Horses grow the feet they need - discuss

Casey76

Casey76

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As in title...

It appears that a lot of people on here bash on about Rockley, and one of the main tennets being that a horse will grow the foot best suited to him - is that really the case? Always?

My horses are unshod, farrier trimmed. Blitz is trimmed every 4-5 weeks, Tartine every 8-10 weeks. Blitz's feet tend not to crack or chip, they just grow. Self trimming is going to be unlikely unless I start driving him for miles and miles every day as his hoof wall is over 1cm thick in places.

Tartine dishes. She lands flat on her heel, but rotates the foot and takes off on the lateral toe quarter. The medial toe quarter grows, and the longer it gets the more she dishes. It is a vicious circle. That medial toe quarter doesn't chip, and if it gets long enough it compromises her stride (as I found out once, after a farrier mix up, and she went 12 weeks). the more work she does on rocky terrain the quicker her feet get distorted.

I'm certain, that if left to "nature," even if kept on a variable terrain and they walked for miles and miles every day, that their feet would compromise their musculature/ tendons etc.

I don't think Rockley is the be all and end all for "barefoot" - you have to look at each horse as an individual. I also believe that it *isn't* possible to take every horse barefoot, not unless you throw ethics and morals out of the window and keep a horse in pain during a protracted "transition". Not everyone has the right facilities, ground, turnout, time to transition a horse successfully. Severely compromised horses, e.g. with PPID using shoes +/- pads can make the difference between a happy horse who can go out to pasture with other horses and stay in work or be segregated with severely restricted food with both horse and owner struggling and unhappy.

Anyway, jmho ;)
 
Rockley have facilities that have cost a fortune to put in the whole place is set up to be optimal for horses feet right down to it's altitude which provided the best type of grasses .
Real life for most of us is not like that and the self trimming mantra can be damaging to horses it does not suit .
 
Casey76 said:
I also believe that it *isn't* possible to take every horse barefoot, not unless you throw ethics and morals out of the window and keep a horse in pain during a protracted "transition". Not everyone has the right facilities, ground, turnout, time to transition a horse successfully. Severely compromised horses, e.g. with PPID using shoes +/- pads can make the difference between a happy horse who can go out to pasture with other horses and stay in work or be segregated with severely restricted food with both horse and owner struggling and unhappy.
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I'm not sure anyone would ever say it is possible to take every horse barefoot (Rockley certainly wouldn't!). More like it is possible to take every healthy horse barefoot (given the right facilities etc, not by just taking their shoes off!). I consider myself "pro-barefoot" but I have recently encouraged someone to shoe so they could work the horse properly and get it fit and a good weight before trying barefoot again.

As regards the title, I would again say healthy horses grow the feet they need if their diet and living conditions allow it. Mine certainly don't at the moment, but then they are spending way too much time in a muddy field eating too much grass. My cob dishes and has a similar issue to what you describe for Tartine (takes off one toe quarter and the other gets too long) which I have to correct regularly. At one point I had him yarded on gravel and concrete and he did chip off the extra length on the toe quarter.
 
I'm not sure if this is on topic or not (because I have no idea what Rockley is!) but I viewed a pony the other day who has never seen a farrier, never had hard feed and has not even seen a hoof pick. She is a 7yo. She had, quite possibly, the strongest, neatest little hooves I have ever seen, with minimal flare. Good soles, healthy, self shredding frogs, no chips or cracks, neat white line, no rings, heel angle good, neat band, etc.

I've always had shod horses. Shoeing is as normal to me as feeding, grooming, rugging, etc. So meeting this pony was a real education in how well equines can manage their own hoof care if left well alone and she will definitely remain unshod when she comes to me. Previously, shoeing would have been the first thing I arranged!
 
I agree with your post but I think the tone is unfortunate. People 'bash on' about Rockley because it has now taken a couple of hundred horses, the majority of which were condemned by their vets and/or farriers as never able to be restored to soundness, and sent most of them home sound and almost all of them (all of them, I think, but I don't want to exaggerate), much improved if not yet actually sound.

Not only that, but they have provided the wider horse owning public, for free, with the most invaluable photographic record of how they have achieved that spectacular level of success in what was previously described as a degenerative and incurable disease.

