Barefoot

And scarily some are rather misleading. One popular Laminitis Trust approved feedstuff advertises as 'no molasses'. But it does have MoGlo. MoGlo is an extract of molasses which is very close to Molasses itself in terms of sugar content.
 
Sneaky or what!

Molglo is not as bad as pure molasses - it has around 35% the sugar content of regular molasses - but still, why feed it when you don't have to?


And I definitely agree with the red wine is good for you theory!!!!
 
sunnyone said:
I have my belgian warmblood barefoot, he was diagnosed as having navicular disease, and i was advised to pts...

6wks isnt really long enough to let all these changes happen.

You will also need to do gradual amounts of roadwork to allow the horn to toughen up.
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Our 8yr old Dutch Warmblood mare was diagnosed with possible navicular this time last year, luckily it turned out to be soft tissue damage in both front feet. - we took the decision to take her rear shoes off whilst she was on long term box rest with eggbars on the front. She is now sound and we made the decision last November to take the front ones off as well. We have a terrific farrier, who is well trained for barefoot and after an initial very short period of her being careful where she placed her feet she is now charging around like a two year old. IMO it was the best thing to do, she is a lot happier and I wonder if she always hated having shoes.

Take your time to make a decision, as long as there is no pain or problems with his feet.
 
Clannad48 said:
IMO it was the best thing to do, she is a lot happier and I wonder if she always hated having shoes.
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I honestly don't know how accurate this is, but Mary Wanless told me that no horse who's never been shod has EVER had navicular. Farriers don't like that little snippet, so I assume it's either true or close enough to the truth. Luckily, it wasn't the case for you but it does make you wonder just how much mild pain they put up with for years on end if a farrier that doesn't suit them keeps nailing things to their feet. Doesn't have to be a bad farrier, just a poor horse/farrier relationship that doesn't communicate at all.

My partner learned a four point trim from Mary Wanless and he's altered it slightly to suit whoever he's trimming of ours. It's not failed yet.
 
HazellB said:
I honestly don't know how accurate this is, but Mary Wanless told me that no horse who's never been shod has EVER had navicular. Farriers don't like that little snippet, so I assume it's either true or close enough to the truth. .
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I know of one. It had collapsed heels and poor foot balance from a farrier trim, showing that it is hoof conformation and quality that causes navicular. But shoes cause poor foot balance and hoof quality, which is why the vast, vast majority of navicular horses are shod ones.

Incidentally "navicular" is ALWAYS soft tissue damage. The bone damage classically described as navicular comes after the tendon damage. If you have an MRI done or dissect a horse which has navicular bone damage it will always show soft tissue damage too. But many horses lame with a heel pain will show damage to the DDFT on an MRI scan without bone damage. IE the bone damage comes later in the process. But even the bone damage can be fixed with a barefoot rehab, in time.
 
[QUOTE=HazellB;8430921Luckily, it wasn't the case for you but it does make you wonder just how much mild pain they put up with for years on end if a farrier that doesn't suit them keeps nailing things to their feet. Doesn't have to be a bad farrier, just a poor horse/farrier relationship that doesn't communicate at all.

Luckily my horse loves her farrier, you should see her with him - she is all over him like a rash - a proper tart. He has always said what great feet she has and when she was initially having problems he was concerned that his shoeing may have caused the problem but our vet had complimented the shoeing (which I understand is rare for a vet to actually compliment a farrier). We have been really lucky in that the vet and farrier have worked together - The results of the x-rays showed there was no bone/tendon damage which was a great relief.

I feel extremely blessed that I have a farrier who is totally in tune with my horse (even though she tries to undress him at every opportunity).

For me at the moment barefoot is the way to go but I shall always rely on my vet and farrier to advise me if things change.
 
My 2 yo is barefoot and will never see a set of shoes, like has been previously said it can take a lot of commitment and research on our behalf but is well worth it in the end.

