Follow on thread: post good un-shod/barefoot pics please

[nikkimariet]

Found the 'good shoeing pics' thread absolutely fascinating. So have followed suit with this one

To start, I'll tell you about Fig. As an ex racer he has been shod since he was 2 (he is now rising 8), came to me Dec 2011, had his shoes off Jan 2012.

He has small, pony like feet and in all honesty, who ever shod him had done a fab job - so we had good basics to work with. Our BF trimmer took his shoes off Jan 2012 and left it at that. PS has since (who has been trained by our trimmer), rolled his toes and ensured his heels were even.

Off fore:

Off hind:

Near fore:

Near hind:

Obviously, we realize these are no way near perfect - but given his history we think he's doing a pretty decent of showing us the feet he wants

For comparison, next pics are of CS (7 year old ex racer, will be competing PSG this summer) who has been BF/un-shod for 5 or 6 years (limited pics of CS as his feet haven't changed much!).

Near fore:

Near hind:

What do you think - any CC/thoughts to offer?

Would love to see pics of other BF/un-shod horses, partic TB's and dressage horse but all types welcome

 

[GinaGeo]

I'll be watching this with interest. I've just had my horse's shoes pulled off as well.

 

[dafthoss]

Heres the yellow ponys feet. Hes a 14.2 connie thats never been shod and covers several miles of a weekend they arnt perfect but he is happy with them.

Ok I cant post photos because photo bucket is throwing all its toys out the pram

 

[rowy]

Rowan and Dancers came off on saturday! She said that our farrier had done a really good job and that she was really impressed with Dancer's feet. She has very similar feet to fig actually.
Rowan- his shoes were starting to make his feet run forward making the hoof pastern axis a bit broken so she said his feet will be much better now he doesnt have shoes and that they should start to grow normal again lol. He is a bit foot sore on his fronts but hopefully that will go as he gets used to being barefoot again.
This was Rowan today (dont have any close ups of his feet but you can kinda see them

 

[itsonlyme]

Here's the link to Dolly. 12.2 section A. Shoes on & off for the past 7 years. Permanently off a year ago.

http://s172.photobucket.com/albums/w8/mollymurphy_2007/Dolly/Dolly goes barefoot/

Molly (ddft injury in 2007, heartbars from then until July 2011. Massive thrush infections)

http://s172.photobucket.com/albums/w8/mollymurphy_2007/Molly/Molly Goes Barefoot/

And Mo. 21 year old Warmblood with cushings / IR. Shod all her life until July 2011.

http://s172.photobucket.com/albums/w8/mollymurphy_2007/Mo/Mo Goes Barefoot/

All links go to the confirmation shots. Links to each foot are in sub-albums on the right-hand-side (if viewing on a PC)

All have just started on their minerals & are still a work in progress

 

[itsonlyme]

deleted

 

[kaiserchief]

My little Kai pony has awesome feet - he's unbacked but I lead him out a lot and he goes over any surface at any speed without flinching.

A front foot:

A back foot:

 

[dafthoss]

Right now photo bucket seems to have stopped having a paddy here are the yellow ponys feet. As before a 14.2 connemara gelding, never had shoes on and does several miles hacking and anything else I fancy doing with him and fingers crossed event him this summer.

hinds

mark growing down not caused any issues

other hind, dodgey light makes this one look bruised but its not

and his heels look dodgey thats my bad photograpy and his un cooperative mood that night

and the other front

 

[Prince33Sp4rkle]

dafthoss-id be chuffed to bits with those, they look really tough and *clean* if you know what i mean-no dodgy scraggy bits or chips or chunks out

 

[Nocturnal]

Fig's look pretty good for feet straight out of shoes . The only thing that really jumps out is the bullnosing in the hinds - looks like the farrier may have been dumping the toe?

CS's heels look pretty high, is he landing heel first? I think I'm right in saying he works mostly on a surface? So trim is probably quite important for him, as he won't get the wear from road work.

 

[trina1982]

Interesting angle change on this one. Hoof appears to be growing in tight, then flaring a bit - or is it the photo making it look like that?
Trina x

 

[Prince33Sp4rkle]

CS heels are higher than is *textbook* but he does land heel first and if they are taken lower he goes very sore..................now i know as well as anyone that you dont just let the foot do as it wishes at any cost, but my prev horse had the same issue once she got above adv med level IE that if heels were taken to *normal* height she became very sore.

trimmer and i came to conclusion that the high % of very collected work, plus the surface they mainly work on (sand but topped with THICK rubber so no natural wear) meant the foot needed the extra heel height????

if anyone has any other theories i would be interested.....he is rock crushing sound on them though, like horrid actual building rubble on the ground doesnt even make him flinch.

