Excessive wear on shoes???

pistolpete

pistolpete

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My horse has a slightly strange gait, twists his foot as he lands. Vet checked and is happy for him to be working. But his shoes are just being completely trashed after 4-5 weeks. Trying tungsten pins instead of road nails this time any other ideas folks? Tried barefoot and not really an option at the moment due to massive amounts of roadwork to get to any bridleways.
 
You could ask your farrier to put braising on the shoes its more expensive but makes the shoes last slightly longer, Taz wears through his shoes in 4 weeks in the summer when we are doing alot of hacking, so he gets shod every four weeks as it works out cheaper in the long run than the braising is
 
My old ID mare used to do that, swivel her foot as it landed. Frost nails, or Mordax nails with a tungsten core used to help, or your farrier could add tungsten to the fullering of the shoe. Or failing all of that road studs will help prevent the swivelling.
 
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I would rather the swivel in the action (if that is natural to your mare) than using tungsten pins or similar to make the foot "straight". Your just going to end up jarring joints higher up.
 
I had a pony that needed shoeing every 4-5 weeks, simply due to the amount of work we were doing. She would wear them paper thin in that time. We did hundreds of miles of roadwork as we had no bridleways. I never saw it as a problem, just shod when she needed it.
 
another one that does not think its excessive wear. over the years i have bought back a fair few horses from long spells of box rest, when its done properly there should be lots of road work and both the horses were shod very frequently, i.e every 2.5wks when they were doing 90 mins road work 6 days a week with 45 mins of that being trot work, the farrier hated me
 
pistolpete said:
My horse has a slightly strange gait, twists his foot as he lands. Vet checked and is happy for him to be working. But his shoes are just being completely trashed after 4-5 weeks. Trying tungsten pins instead of road nails this time any other ideas folks? Tried barefoot and not really an option at the moment due to massive amounts of roadwork to get to any bridleways.
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You are saying shoes trashed in 4-5 weeks? Well around 6 weeks is a normal amount of time between shoes. You also mention 'due to the massive amount of roadwork to get to any bridleways'..... how long do you expect shoes to last?
 
You can get borium crystals put onto the shoes by the farrier which will help the wear. Mine used to wear through shoes in 3-4 weeks in the summer and his hoof growth did not keep up with the shoeing so he ended up with broken up walls. The borium made the shoes last a lot longer though it can increase the amount of jarring as the foot is placed down.
His feet were always breaking up though so I ended up giving up with shoes and booting him instead.
 
It was a standing joke that my farrier used to shave with my mares shoes after he'd been to shoe her- literally razor blades when we had finished with them.
 
I used to wear shoes through in four weeks when my pony was shod from all the hacking we did. By the time she was due after a month she would be on ice skates. Now she is barefoot and it is far better for my wallet. If you build the roadwork back up gradually they are fine - it would only be if you whipped the shoes off and expected your horse to cope exactly as you are doing now with no boots you would have a problem. It would probably take a couple of months, depending on your horse. People on here could help you if you wanted to pursue that route.
 
unbalanced said:
I used to wear shoes through in four weeks when my pony was shod from all the hacking we did. By the time she was due after a month she would be on ice skates. Now she is barefoot and it is far better for my wallet. If you build the roadwork back up gradually they are fine - it would only be if you whipped the shoes off and expected your horse to cope exactly as you are doing now with no boots you would have a problem. It would probably take a couple of months, depending on your horse. People on here could help you if you wanted to pursue that route.
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This.
 
In an ideal world I would love to take his shoes off but sadly he is one of the ones that is footy stood still barefoot! Really have not ruled it out but would have to go backwards in the work we are doing and feel that with all the problems he has had I need him fit first. The fact that he is being ridden at all is a miracle.
 
You know Pete, I used to say exactly what you have. I worried about the transition, worried about the work, all the usual stuff. Plus as we were earning our living with the horses, I couldn't afford for them to take months fannying about transitioning. I came up with a bit of a formula for the change over and it works fairly quick.

I put the horse onto a barefoot diet at least a month before the shoes come off. Once all the crap is out of their system they are not too footsore when the shoes come off.

Then its boots on the fronts only, when they are working. Mine go straight into their usual 100 miles a week plus with the boots on no problem. Sometimes by the second week you can forget the boots.

For a quick transition, the diet is the most important I feel, followed by as much movement as you can give them.

Anyway, thats my take on it, works for us.
 
Agree with pale rider. When my horse had her shoes off for surgery she was absolutely crippled from it and could hardly even hobble up the rubber matted ramp into the trailer to the vets.
When I went barefoot properly she walked away sound and I was hacking on roads without boots after a week and schooling straight away. I did build up the distances gradually.
So what made the difference? Changing her diet six weeks before the transition, not trimming her sole, taking the shoes off really slowly so as not to bruise her foot (farriers deshoe very quickly in comparison to the person who pulled m's last set).
Good luck whatever you decide.
 
Thanks everyone. Don't expect shoes to las longer than 6 weeks, its just they were'nt giving him any grip from about 3 and a half. Worried that it would bother him really if that makes sense. He seems ok in the tungsten pins for now. Will see how it goes. May have to take shoes off and re-try barefoot as all info seems to suggest this would be best for him. Without my own land and being at livery makes it a bit harder to control grazing time etc. Thanks again, much food for thought.
 
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