OP good luck with your mare, give her time and look into her diet and exercise regiemes

:)
 
cptrayes said:
I know of one. It had collapsed heels and poor foot balance from a farrier trim, showing that it is hoof conformation and quality that causes navicular. But shoes cause poor foot balance and hoof quality, which is why the vast, vast majority of navicular horses are shod ones.
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Navicular is also incredibly heritable. The shape of the navicular bone is strongly linked to the severity of the syndrome and the shape of the bone is closely related to the parents. So yes, poor hoof conformation can cause problems but in many cases this isnt man made but genetic, certainly in the case of the actual bone shape and blood supply, etc. and this can also extend to the hoof capsule.

I would also say that it isnt necessarily the shoes themselves that only cause poor hoof balance and quality- there is also the influence of the farrier, genetics, management and nutrition there too. All at any time from birth can improve or deteriorate the symptoms.

Navicular is a syndrome- meaning there is more than just one issue. Bone shape, foot balance, blood supply, number and shape of synovial fossae, bone remodelling as well as soft tissue changes can all be involved- it is a very complex syndrome.

There is a higher incidence in warmbloods and this is related to genetics. Because of the high genetic predisposition i dont believe it can be possible that no unshod horse has ever had navicular. There may be a higher incidence in shod horses but one explanation could be that shod horses are more likely to be working harder, or put another way most working horses are shod. And therefore NS is more likely to show up if the horse is in work- due to poor performance, shortened strides or lameness, that will be more easily seen when the horse is working and under increased demands compared to at rest. Fewer resting horses are shod.

Ultimately there is still alot to be learnt about navicular and i dont think its as simple as saying that it is caused by poor farriers, bad foot balance and shoes.

Would like to point out that i have horses shod and unshod, according to what they need. I am not anti-barefoot!
 
Charlie was diagnosed with navicular after wearing shoes for all of his life. One farrier described the shoes that he was wearing as crippling his feet! Since he has been barefoot he has done extremely well! He was also diagnosed with collapsed heels at the same time. My farrier now says that his feet are in the best condition that they have ever been in!
 
I have one chronic lami, one part time lami, and one wiht back of foot problems. All are doing far better bare than they ever did shod.

Every time I wonder if taking the shoes off was the right thing to do I look a this picture - honestly this shoe came off that foot. This was at 5 months after being unshod.

DSCF0381.JPG


The sheer emotion that the shoeing discussion generates, and discussion around using farriers rather than trimmers is sad, because it mitigates against a rational discussion - its almost a religious thing. I do wonder if in 10 years shoes will be considered an anachronistic and outdated practice?
 
TeddyT I believe that if navicular was not caused by shoes then it would not be almost uniformly cured by removing them.

The cure rate for navicular syndrome horses in a barefoot rehab is nothing short of spectacular. I have one myself, who I rescued from being put down, and after four weeks he is showing very little sign of the syndrome. His poor foot quality, caused by insulin resistance as well as shoeing, is still causing him some issues, but navicular wise he will, I am certain, be cured within another month or two. He had adequan, tildren, HLA and remedial shoeing and none of them worked. Taking off his shoes has, even though he is footsore on stones without them. He is not an isolated example, I am personally aware of dozens like him.

As far as working horses being shod goes, there are now hundreds of us with hardworking barefoot horses (you included) and I am still aware of only one barefoot horse that got navicular syndrome and that was caused by wrong nutrition, wrong trimming and consequentially weak feet.

I do not doubt that some horses will get navicular syndrome more easily than other horses, but it is my firm belief that within a few years it will be widely recognised that the overwhelmingly most common cause of navicular syndrome, irrespective of genetics, is shoes.

My understanding of navicular syndrome and its complexity also differs from yours. The syndrome appears to be quite easy to understand. There is research on live and dead horses which has shown that the syndrome starts with lesions in the deep digital flexor tendon. That tendon damage, if not resolved, can lead on to changes to the navicular bone. Damage to the bone was not seen without damage to the DDFT inside the foot, but in some cases the DDFT was damaged without change to the navicular bone. Other research has shown that the DDFT damage can be uniformly induced by loading cadaver legs into a rig which creates a toe first landing.

