Feet and Shoeing

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Ceriann

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Following on from a previous thread I wonderd if anyone was brave enought to post pics of their horses feet (bare or shod) and in particular anyone with examples of very well kept feet (bare or shod). No intention of creating a bare or shod fall out but having had poor feet pointed out to me on one of the thread (for which i am very grateful) and been guilty of trusting my farrier too much (mine has very obvious underrun heels at the front, which i am now going to sort!) i thought it might be interesting to see "good feet". I appreciate a similar thread was done a while back.
 
I have some pics of my boys after his last trim, they're not perfect by any means but thought I'd post. His back feet are a work in progress and are getting less uneven now he is working harder and building up more muscle to carry himself better :)

LF
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RF
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LH
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RH
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i notice you're both bare foot. i will be discussing this with my farrier on Friday to see what he thinks and if im not happy i'll go elsewhere. do you both think bare has improved the feet? my mares backs are fine (not shod) but fronts are underrun (quite plainly now its been pointed out) and i like the idea of the feet balancig themselves - she gets 3/4 hacks on tarmac a week and a couple of schooling sessions and she has good feet.

Sheep - i like you feel a complete novice and put my trust (and her feet) in the hands of the farrier - i wont be as forgiving again!
 
Ceriann said:
i notice you're both bare foot. i will be discussing this with my farrier on Friday to see what he thinks and if im not happy i'll go elsewhere. do you both think bare has improved the feet? my mares backs are fine (not shod) but fronts are underrun (quite plainly now its been pointed out) and i like the idea of the feet balancig themselves - she gets 3/4 hacks on tarmac a week and a couple of schooling sessions and she has good feet.

Sheep - i like you feel a complete novice and put my trust (and her feet) in the hands of the farrier - i wont be as forgiving again!
Click to expand...

Barefoot has definitely improved his feet but it does take time and effort. I took his shoes off when i got him in June last year as they too were under run and he had bad thrush. We battled with the thrush all summer and into winter until i started bringing in at night and using red horse products and from then on they continued to improve :) Still go a little way to go but i'm happy with how they are at the moment
 
Spend plenty of time on rockley Farm and you will get the idea
Feeding
Management
trimming [or no trimming!!!!!]
search for Celery and then have a look around the site. Bear in mind the horses are mostly lame when they arrive and sound when they leave.
In the long term under run heels and other faults lead to long term problems. In the short term you may have problems with barefoot, but you may not.
Start on the diet today.
 
People who are barefoot tend to be more aware of feet, every day they listen to the footfall and watch the front feet for heel first landing.
Good strong heels and clean, deep[ish] collateral grooves, no stretched white line, the frogs should be disease free and touching the ground.
Concavity of the sole is relative, more obvious in ponies, less so in draft types.
If the horse has good front end conformation we should expect to have two nice front feet.
 
I posted these a while ago asking for opinions on the shoeing & the overall response was favourable. They might help you if you are looking to do a comparison with yours.



 
MrsD123 said:
Spend plenty of time on rockley Farm and you will get the idea
Feeding
Management
trimming [or no trimming!!!!!]
search for Celery and then have a look around the site. Bear in mind the horses are mostly lame when they arrive and sound when they leave.
In the long term under run heels and other faults lead to long term problems. In the short term you may have problems with barefoot, but you may not.
Start on the diet today.
Click to expand...

Thanks - was on there for a good hour last night and have to say i like the idea of barefoot (she's only ever had fronts and my retired mare did very well without shoes when i used to just hack her - she had very good feet and rarely trimmed her). My riding mare is on very little feed wise - she gets a lite balancer and plain chaff and grass/hay - she's a good doer so doesnt need much else. Mine isnt lame but had i not been on here got the advice and started sorting this she could have been so going to look at all the options.
 
sonjafoers said:
I posted these a while ago asking for opinions on the shoeing & the overall response was favourable. They might help you if you are looking to do a comparison with yours.



Click to expand...

They are v neat. I am more or less convinced my mare has underrun fronts as my farrier has been curling the end of the shoe in (which i understand now helps stop them coming off). Her shoes look different to when my livery did her and her shoes ran longer than the foot (like above). Hoepfully if this is the reason then a break from shoeing and ensurig this doesnt happen again will sort her out.
 
Ceriann said:
They are v neat. I am more or less convinced my mare has underrun fronts as my farrier has been curling the end of the shoe in (which i understand now helps stop them coming off). Her shoes look different to when my livery did her and her shoes ran longer than the foot (like above). Hoepfully if this is the reason then a break from shoeing and ensurig this doesnt happen again will sort her out.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, lots of farriers do not shoe the fronts long enough to give support to the heels and this makes underrun heels even more underrun! Sometimes the reason for this is ignorance, but more likely due to horses stepping on the backs of the protruding shoe and pulling them off. Then owners complain to the farrier who has to come out and replace the shoe. So it makes the farriers job easier to shoe he horse much shorter than they should. However, in some cases, shoeing itself, even if done really well, can cause the heels to become underrun. At the end of the day, barefoot is best for the horse, though it may not always be practical. My farrier has always said that this is a more recent problem, because most horses years ago would have at least a few months break from shoes every year. For example, hunters that would have their shoes removed and be turned away for the summer.