In spite of that, they are still the only outfit in the UK specialising in barefoot rehab, and therefore we also 'bang on' about them because they are the only one in existence to 'bang on' about.

Self trimming is a nirvana that is often not achievable. But I also don't doubt that there is too much trimming of foot deviations/bars/frog going on. The problem for people is knowing who to trust. There are no properly overseen qualifications in trimming feet for working horses, including farrier training where it is not even in the syllabus. The only thing people can do is go with what works for their own horse.
 
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The thing is that Nic Barker at Rockley Farm has achieved, and continues to achieve, with a considerable number of horses, what thousands of vets and farriers haven't: ie recovery of soundness in shod horses with serious lameness issues. You have to take her methodology, experiences and views seriously and she is certainly no hippy dippy flower child either: she was formerly a scientist and has a serious and common sense approach to her work. The view that a healthy horse can self-trim isn't really that contentious I don't think: the problem is that many of us cannot be quite as open or enquiring as to why a horse may need a hoof deviation and what may be done, holistically to ensure that the dreaded 'vicious circle' isn't perpetuated. I have a barefoot horse who has deviations. Depending on the complete health of the horse in digestive and muscular/skeletal terms these deviations are either helpful or degenerative and I have had to learn when to intervene and when not to, although the interventions I do make these days barely require 'trimming' - only truly quite small adjustments. Self-trimming is a bit like self-carriage: it should be entirely natural for any horse but there will be reasons, possibly related to ridden work or other issues which prevent this natural and healthy state.

I do know a great many horses that are actually self-trimming but that is a bit of a non-event isn't it? Also, all the wild and feral horses grow feet that work for them; whether in wet wales or Montana.
 
My horse has wonky legs, which are quite hard to spot, and it is very intersting to see how his feet altered in shape and where they are on the end of his legs, over the months that he has been barefoot. They started off very pigeon-toed, but have straightened up now. I don't know about self-trim as probably most horses don't have the terrain or the work to do that.
 
Just for the record, Nic Barker wasn't a scientist a Palo says, though she certainly has a scientific mind. She was a commercial contract lawyer, who started her barefoot journey the same way many of us did, with lame horses that vets and farriers were telling us to retire or have put down.

She does Rockley out of love for horses. She earned many times over what she does now when she was a contract lawyer.

I'm a big fan, you might have guessed :D. I just wish there was a yard like it in each quarter of the country.
 
ycbm said:
Just for the record, Nic Barker wasn't a scientist a Palo says, though she certainly has a scientific mind. She was a commercial contract lawyer, who started her barefoot journey the same way many of us did, with lame horses that vets and farriers were telling us to retire or have put down.

She does Rockley out of love for horses. She earned many times over what she does now when she was a contract lawyer.

I'm a big fan, you might have guessed :D. I just wish there was a yard like it in each quarter of the country.
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there's one not far from us.
 
I have two older horses who I'm fairly sure would have had a 'traditional' upbringing i.e. probably trimmed as foals and shod relatively young. They are both self trimming in terms of hoof length now but as with OP's horse, both get tabs on their hoof walls due to the way they move. I rasp these off every few months (it just takes a few minutes). I also have a 2.5 year old. She came with one very upright front foot. Other to rasp off a few loose bits of wall as her foot settled itself, I haven't touched her feet with a rasp and they look great now - fully self trimming. I have high hopes that she will stay like this. My point is that perhaps to grow the perfect hoof, feet have to be left alone from the start unless you are lucky enough to have a horse with perfect conformation?
 
paddy555 said:
there's one not far from us.
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Really whereabouts is this? Afaik there is only Rockley that do this rehab t this extent . I've been told that a local ' guru' instructor wondered why I wasn't sending my horse somewhere nearer (it will be a 6-8 hour drive for me to get there) but I honestly don't know of anywhere,afaik, my vets didn't either.
 
I agree with the Op to a degree but if a horse has conformational faults that cause the hoof to grow unbalanced, it can make the conformational faults worse and sometimes result in mechanical lameness. There are plenty of congenital conditions that can be remedied by remedial triming when a foal.
 
