People with unshod horses...

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Jesstickle

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do you worry about your horses wearing their feet unevenly.

Brown horse is sound as a pound without shoes but he wears his feet very, very unevenly. Is that normal?

My farrier says not to worry about him so I'm not worrying just wondering what everyone else's look like by the time they get a trim.

He doesn't have a pair of feet anyway. The off fore is rather upright and he wears the outside edge of that whilst the inside grows longer. He does the same near side but the foot is a nicer shape to begin with so it less noticeable.

Do you do anything about it or just let it be. Physio is happy with how he moves, farrier is happy with him too, it just doesn't look very beautiful. :)
 
Beauty is in a sound horse. I do a lot of feet. I don't think any of them are ugly, but some of them are weird. Very weird.

The weird ones are largely that way because the hoof is reflecting something else that is either historical or is currently on-going.

These two posts show how a fairly odd hoof became rather less odd as the original problem was resolved.

During the process - http://barefoothorseblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/deviated-hooves-now-you-see-it-now-you.html

As it is now - http://barefoothorseblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/deviated-hooves-and-abscess-updates.html

Regarding your specific query regarding wear. It depends on which bit is wearing unevenly and why. Because few of our horses get to move enough in either quantity or natural terms some of them will not wear some sections of their feet enough. So you may get a square toe. The wear at the toe is not the issue, but you will want to get the 'corners' properly trimmed/rolled.

Similarly, some horses may not wear evenly medially/laterally, so the hoof gets tall on one side. This will need to be properly trimmed too. Again if the horse is doing the mileage and moving naturally this is rarely an issue.

The 'prettiest' and soundest feet seem to belong to the horses that work the hardest and live 'rough'.

Regarding your horse's fronts, he may be reflecting 'something'. You need to have a chat with your farrier and maybe vet/physio about what that might be and if it requires any intervention. The reason I mention this is that if one fore is substantially higher/lower than the other this can be a reflection of the horse not moving quite correctly/straight. I note your physio says the are happy with how your horse is moving. The hooves might be saying something else, depending on their shape. Short term not a problem, but it can be long term.
 
Wow it's nothing like that bad LP! I'll try and get you guys a photo later if you're interested. I'd be intrigued to hear what other people think.

I probably make them sound worse than they are. I am just surprised that he wears his off fore so obviously on one edge when the physio and vet both agree he is one of the soundest and free-est (is that even a word?!) horses they have ever seen. It seems counter intuitive somehow. I wear my shoes unevenly but I am at least 8/10ths lame so that's hardly a shock!
 
My NF loads to one side, he had a suspensory tweak when shod and this is how he compensates. He is sound as a pound and did the whole of camp including grids like this. When he is trimmed it grows again that way within days!!
 
jesstickle said:
Wow it's nothing like that bad LP! I'll try and get you guys a photo later if you're interested. I'd be intrigued to hear what other people think.

I probably make them sound worse than they are. I am just surprised that he wears his off fore so obviously on one edge when the physio and vet both agree he is one of the soundest and free-est (is that even a word?!) horses they have ever seen. It seems counter intuitive somehow. I wear my shoes unevenly but I am at least 8/10ths lame so that's hardly a shock!
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jesstickle I do another one which grows a high medial wall behind, particularly on one foot. It does a fairly heavy mileage and copes very well. But, if it is left too long between trims or doesn't work for a bit then it is not so good. The extra wall is sufficient to make it out of balance enough that it is harder to canter etc. But note - when it does the work it is pretty much self maintaining.

The biggest problem for most of them is they just don't do enough work :-)
 
Doesn't do enough work definitely covers the brown horse. Lazy old goat!

He is doing a couple of miles a day at the moment to get to his field but usually he only gets ridden a few times a week. Having to go to work is terribly inconvenient when you're trying to keep horses!
 
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jesstickle said:
Doesn't do enough work definitely covers the brown horse. Lazy old goat!

He is doing a couple of miles a day at the moment to get to his field but usually he only gets ridden a few times a week. Work is terribly inconvenient when you're trying to keep horses!
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:-) don't I know it! My mare is sound only when worked. It's a real bind because I have to work to afford to keep her and sometimes I don't get back until really late.

I have to admit I find pasture ornaments very hard work from a trimming perspective because the feet are only very rarely in great health - because they aren't getting enough exercise and trimming won't fix that.

Take heart though as I find that most will do well enough if you can do 20 mins or so 3x a week on something abrasive - and then put the mileage/time in at the weekend (or whenever your days off are).

The fab hooves on the post (above) work very hard all summer, but then not so much during the winter - but last summer enough work was done to get them good enough to get through winter with less work and with only a bit of thrush as a problem. Now its getting lighter they are getting back into work and so far so good.
 
Ah well that's good. He gets his twenty minutes on concrete every day on the way to his field and he's been out rock crunching today so all is well.

I'm not overly worried by his feet as he seems absolutely happy on them. It just amazes me that he looks so wonky at ground level but once in motion he is as level as they come. Strange creature!
 
My old boy was shod for 13 years. He has good confirmation, was always sound and I took the shoes off as he was doing so little and I was broke.

Then I fell in with a bad crowd and became one of the Barefoot Taliban:)

Eight years later and he has always been sound (apart from one unrelated problem) and happy. Fed a good diet and trimmed by an excellent trimmer.

He always wears unevenly and has never managed a heel first landing!

But he's sound and happy, so I wont meddle.

This is on Nic Barker's blog, it seems prevelant today.

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.com/2011/02/hooves-and-symmetry.html
 
I'm not part of the barefoot anything. I'm quite happy for my horses to be unshod but would put shoes on without hesitation if I thought they needed them.

Thankfully brown horse at least probably never will. Not with me anyway!

I think probably his aren't that bad. Looking at other people pictures they look quite reasonable really. It's just his boxy foot which looks a bit ropey and I suppose that's to be expected from a congenitally upright hoof.

Nits wears her very evenly but then she doesn't do any work yet so she doesn't really wear hers at all. She is going to have such a shock when work starts!
 
None of mine are perfectly straight or even. When worked they self trim and I never need to do anything with them. One is particularly squint but it's what she needs for the leg above. The one time the farrier tried to straighten up the feet and make it look 'pretty' she went lame :(
 
My farrier fortunately isn't that kind of farrier. He says there isn't much point trying to make a pair of BH's feet as they just aren't one (poor special brown horse!) and meddling would just upset everything.
 
depends.
my grey irish boy and the shetland have always have fab feet, even when the grey boy was shod they were textbook. he transitioned to barefoot seamlessly and wears his feet perfectly evenly.
shetty has never been shod and again wears his feet totally evenly.

now my TB had been shod really oddly when i bought him,so that he toed out in front (shoes actually set on wonky?!). so initially when he went barefoot, although never sore, he did wear his front feet very oddly.
now that his legs have 99% straightened (of their own accord) he wears them far more evenly. he will always toe out slightly so will always were them ever so slightly unevenly but a couple of strokes with a rasp each week keeps in under control.no biggy.

would never try and force a foot to be textbook through trimming, it just doesnt work.

to a certain extent they grow the foot they need and all i/trimmer does is stop any really bad uneveness developing due to chips etc.

both my TB's *wanted* their front feet to be slighty heel high compared to the ideal, and both went sore when that was taken away. i dont know if its related to the work they do, the surface, the breed, or what. but as long as its a balanced high heel, im ok with it.
 
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