Hardworking barefoot horses with a correct trim do not land toe first. The landing is universally heel first, and a toe first landing in a shod or an unshod horse appears to point to a problem in the heel area of the foot. Shoes appear to cause a toe first landing in a great many horses.

In the end, for me, simple things are simple. If unshod horses do not get navicular, and if taking off the shoes cures navicular, then surely putting them on must have caused it?

p.s. before anyone starts that old argument about navicular being incurable, I define a cure as "MRI scans show no damage and the horse is sound in full work with no medication". That is what a barefoot rehab can achieve, and that, in my book, is a cure no matter what "the experts" say.
 
Brucea knows that I have a "partner" photo to his - a hoof with a shoe that came off it a few months before where the ring of nail holes is outside the outer edge of the foot - it would be physically impossible to nail it back on should I ever lose my marbles and want to put it back on my barefoot hunter.
 
I think what doesn’t help is some of the terminology is not used with any degree of consistency by vets.
MRI’s have meant they are finding out more and more about what is going wrong inside the foot than they ever could with Xrays but they are still are a relatively early stage of interpreting what these changes mean not helped by the fact that all they are looking at is horses with problems and not healthy feet and different horses show different degrees of lameness with similar damage patterns.

From my own experience, my horse has soft tissue damage to the back of the foot (ddft, collateral ligament and DSIL). Before he was MRI’d, my vet suspected soft tissue damage and the working diagnosis for forms and insurance was Caudal Foot Pain, vetspeak for “feet hurt but we’re not sure why”.

After MRI their ‘official’ diagnosis was soft tissue changes and they made the point of saying he did not have Navicular but without the MRI or with a different vet he may been labelled differently.

However the stress caused by the sort of damage he has to the suspensory apparatus of the Navicular bone, would over a period of time cause damage to the bone itself.

As for cause well the fact he is a TB doesn’t help but only because being a TB bred to race it went into training at 2 (even younger probably as he was a late may foal) and would have been shod before he even had a mature hoof. In fact one of the remedial farriers who saw him said as much to me, his attitude was we’ve messed up these horses feet by interfering at such a young age, now we have to find ways of putting it right.

He is at present being rehabbed barefoot at Rockley Farm and so far that seems to be working better than anything else we tried. It is early days but what I do know is we are talking about popping some cross country jumps on my next visit on a horse that at the beginning of the year I despaired of keeping sound enough for light hacking in walk.
 
Great news Criso! You must be thrilled at the idea of jumping already :-)

"Caudal hoof pain" is vetspeak for "pain in the back part of the hoof but we don't know why".
 
teddyt said:
There is a higher incidence in warmbloods and this is related to genetics. Because of the high genetic predisposition i dont believe it can be possible that no unshod horse has ever had navicular. There may be a higher incidence in shod horses but one explanation could be that shod horses are more likely to be working harder, or put another way most working horses are shod. And therefore NS is more likely to show up if the horse is in work- due to poor performance, shortened strides or lameness, that will be more easily seen when the horse is working and under increased demands compared to at rest. Fewer resting horses are shod.
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I don't buy that explanation. Navicular in the wild mustangs of the Great Basin in the US is unheard of yet these horses cross the harshest and rockiest terrain at an average of 20 to 30 miles every single day. They may not have a rider on their back but how many of our domestic horses cover 20 to 30 miles a day every day of their lives? Hooves are designed to work hard, the harder they work they healthier they become.

It's more likely if there is a higher incidence in warmbloods that's it's less genetics and more management. Warmbloods are backed incredibly young, nearly as young as TBs these days, and are therefore shod from a very young age, again well before their feet are mature. Plus most warmbloods, from the continent anyway, get very little or no turnout, plus only work on soft surfaces and are fed a diet high in sugars and starchs. What chance do they have of ever growing strong healthy feet? And dressage horses in particular all seem to be shod with either long heels on the shoes or in eggbars/heart bars as a matter of course (I was having a good nosy during the recent Premier League at Myerscough and was shocked by the type of shoes 90% were shod in) - again a recipe for disaster.