I think people only 'bash' on about Rockley because it works and it works for the horses that everything else has failed with. There's no smoke and mirrors all the horses have to be referred by a vet and the progress in meticulously and accurately recorded, what's not to like?

My experience is that as long as your working in a consistent manor then horses do grow the feet they need, growing faster when you work them harder and slower if you work them less. Obviously you can't go from nothing to expecting to cope with a day out hunting/eventing/endurance but then hopefully you wouldn't anyway. The reason people send horses to Rockley is because they don't have the facilities/time to transition them in suitable manner and it really is stressed that unless you can provide the work once they come home I doubt they'd accept them. In the same way a vet wouldn't want to operate on a animal if the owner wasn't prepared for the recovery.
Barefoot isn't for everyone and Rockley isn't for everyone but in my experience the theory seems sound and unless there are complicating factors (and even if there) if you follow Rockley recommendation you'll have a horse that can perform barefoot.

For self trimming hooves respond to stimulus and grow into response for work and for trimming so the more you trim the more the hoof will grow (within biological limits). There a really good lecture and some research papers to support this.

If your horses are sound though why worry.
 
My answer would be, it varies.

It depends on the environment the horse is living in, the work it is doing, its genetic makeup, its conformation, the time of year, the diet, its history... there are many things, but they do not just grow feet as they need, or shoeing would never have been invented at all, the need would quite simply never have arisen.

There comes a time when the amount of horn being produced is insufficient to make up for the wear that is occurring from working, and that can be vastly different for different animals. Some produce wide and tough walls that are capable of a great deal of work with little wear, some produce narrow thin walls and soles that can wear quickly under work conditions.

Bigger heavier horses put far greater pressure on their feet under smaller workloads, so as a general rule are more prone to excessive wear and soreness, but there are many exceptions. Conversely in general, smaller ponies and some light horses have a far better weight ratio, so they generally suffer less.

In wet conditions horn becomes softer because of moisture absorbtion, it wears more quickly, it also buckles and crushes more easily. In wet and warm conditions, bacteria can multiply massively and destroy the cohesion of the horn, leading to it crumbling away. Mud is basically abrasive paste, and it wears away at the softer areas of the feet with every step through it. If you add the two together, both bacteria and mud abrasion can quickly destroy thick soles and render them thin and sensitive.

Winter conditions, as well as being muddy and destructive, also reduce stimulation to grow as the grass levels drop and daylight hours reduce. So destruction accelerates, and growth reduces. More horses have problems during this time, simply because they have less protection because of those factors.

Conversely in summer the feet grow more and are generally harder because there is no abrasive destructive mud, far less moisture for bacteria and stimulation levels are high, so often the feet actually become too long, even if a considerable amount of work is being done. So many people think that their horses feet are responding to wear by growing more, but actually its most likely to be the seasonal conditions.

Of course, I am speaking very generally. Within these generalities, there are massive variations, some horses are far more prone to bacterial damage and can lose large chunks of hoof to this in a short time under certain conditions, others are exceptionally heavy wearers and will run out of protection very quickly, some are so light and well balanced on their feet that they seem to hardly touch them at all.

But the variation in foot resilience and wear is as large as the variety of individual horses.
 
I've got 6 self trimming ranging from a 32" mini Shetland to a 15.2 Welsh D. I think their feet do respond to wear because my PSSM cob who lives on a road planing surface and works every single day for at least an hour on tarmac and stoney ground did have a harder period when I first put her onto the road planing surface. Her feet were very short and she was footy (so I used boots for a while). Now I notice if she has a easier work surface week or two, her feet are noticeably longer pretty quickly because she isn't keeping them down herself, so they must have adapted to her work load (which is generally very samey due to the PSSM). I'm talking mms not over grown.

I spend a lot of time with this horse and analysing things (again due to the PSSM!) and I know her better than any other horse I've owned.

She is regularly complimented on her excellent feet, by vets and other professionals. Usually they choke with surprise when I say her feet have not been touched for nearly a year now.

She is kept in optimum conditions (maybe even better than Rockley as she doesn't eat any grass whatsoever!) for good feet.

