Navicuar Feet again - better photos - to take shoes off or not...??

OK. I knew a horse that had been in wedges for a time and went barefoot, but the trimmer said initially to remove the shoes over 2 shoeing cycles, to allow the legs, tendons, etc. to adapt to the new balance and the loss of the wedges.

Read the book, you will be amazed at some of the stories and what the barefoot horses can do.

Good photos.
 
OMG, I'm really diheartened. I recognise that yard, CE right?
I am seriously considering taking my horse there early next year on livery. My only concerns were that the YM were insisting that I HAD to use their vet & farrier and there was no option to use my own. Having seen that shoeing I am now really really worried, if I were to box to forge for farrier do you think this would be acceptable to YM?

I really do hope you get your horse to come right, if you are going to put shoes on your horse you really need to address the correct breakover and heel support, you need at least another cm in length on those shoes. I'd suggest quarter clips and rolled toes and extra length at heel. If you can convince the yard to get another farrier there try Karn Herbert or Adam Young, both are local and get them rather than their apprentices. If you can't get another farrier in or box out, then yes exploring barefoot route would be my next step.
 
Good news on the vet front!
Fingers crossed the same applies to farriers, if so then I will be very keen to move there as the yard really does look superb.
 
Thank you for the farrier recommendation too, we had Karn shoeing him before :-( it's so disheartening as you want to do best by your horse and try to trust people who have the knowledge and experience, you go against your gut instincts and sacrifice a lot only to end up with a horse deteriorating further :-((
 
ihatework said:
Good news on the vet front!
Fingers crossed the same applies to farriers, if so then I will be very keen to move there as the yard really does look superb.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure re farrier but hope not ...btw earlier photos on my other thread are Karn's shoeing. It was heavily criticised on here too. Horse hasn't been sound since aug 2009.
 
dress and balance the feet correctly, fit a wide web section shoe with a rockered toe , upright heels with plenty of lenght and width from the heel nails back . this is not rocket science and any farrier should shoe to this basic standard as a matter of course . do not use 1/4 clips for more than 2 shoeing cycles but that is my opinion from practice
 
Ferrador maybe it is because you are in Portugal but you are well out of date with regards to barefoot in the UK. There is a commercial rehab yard which now has a long track record of sorting foot-lameness in horses which have already been through the shoeing and medication routes and are still lame. And there are now dozens of individuals like myself who have done the same thing with single horses. This horse looks, from the photos, as if he would benefit immensely from being allowed to balance his feet the way that his body needs.
 
i live in portugal ,i am employed and work through out europe with my clients and many veterinary practices . i see firsthand a lot more than you, and my own and many others experiences are not good ,i have plenty of equine working without shoes ,i am not biased either way ,but this latest fad to have hit the uk is not new and its all been done before , the presentation is new and very professional too but a lot of genuine horse folk soon see through the baloney been given to them . when was the last time you saw one of these preacher barefoot ? they should practice what they preach and stop protecting their own feet ,the principal is exactly the same , be realistic its about earning money
 
ferrador said:
i live in portugal ,i am employed and work through out europe with my clients and many veterinary practices . i see firsthand a lot more than you, and my own and many others experiences are not good ,i have plenty of equine working without shoes ,i am not biased either way ,but this latest fad to have hit the uk is not new and its all been done before , the presentation is new and very professional too but a lot of genuine horse folk soon see through the baloney been given to them . when was the last time you saw one of these preacher barefoot ? they should practice what they preach and stop protecting their own feet ,the principal is exactly the same , be realistic its about earning money
Click to expand...

Probably going to regret this but what baloney in particular are you referring to?
 
ferrador said:
i live in portugal ,i am employed and work through out europe with my clients and many veterinary practices . i see firsthand a lot more than you, and my own and many others experiences are not good ,i have plenty of equine working without shoes ,i am not biased either way ,but this latest fad to have hit the uk is not new and its all been done before , the presentation is new and very professional too but a lot of genuine horse folk soon see through the baloney been given to them . when was the last time you saw one of these preacher barefoot ? they should practice what they preach and stop protecting their own feet ,the principal is exactly the same , be realistic its about earning money
Click to expand...

I take personal offence at that comment. I have so far spent £700 this year rehabilitating a horse which was 24 hours from being put to sleep due to his poor quality of life. He had adequan, tildren, HLA bursa injection and bar shoes and HE WAS STILL LAME with navicular disease diagnosed from radiographs.

It took me under 11 weeks with a barefoot rehabilitation to have him fit to compete dressage, where he nearly won a national qualifier. In under 3 months he was jumping on a six mile farm ride on very hard dry ground. After six months he is giving his new carers, to whom I have given him on permanent loan, immense enjoyment and is as sound as a pound. THese timescales are far from unusual.

This is NOT a fad. We are, between us, returning DOZENS of horses which vets and farriers have completely given up on to full work and happy lives.

And in answer to your irrelevant query about barefoot trimmers, one of them does go shoeless consistently, yes, and another has a partner who runs without shoes. Like humans, horses weren't born with shoes on and can, as humans do, build callouses to cope with any surface, as my horses do.

