Concern for barefoot horses

competitiondiva said:
Sorry to add fuel to the fire here!! OP you say these horses have been lame for months, are you sure it is the farriery/trimming causing the lameness (aside from the bleeding/blood aspect (which I myself have never seen except when a vet was digging for an abscess, and that's been over a fair few years!)), are the ponies laminitic, got ligament damage etc, do you know if a vet has seen them??? If they have been lame constantly (and not just for a day after a trim) for months on end, then I would hope a vet has seen them? If not you might want to raise this with the owners/YO too, just my thoughts?????
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The horses are always worse after they have been trimmed which has led me to suspect it is caused by the trimming although obviously as I'm not a vet I cannot be sure. When I heard about what happened at the last trimming, this led me to suspect the trimming even more. Yes, both horses have been checked by a vet. They have had x-rays but apparently nothing abnormal showed up and the next stage was to have an MRI scan but they refused to do this as they didn't want to spend too much money. I am currently keeping an eye on the situation. I highly doubt they are Laminitic as although they are both the correct weight, they aren't fat and aren't fed anything other than hay. Both horses are currently still very pottery on a flat concrete surface three days after trimming.
 
my cob is 8 years old and has never had shoes - his hooves are tough as nails!
he gets trimmed every 6 weeks by a farrier and has never ever bled = he has never been lame in the 2 years ive owned him!
And we do lots of road work
I trust my farrier to tell me how his feet are, if he thinks he needs shoes to tell me and he says my horses are good and fine - shoes not needed!

Dont be concerned for my horse - he is one healthy happy shoe free chappy xxx
 
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I have read this thread a number of times, and while I am new to the barefoot way one thing that I did wonder was the farrier/trimmer taking the sole back?

As I said I am new to all this, and that was the thing that really struck me while taking progress photos of my girl today. When the farrier comes to see my girl I ask him to leave the sole alone, as I was sure that was why we had such trouble with the backs when they came off.
 
Trimming, hu, what a minefield. I have 3 barefoot, one a recent one as he is a poor footed tb but he is doing ok with front boots. My farrier, whom ive known for 7/8 years does them all. The two cobbies have a good trim as they grow lots of hoof wall, the tb has a fine rasp. We do not have 'mustang rolls':rolleyes:....who invented that! They are all different and need different treatment from the farrier. However, they are all done at the same time, 5/6 weeks apart.

My farrier, or those before him, have never drawn blood. I admit that on the odd occasion, the odd horse has been footy afterwards but they have never required a set of boots to get to the field.( that would depend on the ground they would need to cover).

So, to add my two penneth..i wouldnt have a aanhc or uk version trim my horses. Imho, after reading the sections on how to be a trimmer, i was not impressed by the short time required to 'pass'. I am extremely happy that my farrier has done years of study into confirmation etc before being allowed near a horse. I too am very happy that he is able to see 'fault' with the way my horse moves. I am also keen that he is able to correctly balance their feet, sort our flare rather than rasp it away, notice changes and reasons for change in the whole structure of the foot etc. I pay him to know and be able to deal with all issues of feet, cut out small stones, notice dietry and work change etc. Perhaps i am just lucky?

However, show me a good all round farrier and i bet i can name 5 more that i wouldnt touch with a bargepole. That said, show me a knowledgeable, respectful and caring owner and i'll show you another 20 that either dont know or dont care a damn about their horses wellfare as long as it can be ridden, with or without a crop.

The responsibility for the horses welfare lies with the owner. If the YO, farrier, vet physio etc do not come up to scratch...change!
 