Horses with metabolic disorders are of course a different kettle of fish.

I do really like the fact mine are all barefoot because I feel if an issue occurred I would know often know straight away by their feet telling me.
 
Mine is a rising 6yr old and hes never been shod. Hes never managed to self trim either until now. But that was because he was at grass mainly and not doing much of anything except grow masses of foot which ran away at the toe. Hes still not doing much of anything, but to get to the field he walks over a couple of hundred yards of gritty, stony track and hacks out on similar once a week. I dont know if hes just growing less hoof now, but he hasnt been trimmed for a couple of months and his toes arent running away anymore. He is also on average grazing for about 8 hours a day, and getting limited hay but ad lib straw, so that is probably having an effect, in fact now I think about it, probably much more than the gritty track!

I think he will need a trim in the next few months if I cant up the hacking out on tarmac etc. But if I can get him out more then I am confident he wont :)
 
It depends.

I think that if horses live in perfect conditions, they may well self trim. My paddock is far from optimal, there fore mine need regular trimming. They also don't have the current "recommended" barefoot diet and never have. The horse in my avatar did over 2500 km of endurance barefoot and competed successfully to CEI FEI 3* level.

The Kaimanawa horses (feral horses that live in the central North Island) are mustered every two years. 83% have sub clinical laminitis.

I don't believe the "one size fits all" approach to barefoot exits and it never will and I find myself keeping well away from barefoot sites and pages as there are many who seem to believe theirs is the one and only. Just saying.
 
stencilface said:
Really whereabouts is this? Afaik there is only Rockley that do this rehab t this extent . I've been told that a local ' guru' instructor wondered why I wasn't sending my horse somewhere nearer (it will be a 6-8 hour drive for me to get there) but I honestly don't know of anywhere,afaik, my vets didn't either.
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not much help to you I am afraid in Leeds as it is also in Devon.


http://www.rookfarm.co.uk/barefoot-1/
 
paddy555 said:
there's one not far from us.
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I looked it up. It doesn't sound a lot like rockley. it sounds like a livery yard that has great facilities for barefoot horses, including moorman who used to post on here as the farrier/trimmer (and is a real expert) and takes horses on for all sorts of rehab, largely doing what they are told by the horse's vet.

Rockley tell the vets what the horse needs, and specialise in foot lame horses, (of which I think they have seven at a time on the go) and publish their very impressive results.

And of course people can't 'bang on' about this yard, because nobody knows what results it's getting. Rockley remains one of a kind, I think.
 
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ycbm said:
I looked it up. It doesn't sound a lot like rockley. it sounds like a livery yard that has great facilities for barefoot horses, including moorman who used to post on here as the farrier/trimmer (and is a real expert) and takes horses on for all sorts of rehab, largely doing what they are told by the horse's vet.

Rockley tell the vets what the horse needs, and specialise in foot lame horses, (of which I think they have seven at a time on the go) and publish their very impressive results.

And of course people can't 'bang on' about this yard, because nobody knows what results it's getting. Rockley remains one of a kind, I think.
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your reply is entirely as i expected.
 
I think can be very difficult to self trim especially at this time of year when dark evenings limit hacking to the weekend if you work during the day.

However if you can't manage that what you need is a good professional who can read the horse's foot and movement and try and do what is needed in each case. Finding this elusive professional is the tricky thing. I've seen too many that want to sculpt the foot into a 'perfect' hoof. You see this a lot on the barefoot groups on facebook, everyone saying exactly what should be done from one static photo. I've had too many farriers (when my horse was shod and barefoot) think the same way and it left my horse non weight bearing.

I do have mine trimmed (found a fab person, trained with Nic Barker and Sarah Braithwaite) and it's a case of rasp a teeny bit, walk and watch, maybe a little more, maybe not. Ultimately it about the hoof in movement not how it sits against a diagram they have.

Interesting one re the dishing that someone mentioned. Friends of mine's horse was dishing badly in remedial shoes. That and seeing mine come back sound from Rockley prompted her to remove shoes. His feet can look a bit wonky but he doesn't dish anymore.
 
Casey76 said:
As in title.