YOU are blinkered and out of date. If your experiences are not good, perhaps you need to come over to the UK and see how it can be made to work, for the good of the lame horses you are dealing with?
 
Last edited:
mrdarcy i do not know who you are but i would put :
1- my uk,european and world recognised qualifications
2 my footcare practices
3 my experience ,
against any you could possibly hope to offer other than your ability to sell snow to eskimos . you have got to be one a bua by the typical response you came out with
 
ferrador said:
maybe its my experience that tells me mrdarcy is a barefoot guru . i know i am new on the scene ,but i smell something fishy here
Click to expand...

Ferrador reminds me of a Horizon programme I remember watching about 30 years ago. It was about an inexperienced researcher who had identified that the cause of stomach ulcers in humans was a bacteria - helicobacter pylori. The rest of the programme was stuffed full of consultants and experts who "knew" that stomach ulcers were caused by excess acid production and stress and explained why he was wrong. Over the following few years it became obvious that it was the experts who were wrong and the novice researcher was right. Treatment for stomach ulcers these days is antibiotics, to kill off the helicobacter pylori.

Ferrador, you are such an "expert" and so well qualified that you are closing your eyes to the fact that in Britain there are DOZENS of us who know how to cure navicular syndrome horses that the "expert" vets and farriers have failed to get sound with conventional methods. When you develop a little more humility, there are plenty of us who, for the sake of the horse, would be glad to show you what we have been doing.

The first place I would start, if I were you, is to look at the typical Iberian hoof, with a round upright shape, and wonder whether the fact that the frog is usually suspended somewhere in space, a good distance above anywhere it could be ground-bearing, has any impact on the fact that you are seeing so many barefoot failures in Portugal???
 
Last edited:
mrdarcy ,i am working i england in 3 weeks time , i can visit you then and dicuss whatever about foot care . the answer to your question (typical bua by the way ) is a lot more than anything you could possibly contrive . fact . as a matter of vinterest have vyou ever been to america ?
 
Question for you Ferrador:

If the qualifications and experience of all the vets of one of the most well regarded veterinary practices in this country could not get my rehab horse sound, but I, a completely unqualified amateur, could -

tell me

what the hell use were those qualifications and experience?

The only thing that counts here is results. We have sound barefoot ex-navicular horses time and again and you don't? I think we know something you don't, don't you?


ps I'm still waiting for an apology for your suggestion that I was only in this for money.
 
Last edited:
Oh dear, why does this sort of falling out keep happening? We all want the same thing - sound horses! There doesn't seem to be 100% understanding & consensus out there about exactly how the hoof functions (one barefoot trimmer I correspond with had never heard of KC LaPierre's hoof dynamics theory, so I guess it's not universally accepted) & there are differences between different 'schools' of barefoot trimming, as well as between barefoot folk & farriers. Doesn't that mean that we are all still learning, and there might be stuff that is well worth knowing in all sorts of different approaches. From where I'm sat that also means that what is being taught now is not necessarily the final word on the subject. Qualifications - of farriers and EPs - are all very well, but being open minded and learning from our own experiences and those of others is the best way to make progress IMO.

I don't think that anybody here can be demonstrably right - none of the protagonists here are likely to get the opportunity to try their preferred methods out on this particular horse any time soon, so this debate is pretty much theoretical from where I'm sitting. That said, I'd be interested to hear it - but please, without everyone falling out :o
 
I think I'm getting whiff of troll..... irritating posts designed to get a reaction and without any real substance, just 'I'm far more experienced than you are, you couldn't possibly hope to understand'.....

perhaps we should have a collective rise above and ignore?
 
Andalucian said:
hi GMR, your farrier is much more skilled but the basic problems are still there. Heels far too long and underrun, left fore more than right fore. Again, my approach would be the same, shoes off, deep shavings bed at night, turn out in the day, soft hoof boots to get him to and from the stable across any challenging ground. I would expect these feet to recover rather quickly to be honest.
Click to expand...

Thats very clever of you Andalucian..he is 6/10 lame on the left fore and 2to 3/10 lame on the right!!! He has no damage to Navicular just bruising apparently. Don't know how the vets will feel if I go against them and take his shoes off for a bit!!!
 
GMR said:
Thats very clever of you Andalucian..he is 6/10 lame on the left fore and 2to 3/10 lame on the right!!! He has no damage to Navicular just bruising apparently. Don't know how the vets will feel if I go against them and take his shoes off for a bit!!!
Click to expand...
I've learnt a thing or two along the way ;-) You'd be surprised how positive some vets and farriers are if you suggest removing the shoes for a while, their problem is that they can't suggest it to you because although they're hearing it might be successful, its as yet clinically unproven, so they're not insured if they make the suggestion (if you see what I mean).

Your horse would be one that I'd see coming right and being able to wear shoes again once the feet are where they should be, they're not very worrying to me. Google the internet for cure for navicular and see what you find.
All the best.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top