 

[forestfantasy]

I'd like some CC on my mares feet please
Some background first...
Her back feet have never been shod and they are great.
She had fronts on 2 years ago as she took a huge chunk out of her off fore in the field and the hoof went boxy to compensate - old farrier said shoe to try and correct.
I did and well basically its always been smaller & boxy since (no lamness at all though)
New farrier improved them but still not right so i decided to whip them off.

Before:

NF

OF

Now (coming up for 3 weeks later)

NF

OF

She was a fine for a few weeks then went footy on stones, she's now just coming into her own and is improving every week on different surfaces & since i've changed her diet.
She does seem pigeon toed now (as can be seen in the pics) Obviously this wasn't evident in shoes.
I'm undecided on whether to leave her to wear them how she obviously needs them to be or to have them trimmed to try and improve this?
Any opinions welcome - obviously we have a way to go with the boxy small foot but i think we're improving
Thanks

 

[Jesstickle]

These are the only photos I have on my photobucket account and I'm at work so can't get more right now but here we go they aren't perfect photos I'm afraid)

near fore

off fore

For some reason the hind ones aren't on here

15.3 WBxTB, has only had one set of shoes in his whole life, other wise unshod. Farrier trimmed and does a bit of everything

 

[cptrayes]

I will come back with some comments on this thread later, but meanwhile I do feel that that the definition of a good barefoot hoof should be, no matter what the foot looks like, "the one on which the horse is long term sound".

ForestFantasy, your horse is in the middle of showing you that the balance of her feet in shoes was completely wrong for her legs. She is growing feet at a totally different left/right balance and will eventually move completely differently than she does right now. Try not to worry too much about what they look like until a complete foot is on the floor. Personally, with a change to the balance that big, I am surprised that she was completely sound in shoes and I doubt if she would have stayed sound if you wanted her to work hard in future; she looks like she was a case of collateral ligament strain waiting to happen.

 

[forestfantasy]

I will come back with some comments on this thread later, but meanwhile I do feel that that the definition of a good barefoot hoof should be, no matter what the foot looks like, "the one on which the horse is long term sound".

ForestFantasy, your horse is in the middle of showing you that the balance of her feet in shoes was completely wrong for her legs. She is growing feet at a totally different left/right balance and will eventually move completely differently than she does right now. Try not to worry too much about what they look like until a complete foot is on the floor. Personally, with a change to the balance that big, I am surprised that she was completely sound in shoes and I doubt if she would have stayed sound if you wanted her to work hard in future; she looks like she was a case of collateral ligament strain waiting to happen.

Thank you so much for your reply, thankfully she is rising 6 so only had shoes on for about 18 months - all i can say is thank god i found HHO otherwise she'd probably still have them on
Also they have been off 3 months not weeks! For some reason i'm unable to edit that!

 

[trina1982]

Thank you so much for your reply, thankfully she is rising 6 so only had shoes on for about 18 months - all i can say is thank god i found HHO otherwise she'd probably still have them on
Also they have been off 3 months not weeks! For some reason i'm unable to edit that!

I must admit i thought the same as cptrayes. The new hoof growing in is at a very different angle (clever horse!), and in the shod pics the limb doesn't look straight(?). Out of interest do you have pics of the front legs from 3 months ago and now? (bit like this http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2011/12/solar-flares.html ). Those pics can be quite telling too

Trina x

 

[forestfantasy]

I must admit i thought the same as cptrayes. The new hoof growing in is at a very different angle (clever horse!), and in the shod pics the limb doesn't look straight(?). Out of interest do you have pics of the front legs from 3 months ago and now? (bit like this http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2011/12/solar-flares.html ). Those pics can be quite telling too

Trina x

Hi,

I'm afraid i don't really have many pics from before apart from these 2 which i know aren't great quality or close enough!

I'll get some full legs shots tonight if i get a chance & it's light enough!

thanks so much for your comment - feeling better and positive now

 

[Nocturnal]

CS heels are higher than is *textbook* but he does land heel first and if they are taken lower he goes very sore..................now i know as well as anyone that you dont just let the foot do as it wishes at any cost, but my prev horse had the same issue once she got above adv med level IE that if heels were taken to *normal* height she became very sore.

trimmer and i came to conclusion that the high % of very collected work, plus the surface they mainly work on (sand but topped with THICK rubber so no natural wear) meant the foot needed the extra heel height????

if anyone has any other theories i would be interested.....he is rock crushing sound on them though, like horrid actual building rubble on the ground doesnt even make him flinch.

Very interesting, thanks for explaining. 100% agree that if his feet are working for him then leave them. I don't reckon there are many barefoot horses working at psg to compare him with, so he makes a fascinating case study!