Tartine dishes. She lands flat on her heel, but rotates the foot and takes off on the lateral toe quarter. The medial toe quarter grows, and the longer it gets the more she dishes. It is a vicious circle. That medial toe quarter doesn't chip, and if it gets long enough it compromises her stride (as I found out once, after a farrier mix up, and she went 12 weeks). the more work she does on rocky terrain the quicker her feet get distorted.
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My horse is barefoot and has exactly the same problems. I tried to let the feet grow in their own way but it wasn't successful as eventually the lateral wall which wore down ended up with the base of the hoof on that side narrower than at the coronet with massive flare on the medial side. I couldn't get boots on either when his feet were like this.
The best way I've found to manage his feet is to trim them a small amount very regularly and to boot for longer rides. Doing this he has always stayed sound and his feet are healthier than they have ever been.
 
paddy555 said:
not much help to you I am afraid in Leeds as it is also in Devon.


http://www.rookfarm.co.uk/barefoot-1/
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Well thats no help at all! :p

Sadly the local 'guru' instructor also couldn't understand why I was not just shoeing him, as apparently shoes help support the tendons. Erm, no, they don't! (short term mine has raised heel eggbars on to help his ddft heal, but longterm shoes give no support)
 
I think one main point to remember with the Rockley-leave-alone approach is that their horses are all judged by how they move (as far as I can tell from the blog). Does the horse load the hoof more evenly (medial/lateral balance)? Do the horse's legs have a straight flight path? How is the landing?

I would certainly hope that if they came across a horse that deteriorates on any of those criteria, they would change something in that horse's management.

Personally, I'd also want to see that a horse developing an asymmetry when left alone eventually stabilizes, i.e. the asymmetry doesn't not keep going more asymmetric indefinitely, but that the horse finds its own perfect balance.

It sounds to me as though the horse described in the original post wouldn't pass either of those two criteria, so I'd be inclined to say that leave-alone isn't working in that case. Doesn't mean it won't work for other horses or cases.
 
It's also important what is asymmetric. In the Rockley horses, what seems to happen is the the horses develop an external asymmetry, but the sole view is symmetric with a central frog. If the foot is symmetric from a sole view, then I'd probably believe that the horse has it right whatever the outside looks like. But not if the sole is asymmetric after a good length of time allowed for it to balance its own feet.

I don't believe every horse can self trim, and there are even more where the keeper of the horse just doesn't have the time/daylight/facilities to do it.
 
OP I am in full agreement with your post and think that barefoot works for most horses if just turned out on variable terrain, ridden is an entirely different thing and whilst many shout about their rockcrunching performance horses, it is often revealed that when they do any real work, then boots must be used, or they are only 'performing' in an arena/on certain surfaces/ for a quiet hack on pasture.
What Rockley are doing is different in that they are rehabilitating hooves (mainly with navicular problems) that have been subjected to years of poor farriery/ infrequent shoeing intervals. The horses are usually mature and are slowly rehabilitated and brought back into work- they probably do 'grow the foot they need' and it seems to work, although I would like to see details on how that recovery lasts over time and once the horses are returned do they still do the things they used to?
I am a 'recovering' barefooter- I can see the point, think the diet is excellent and use the principles on all my horses, but also see it's limitations and of the six horses we currently have- the two working horses are shod, one is remedially shod in front, one broodmare is barefoot as are the two foals.
My riding horse was barefoot when I bought her at 4yo, I backed her and then discovered like you OP that her hoof wear was uneven due to her gait (she also dished very slightly), she also wore her 'rockcrunching' feet excessively as we only have road hacking available- she was never footsore, or 'trimmed' but I decided to shoe because the wear definately did effect her upper body movement- she has been 18 months in shoes, doesn't dish at all now, moves beautifully through all her body, and I can ride her whenever and wherever I want.
Because I have tried to keep working barefoot horses for several years, I have seen many of the pitfalls, and have taken all the advantages on board for my working shod horses- I am very foot aware, only have the best farrier I can and keep shoeing intervals where they should be.
A horse can only be truly fit for work and in fact grow the feet it needs if it works, and working a footsore horse is cruel and counterproductive in my opinion,
 
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