CBFan
Well-Known Member
If anyone lives close enough to the RVC in Hertfordshire I'd thoroughly reccomend you looking at the Equine Lecture Series - The next one is on the 6th Feb and is on Laminitis and Cushings.
I went last night to a practical anatomy session about the equine hoof which was very interesting and informative - was great to see the fresh inside of some real hooves!), although lacking in a few areas. i.e. they talked of the importance of nutrition on hoof health but didn't have a nutritionist to hand to advise (yet they had farriers and all sorts giving shoeing advice)and they did cover the same areas in several different workshops (hoof anatomy, identification of lameness and treatment of laminitis and navicular) and they got a little shirty when I asked (after they had proudly announced how they have been doing trials into how different shoing techniques can promote hoof heel growth- in order to prevent / treat navicular) if they had done any research into promoting hoof heel growth by not shoing at all....
The reply I got is 'we aren't starting a barefoot debate are we??!' to which I replied 'no not at all, I am just interested' and to sumarise the answer was basically No... although they 'do have some barefoot horses in their trials as a control but it isn't really fair on them as it takes them time to adjust (to not having shoes)... funny that! lol!
Anyone else go?
I went last night to a practical anatomy session about the equine hoof which was very interesting and informative - was great to see the fresh inside of some real hooves!), although lacking in a few areas. i.e. they talked of the importance of nutrition on hoof health but didn't have a nutritionist to hand to advise (yet they had farriers and all sorts giving shoeing advice)and they did cover the same areas in several different workshops (hoof anatomy, identification of lameness and treatment of laminitis and navicular) and they got a little shirty when I asked (after they had proudly announced how they have been doing trials into how different shoing techniques can promote hoof heel growth- in order to prevent / treat navicular) if they had done any research into promoting hoof heel growth by not shoing at all....
The reply I got is 'we aren't starting a barefoot debate are we??!' to which I replied 'no not at all, I am just interested' and to sumarise the answer was basically No... although they 'do have some barefoot horses in their trials as a control but it isn't really fair on them as it takes them time to adjust (to not having shoes)... funny that! lol!
Anyone else go?