There is no doubt in my mind that shoes cause navicular and that by removing the shoes a cure is possible. My first horse 15 years ago was diagnosed with navic - boney changes on the x-rays. I was given two choices by my vet - PTS or de nerve him. I didn't agree with de-nerving so I had to say goodbye to him. I wish I knew then what I knew now as it would have saved his life.
 
cptrayes said:
TeddyT I believe that if navicular was not caused by shoes then it would not be almost uniformly cured by removing them.
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Im not disputing that NS is not caused by shoes in SOME horses. I quite agree and have respect for alot of what you have said. You seem well educated on the subject, as opposed to jump-on-the-band-wagon educated!

My point is that i dont believe its always down to shoes, there are alot of influencing factors and genetics IS a major one.
e.g take 2 full brothers genetically pre-disposed to NS. One has shoes put on and is bought into work. The other isnt in work so remains without shoes. Who will show up symptoms first? Yes, highly likely the one in work BUT! Is this because of the work or the shoes? It could be both, not just the shoes.

So yes, i agree shoes can accelerate NS, even cause it insome cases but imo they are not always the cause.

One study-

Equine Veterinary Journal. 1995 Sep;27(5):390-3.

Role of navicular bone shape in the pathogenesis of navicular disease: a radiological study. Dik KJ, van den Broek J.

From progeny lists of 30 Dutch Warmblood sires, 586 3-year-old females by these stallions were randomly selected, each progeny group aimed at 20 animals for statistical reasons. The front feet of the sires and female progeny were examined radiographically using lateromedial and dorsopalmar upright pedal projections. The radiological features associated with navicular disease were classified 0-4 using a standardised classification, grades 3 and 4 representing the more severe changes. The shape of the proximal articular border of the navicular bone outline on the dorsopalmar view was classified 1-4; 1=concave; 2=undulating; 3=straight; 4=convex. A significant shape-grade association was found, the highest grades 3 and 4 incidence demonstrated by shape 4. In shapes 1 and 2, navicular bones grades 3 and 4 features were mainly characterised by inverted flask-shaped channels. In shape 3, navicular bones grades 3 and 4 were dominated by enthesiophytes. These findings indicate an apparent shape predisposition to radiological changes associated with navicular disease. The shape of the navicular bone in the offspring was on average the same as the sire, indicating an hereditary element in navicular bone shape.
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This study was done in 3 year olds, which are likely to be unshod and unridden, or at least if they had either it wouldnt have been for long. And some of them showed up a severe grade of changes.

I actually own a horse with navicular but in his case i believe its because of his conformation. He was sound when shod with normal shoes. He is currently shoeless and after a period of shortened strides he is sound again. So for him, lucky enough to have a good farrier, shoes were not the invention of the devil!

mrdarcy- have the wild mustangs been xrayed and mri'd in large nos like warmbloods? I dont think they have, therefore you cannot say they have no sign of NS. Secondly, survival of the fittest- if any do go seriously lame they dont survive, hence arent available to breed. And no-one is watching them 'perform' their exercise everyday like a domesticated warmblood. Compare this to the ridden horse, where breeding selection is often on performance and health traits are frequently over looked! I think you missed my point! NS is common in warmbloods, i believe mainly due to genetics (yes, and other factors involved too) and the fact that they are still bred from even if they have a predisposition. Hence the overall incidence will rise in a population of horses that also happen to wear shoes.

This is turning into an essay so i'll shut up for now!:)
 
TeddyT I do agree that some horses will be more predisposed to find shoes a problem. It is really nice to have a reasoned discussion on this and not a witch hunt or a rant, byt the way :-)

Referring to the research above, I believe that it is also true that changes to the navicular bone on radiographs bear little correlation to the presence, or degree if present, of lameness. This puzzled the experts for decades (and that research is now 15 years old) until the advent of MRI scans, which showed that the damage which causes the lameness is actually usually to the DDFT and sometimes to the collateral and/or impar ligaments. Heritability of channels and enthisiophytes in the navicular bone is quite possibly a complete red herring.

