago at the age of 19, he wasnt doing masses of work, pretty much a lawnmower, due to my work commitments.

Took advice from farrier and took the backs off first. All good with it, in fact his hock spavin that had niggled away got a lot better as her was better able to pull himself along, well thats my farriers words and he was sound. I tried to take the fronts off then and did it in the spring so the ground was softer. Turned him out for a week or so totally barefoot and then tried a short hack on the road. To say the poor boy was foottie was an understatement and we turned him about again and tried a few days later. Same result. Fronts went back on.

I did up his work earlier on this year as I took a long sabbatical from work as I left my business and I then had him reshod all around as we were doing a lot of roadwork, and all was fine again. He's now been diagnosed with arthritis in his hocks, knee and neck, and although he is responding really well to the treatment, the vet has advised me to keep him shod in front, probably for the rest of his life. This is because he does well being shod just in front, and he did not wish any foot issues to compound his other issues.

To be honest, I was quite keen to have him barefoot, but it did not suit him, and thats all I can really say.
 
Theory it takes more than a week in a paddock to transition to BF (also how was your diet) and I used to think keeping shoes on was a sign of a good farrier at one stage too. Older horses take longer as there is normally a lot of things that need time to repair themselves, unslung heels being the most noticeable.
 
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