You could always invest in a pair of hoof boots for your mare if she is foot sore or the road work makes her wear her hooves too fast.
 
I'm having barefoot dilemmas too, and am so close to caving and putting shoes on him. He has been barefoot 10 years and suddenly started struggling - but has only been doing roadwork/stony track work for the past year. I've been riding it out so to speak and hoping it gets better, but we are about to move yards where there is a lot of forestry so I'm maybe going to see how he copes with that first.
He can manage about an hour of work absolutely fine, but after that (and especially when he starts getting tired) he really starts stumbling.
 
Ceriann said:
i notice you're both bare foot. i will be discussing this with my farrier on Friday to see what he thinks and if im not happy i'll go elsewhere. do you both think bare has improved the feet? my mares backs are fine (not shod) but fronts are underrun (quite plainly now its been pointed out) and i like the idea of the feet balancig themselves - she gets 3/4 hacks on tarmac a week and a couple of schooling sessions and she has good feet.

Sheep - i like you feel a complete novice and put my trust (and her feet) in the hands of the farrier - i wont be as forgiving again!
Click to expand...

I took the shoes off my boy only a few weeks ago as he was unsound in shoes anyway, he has arthritis in his front feet, after remedial shoeing I decided I had nothing to lose so took the shoes off. He is sound now, but not yet ridden. Will see how long the soundness lasts before I get back on board! I took the view that I may as well give him a chance to sort his own feet out, and see if he could do a better job. My farrier, while sceptical, was supportive and has been surprised at how well he's getting on now without the shoes.
 
heebiejeebies said:
I'm having barefoot dilemmas too, and am so close to caving and putting shoes on him. He has been barefoot 10 years and suddenly started struggling - but has only been doing roadwork/stony track work for the past year. I've been riding it out so to speak and hoping it gets better, but we are about to move yards where there is a lot of forestry so I'm maybe going to see how he copes with that first.
He can manage about an hour of work absolutely fine, but after that (and especially when he starts getting tired) he really starts stumbling.
Click to expand...

Try hoof boots (Old Macs are particularly good). If your horse takes to them, you get the best of both worlds. My old boy went lame shod after a while, but he was very tender footed barefoot. I must have ridden him hundreds of miles in them over all types of terrain without any problems at all.
 
Wagtail said:
Unfortunately, lots of farriers do not shoe the fronts long enough to give support to the heels and this makes underrun heels even more underrun! Sometimes the reason for this is ignorance, but more likely due to horses stepping on the backs of the protruding shoe and pulling them off. Then owners complain to the farrier who has to come out and replace the shoe. So it makes the farriers job easier to shoe he horse much shorter than they should. However, in some cases, shoeing itself, even if done really well, can cause the heels to become underrun. At the end of the day, barefoot is best for the horse, though it may not always be practical. My farrier has always said that this is a more recent problem, because most horses years ago would have at least a few months break from shoes every year. For example, hunters that would have their shoes removed and be turned away for the summer.

You could always invest in a pair of hoof boots for your mare if she is foot sore or the road work makes her wear her hooves too fast.
Click to expand...

Farrier comes tomorrow so armed with questions now! Honestly I'm not sure he will be coming again. She'll def get a break from shoes at least and we'll see how we go. We are doing lots of road work but not long sessions - hour at the most - so we'll see how we go without shoes doing that and then move on to harder surfaces. I'll take a look at boots too - if she needs them.
 
Don't let him trim the frog and sole if you are going to take the shoes off as she will immediately be sensitive which will upset you!
 
My horse had horrendous feet when I bought her, and having her shod was just making them worse. Her feet were so brittle she was just ripping them off, through no fault of the farrier. He had lots of ideas and was always open to suggestions, and even when she was doing more damage than good, he helped to keep her sound.

She has now been barefoot for nearly 2 years and touchwood I have had no issues with her feet what so ever. It took time for her to realise she wasn't as sore as she thought, so to begin I rode her on sand (we are lucky to have a huge arena) and in the all weather school. Roadwork/hacking was avoided for a couple of weeks, but once she was more confident on her new bare feet, I introduced it back in. I did use boots when I needed to.

Her feet are not perfect but are much better. They have toughened up and my farrier is brilliant at allowing a bit more length than you would normally leave, to allow for the fact she still chips the odd edge off now and again, and she seems more comfortable when they are left be for a bit longer. When her shoes first came off, she was fairly low heeled, and with time he has helped to correct this issue.

Good luck with your farriers visit.
 
Thanks and good advice on the farrier visit - i'll see what he says but given he was only last with us just over 6 weeks ago im going to struggle not to show im annoyed.
 
If I were you I would ask the farrier to simply remove the shoes and not trim at all this time...then look at a trim in a few weeks time..
 
Before:

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After:

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About 6 months apart. 4 yr old cob. Change of diet, work and barefoot trimmer all helped to improve this boys feet.
 
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