YorksG said:
Find a good farrier and work with him/her, find one who works with the horse in front of them. If more people found out more and were willing to enter into intelligent discussion with the professionals who work with their animals, there would be less opportunity for the poor professionals the pseudo professionals to ply their trades. If you don't like the job your farrier does, then find one you do agree with, likewise vets, dentists physios etc. It is entirely possible to do this and if more horse owners insisted on this (and yes possibly pay more, which usually works out cheaper in the long run) the 'hobby' owner would be less likely to be fodder for charlatans and arrogant professionals.
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Of course you have to be in an area where there are plenty of these professionals to go around. In my area, we only have two horse vets practices so if you end up being unhappy with both, there are no other practices that will travel outside the area they cover. Same goes with farriers, although there are now more to go around than 15 years ago. My trimmer has tried to work with farriers on many occasions but if a farrier is prepared to go through 5 years of training, he is not going to throw that away to become of the same mind as a barefoot trimmer (the two being mostly poles apart) I tried several farriers when my boy wash shod and the one I agreed with (who was the only one to "work with the animal" came especially to me from outside his normal area but he then had to cut down his area and I had to travel to him, but I was lucky enough to have a trailer to do that.
Also, when I decided to try barefoot my horse already had navicular (caused by wearing metal shoes continously for fourteen years) and had badly deformed feet to begin with and so transitioning to barefoot was a much longer process and there would be short periods of tenderness until boots could be fitted or feet properly balanced etc. He still has some tenderness because of other medical problems but I don't ride him because of this. He is a bit ouchy when walking the short distance from his stable to the field but then he is comfortable in the field. I certainly would not ever consider going back to 24/7/365 metal nailed on shoes, (which deformed his feet) just for the sake of that short distance.
SHOWJUMPINGSUPERSTARS - TBH I am more concerned about shod horses because of the damage those unyielding vice like shoes do to the horses feet, legs and bodies.
Please advise your friends to purchase some boots for the times when their horses are tender, then they can still be free of those horrible nailed on steel shoes for the other 20 or so hours a day they are not ridden.
 
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Well I have been putting horrible metal shoes on my old boy for the last 30 years, he's 35 now and still going strong with great feet and blemish free legs. Rest of hims falling apart a bit I will admit.

I did try him without shoes a few years ago but even after 6 months and not being ridden he was not as comfortable. The only reason we tried it was our farrier had a bad back and he leaned a bit. We solved this by changing farrier.

I have nothing against barefoot, our youngster was only shod when she started roadwork. I do object to not properly qualified or registered people working on my horses. I also think barefoot is something of a cult. If your not in it your wrong. Its not the answer to everything and shoeing isn't the work of the devil.
 
rockysmum said:
Well I have been putting horrible metal shoes on my old boy for the last 30 years, he's 35 now and still going strong with great feet and blemish free legs. Rest of hims falling apart a bit I will admit.

I did try him without shoes a few years ago but even after 6 months and not being ridden he was not as comfortable. The only reason we tried it was our farrier had a bad back and he leaned a bit. We solved this by changing farrier.

I have nothing against barefoot, our youngster was only shod when she started roadwork. I do object to not properly qualified or registered people working on my horses. I also think barefoot is something of a cult. If your not in it your wrong. Its not the answer to everything and shoeing isn't the work of the devil.
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Nobody said shoeing was the work of the devil, or that you are wrong not to have your horses barefoot, well done for bringing the thread down to rock bottom on the informed discussion scale.

Your horse survived unscathed with shoes on for 30 years. Good. Many horses do. Far too many don't. Even more have them on when they don't need them at all - why?

Why did you shoe your youngster when she started roadwork?
 
amandap said:
I'm losing count of the cults I apparently belong to. :D Can I have an award? :D
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Only if you name them :D I'll start:

Starve the Ponies Cult - no hardfeed, supplements according to need

Explode the Ponies Cult - adlib grass hay, plus some grass

Iron Shoes Are Evil Cult - barefoot but extra protection if needed

Too Much Movement Cult- horses choose to go in or out all year

Treeless Saddle Cult - sometimes, they are hard to ride in

No Rolkur Cult - rather no learned helplessness allowed

Dont Trust the Vets Cult - choose your vets wisely and research yourself

Freeze the Ponies Cult - no blankets in winter, my horses turn into Yaks

Could go on and on but this'll do for starters :cool:
 