 

[amandaco2]

its interesting re higher heels
my Inter II horsey had HUGE heels....well his whole foot was just 'big' looking. solid but he looked like he walked on stilts......
we have taken the hoof down quite a bit over 4 months and found the same as PS...
they need to be fairly high- defo higher than the mares hooves who are at nov/ele level- or he gets sore.... he grows a huge rate of horn too- he has a good clipping off each time (5 weekly)
he has very good hard hooves and concave soles....not one split or even chip!
noticed his frogs are fattening up nicely now too.....
his hooves now look very similar to CSs... before that he had shoes on from 2yrs old so over 9yrs of being shod.
he wears hoof boots for hacking as he does feels stones.....
not sure how he will be on hard summer ground so will play it by ear.............

 

[Skippys Mum]

Arnies shoes came off at the end of november. He was trimmed them at the end of january. I think he's got pretty good barefeet??

The day before his trim

What was trimmed off all 4 feet in total (I know, I need to get a life )

osf (dont have the nsf for some reason?)

nsh

osh

He is sound and going great on a school, not bad on tarmac and getting there on my rough lane (he can now handle it led but not with my weight on him). He is great in boots though and we did a happy 5 mile hack yesterday so I now know I can make this work for us.

I worried a lot over the first 2 months though but now things are improving. His diet has been tweaked and he's started on MetaBalance so hopefully things should keep getting better.

 

[Prince33Sp4rkle]

amanda thats interesting, i didnt know anyone else with a higher level barefoot horse to compare too but its fascinating that your inter II boy needs higher heels too.

food for thought for sure!

 

[dafthoss]

dafthoss-id be chuffed to bits with those, they look really tough and *clean* if you know what i mean-no dodgy scraggy bits or chips or chunks out

Thanks I'm not to worried about them they very rarley chip and are very hard so much so he almost sounds shod when on the road. Yep I do know what you mean with the *clean* thing he does generaly have neat feet so to speak.

Intresting about CS' feet being more comfortable slightly away from the text book immage.

Interesting angle change on this one. Hoof appears to be growing in tight, then flaring a bit - or is it the photo making it look like that?
Trina x

I think its my bad photography his feet are even pairs and fairly straight and 'tight' all the way down

I'll try get some better ones in day light tomorrow

 

[forestfantasy]

trina1982 - i have took some pics today of her legs as they are right now:

NF:

OF

 

[Rosehip]

These are Melly's feet summer 2011 - I took them to show a friend as I was convinced she wasnt 'right' - and it was proved to be so, as she was diagnosed as chronic low grade lami a couple of days later.

As you will see, there is much room for improvment on the feet, and Im pleased to say that after box rest/tweaking of diet (dispite what the feet say, she already was on a very minimal grass diet with a non-cereal, high fibre feed) she is 100% better, and her feet show that.

I have had her tested for IR, but not cushings, do you think I should??

RF

LF

Both fore's from slightly above:

For some reason I dont have hind feet piccys!

cyptrays, (and others of course! ) Id be really interested on your thoughts on these hooves, and on the pics I'll get as soon as I can x

 

[Rosehip]

Dammit! Ive got them all wrong and I cant edit them!!! Argh! Im so sorry!!

The 1st pic is Right fore, the others all seem to be Left fore...... So heres some more right fore piccys -

Sorry to confuse the issue so much! haha! xx

 

[HashRouge]

This could be interesting! This horse had her shoes taken off 4 1/2 months ago and her fronts were x rayed recently (if anyone can guess what her problem is, I'll be very impressed!)

Right fore

Left fore

I don't have any of here hinds, but she hasn't been shod behind for years and years. If anyone wants to see the x rays, PM me

 

[amandaco2]

amanda thats interesting, i didnt know anyone else with a higher level barefoot horse to compare too but its fascinating that your inter II boy needs higher heels too.

food for thought for sure!

yes he grows them at a huge rate too....
must take some pictures.
his hooves are very concave inside too....

 

[spookypony]

OK, my turn!

These pictures are all of the left fore. The first 3 were taken shortly after I got the pony. He had not been seen by a farrier in about 6 months
(previous owners had been unable to catch him for farrier), and had developed very long, flared feet, with a rather huge crack in one hind.
A farrier trimmed him just before he came, and these pics were taken at his first barefoot trimmer appointment, some weeks after his arrival.

The second 3 were taken 6 months later, to chart progress. They are almost 3 years old now. The feet have continued to improve since then.

 

[Rosehip]

Just wonderring how this thread isnt as popular as the shod thread?? I thought this forum was full of barefooters??!!!
xx