Magic2003
New User
Hi all, this is my first post... And also my first bare foot pony. I bought my Dales mare a few months ago, she is 14.2h and very very chunky. She has apparently been bare foot for the last 6 years, before that she only had front shoes but is terrified of the steam from shoeing and has hard feet so they just let her be barefoot. She has been out of work for the last 2 years or so. When I got her she hadn't been trimmed for 6 weeks and she didn't particularly need doing but I wanted my farrier to assess her huuuuge hooves and tell me if he thought they looked good. He said they were very hard and good feet. He did a little rasp and rounding off and left. 3 weeks later I started hacking out on the road and we got our first "chip" which was more of a chunk!! I left it as her feet hadn't grown enough to see farrier and he said that a lot of horses recently are getting chips. 3 weeks later the farrier came out and I showed him the missing chunks on all four hooves and he wasn't particularly worried, he did his trim and rasp and said that their hooves flare out and naturally chip off.... It's now been 2 weeks and all four feet look embarrassingly terrible with chunks missing and the sole looks a bit frayed on the edge of her front left. I don't like using hoof oils, I used one last week as I hadn't used it in about a month, but I know the hoof should be dry and hard rather than soft and covered in oil. Is there anything I can do?! Is it because she was standing in a lot of mud in her last home and its now growing out??? Any advice definitely welcome. I've now moved her to a yard in Bicknacre in essex so need to change farrier anyway so any recommendations let me know! I will try to get pictures soon!