Cluck said:
Only if you name them :D I'll start:

Starve the Ponies Cult - no hardfeed, supplements according to need

Explode the Ponies Cult - adlib grass hay, plus some grass

Iron Shoes Are Evil Cult - barefoot but extra protection if needed

Too Much Movement Cult- horses choose to go in or out all year

Treeless Saddle Cult - sometimes, they are hard to ride in

No Rolkur Cult - rather no learned helplessness allowed

Dont Trust the Vets Cult - choose your vets wisely and research yourself

Freeze the Ponies Cult - no blankets in winter, my horses turn into Yaks

Could go on and on but this'll do for starters :cool:
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LOL! OK you win. :D I think I'm in most of yours too though. ;)
 
Well mine would include


Lets shoe everything including the field ornaments cult

Never ever leave horses in the field at night cult

Clippers rule in every situation cult

Dont let anyone unqualified or unregistered in the door cult

Waste money on lots of rugs not horse communicators cult


Cant think of the rest at the moment
 
ShowJumping Superstars said:
Horrible metal shoes?! Some horses just cannot go barefoot, whether it be down to hoof quality or conformation or something else.
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This is absolutely true SJS, but both the hoof quality and the "something else" in a horse without metabolic illness is most often a diet too full of carbs and sugars. Other, lesser, reasons include mineral imbalances in the forage, expecting too much work too quickly, feet wet/thrushy from 24/7 turnout, not enough movement in a horse stabled a lot of the time, inconsistent levels of work (20 minutes in the school all week and a 4 hour hack at the weekend). Management is overwhelmingly more often the cause than any inherent inability in the horse to grow feet which are good enough to cope, though clearly some find it easier than others. In addition, any rider who wants studs will have to shoe. And of course anyone who does not have the facilities to manage their own particular horse (and they are all different!) barefoot will need to shoe and most horses, of course, will cope fine with that. Though personally I would recommend anyone who shoes their horse to allow it 3 months a year without shoes if they can. This was the old way of doing things, when there was an "off season" to hunting, jumping and dressage, back in the days when navicular was much rarer than it is today, which I personally feel must be connected to the management change.
 
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I tend to agree that the increase in a number of illnessess is down to change of management, not sure that the correlation is just with taking the shoes off in the past. The off season of hunting also meant that horses were not given hard feed all year round, any horse that was in genuine hard work had a rest period, when it was 'let down'. They were turned away and only ate forage at that time, I feel that this may have as big, if not bigger influence on the increase of certain diseases, much more than a three month holiday from wearing shoes.
 
YorksG said:
I tend to agree that the increase in a number of illnessess is down to change of management, not sure that the correlation is just with taking the shoes off in the past. The off season of hunting also meant that horses were not given hard feed all year round, any horse that was in genuine hard work had a rest period, when it was 'let down'. They were turned away and only ate forage at that time, I feel that this may have as big, if not bigger influence on the increase of certain diseases, much more than a three month holiday from wearing shoes.
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That doesn't fit with the evidence I see, YorksG. Most of the horses that get navicular in shoes are barely in work at all compared with what horses used to do in "the old days" and most of them are out 24/7 in summer too. They aren't exactly in need of a rest :) I know that there are many farriers who believe in a period without shoes every year, and having seen just how much most feet change angle and shape when you take off the shoe, I am firmly with them.
 
cptrayes said:
It is the vets and farriers telling people that these horses cannot be saved and recommending retirement or euthenasia.

It is the unregulated trimmers who are routinely returning them to full work after they have been condemned by the professionals.
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That will be my boy then!! Navicular= vet-no chance AEP - sound within a couple of months..... um no argument really. Fabulous Amazing barefoot trimmer of mine who regularly trains with KP...thank you
 
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