The vet who treated my first navicular horse (number one of four, in 1989) told me that if he took radiographs of all 60 horses on the yard that 40 of them would show changes to the navicular bone but only 6 of them would show any sign of lameness. My current rehab shows almost nothing on the radiographs and yet was badly lame.

It's my belief that if shoes did not cause navicular then it would not be so darned quick to cure it by removing them. The normal length of stay of a rehab at Rockley Farm is only about three months and very often the owners jump and even hunt on the day they come to pick them up again. The rate of improvement is directly related to the rate with which they develop a heel first landing, and all shoeless horses in work have a heel first landing. The evidence that shoes cause toe first landing and that toe first landing causes navicular is mounting by the day.

The Rockley Farm research project will soon be published in conjunction with Liverpool University and when that happens, the results are so spectacular that it should set a very big hare running very fast. Not least because insurance companies are not going to pay out loss of use claims for rear half foot lameness (caudal hoof lameness) if they find out that it can be cured with a barefoot rehab.
 
My horse has been barefoot for years as he was just left in the field. He's a really nervous boy so i've just left him as he is - he's happy enough.

It sounds like you have put alot of thought into it - hope your horse doesn't have any problems!
 
cptrayes- The study above may be 15 years old but in equine research it is viewed as recent! Particularly when the lameness from that anatomical region was first described over 200 years ago and the navicular bone has been x rayed for 75+ years. Im sure there are other younger studies, thats just one that explained the heredity of bone shape well. Im glad the Rockley farm research will be published but it will need alot more done afterwards too, which i hope gets done.

In regards to the lameness being caused by damage to soft tissue, i actually learnt that from a vet when training for my pony club H test 15 years ago. Research ten years ago has shown clinical manifestation to be grade of bony changes related, rather than bone shape related. So i agree there. However, the research above is an example that shows that the actual shape of the navicular bone is connected with bone condition and it could therefore follow that if there is a worse condition of bone, there will be more chance of damage to the soft tissues. Granted you can also get soft tissue damage without bony changes too. Thats what i mean about it being complex, there are differing (not necessarily opposing) views published and mri is definately an advantageous tool. Degeneration of soft tissue is involved, as is (or) degeneration of bone and several structures in the foot can be implicated.

What comes first- the chicken or the egg?! I fully expect new research to show shoes have a major implication, however there are decades of breeding, nutrition, management and traditional farriery to undo as well!
 
TeddyT I have a Dutch bred horse and to me it's indisputable that there has been so much focus on movement with continental breeding that other issues such as soundness and temperament have become a problem. My own is a complete nutcase and so is his brother, who I do not own. My friend had two highly bred German horses in a row fail the vet with bone chips in the last three months - and they were only four years old.

Shoe wise, I predict we will relearn what they knew in the old days - that horses do better if their shoes are removed for at least 3 months a year. The hunters used to be turned away in summer and the showjump, dressage, event and show horses were turned away in winter. Keeping sport horses in shoes all year round is a relatively recent thing, and I have little doubt that it's partly responsible for increased rates of navicular, as is breeding for movement instead of soundness.

Roll on the research, it can't come too soon. Unfortunately, no nice expensive drugs will result from barefoot treatments, so we may be waiting quite some time unless the insurance companies cotton on quickly.
 
I'll probably post and try to tell the world TeddyT !! The tenth horse is going through the process now, and the supervising Professor said he would publish at ten. Of course that is far too small a number to be anywhere near conclusive, but the results are so startling that we can hope it will generate interest throughout the farriery and veterinary and insurance worlds. If you want to see some very interesting video of the last few cases, there are clips on Rockleyfarm.co.uk
 
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