Please tell me why the obsession with barefoot?

HR just out of interest would you class horses who start off lame and end up sound after shoes come off as rehabs or not? Just a pondering as I suppose we have done a few things differently since the shoes came off but in hindsight they would really have been just as useful to do beforehand it's just the situation that forced us. Am thinking of things like having a track round the outside of the field.. though that was more for his weight as not in proper work than his feet per se.
 
Tallyho. Would that be the barefooty people or just regular horseowners of either good status ? If you are referring to the latter then show me where. If it's the former, then yes, but just the weirdos.
 
horserider said:
Tallyho. Would that be the barefooty people or just regular horseowners of either good status ? If you are referring to the latter then show me where. If it's the former, then yes, but just the weirdos.
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I have no idea what you mean by weirdos so I'll just bypass that.

Are you saying barefooty people are not regular horseowners? My experiences are different to yours and having met lots of barefooty (even unshoddy!!) people I can honestly say they fall into the same category as regular horse owners. Their ideas may differ to yours and god forbid, they may have ideas of their own!

From what you have been writing, horse owners should consider the whole of "barefoot/unshod/shoeless" as basic stuff and not write about every minutiae on a forum. This obviously baffles you and you can't understand why people want to talk about horses feet. It does not seem to occur to you that many people have never considered riding a horse without shoes and so resent that people who have apparently done it all their lives have the opinion that they are lacking basic horse management to which you insinuate in your posts.

That's obviously your prerogative but you have to accept that if you write it here and people disagree, then a discourse could follow where you challenge each others ideas, as I, and a few other people here, have done.

The good thing to do would be to offer words that help as others have done, rather than hinder, but you seem unwilling to offer any form of help and stand by the sidelines watching barefoot posts and punctuating conversations with your usual unhelpful attitude.

It's not just you horserider, it is also others who have backgrounds where unshod is a "norm". Rather than help, the attitude seems to be: lets make a joke out of these people.
 
Quote doesn't seem to be working. :confused:

just wanted to say Littlelegs made a really good point.

In fact, maybe people have got a bit hung up on the whole shod/barefoot pros and cons when isn't it possible that it isn't actually shoes that are the problem but sports horse diets? Maybe all these horses with navic, collapsed heels, etc wouldn't go wrong in the first place, shod or not, if they were all fed the type of diet they get once they've gone wrong and the shoes come off?

Sorry if that's really obvious to most people but its not something I'd thought about before.
 
horserider said:
Oh dear tallyho , you make a lot of incorrect assumptions about me, l hope your lack of intuition is limited to people and not horses as well.
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Well, I can only go on my past interactions with you on this subject and what I see of your interactions of others who post on the subject of barefoot. Therefore I can ONLY base my assumptions on what I see, as is the case with every member on HHO, vice versa.
 
Flame_ said:
Quote doesn't seem to be working. :confused:

just wanted to say Littlelegs made a really good point.

In fact, maybe people have got a bit hung up on the whole shod/barefoot pros and cons when isn't it possible that it isn't actually shoes that are the problem but sports horse diets? Maybe all these horses with navic, collapsed heels, etc wouldn't go wrong in the first place, shod or not, if they were all fed the type of diet they get once they've gone wrong and the shoes come off?

Sorry if that's really obvious to most people but its not something I'd thought about before.
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I think it's a very good point, especially if you couple it with the fact that it used to be normal for horses to have a period out of shoes each year.

It doesn't quite answer the question of why we shoe so many horses who never really need them, but it certainly explains why there are so many foot problems in modern shod horses.
 
tallyho! said:
It's not just you horserider, it is also others who have backgrounds where unshod is a "norm". Rather than help, the attitude seems to be: lets make a joke out of these people.
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No, you also picked me up on this and accused me of being self righteous which couldn't be further from the truth. I've never been involved in barefoot posts in the past as they normally don't interest me. I don't know why I even started reading this post, maybe it was a quiet day on here, who knows. Anyhow for some reason this time I did reply with my comments on how my horses live without shoes. I had no idea there was a barefoot diet; I just feed my horses and have the farrier take care of their feet and that's that. It's not something odd to me, it's the norm where I live, and horses with shoes are noticed and are thought of as if they have a problem. It's a huge put-off to most people around here. This is just how it is here where I live and that's why I couldn't understand all the 'palaver' people were going to. It's got nothing to do with being supercilious or taking the high moral ground, it is just something I do not understand because it doesn't happen here as a matter of course. People just feed their horses (rarely with expensive, special feed, just what we see as 'normal feed') and most horses live out all the time on terrain similar to what you have in the UK. Hence my querying the whole thing. I don't believe I was ever rude in anything I said. And my point about how many horses I have which you seemed to take umbrage to (why, I have no idea :confused:) was to clarify that I don't just have one or two horses who happily live like this. I don't have any 'help' to offer because I don't understand why we can but you guys can't. It's not me being obtuse on purpose.

Having read all the comments on this thread and digested everything that's been said, it seems that the fact that most people where I live never shoe their horses at any stage in their lives may possibly be the over-riding factor in this? Anyway I won't be getting involved in any other barefoot threads, one was quite enough for me.
 
Spring Feather said:
No, you also picked me up on this and accused me of being self righteous which couldn't be further from the truth. I've never been involved in barefoot posts in the past as they normally don't interest me. I don't know why I even started reading this post, maybe it was a quiet day on here, who knows. Anyhow for some reason this time I did reply with my comments on how my horses live without shoes. I had no idea there was a barefoot diet; I just feed my horses and have the farrier take care of their feet and that's that. It's not something odd to me, it's the norm where I live, and horses with shoes are noticed and are thought of as if they have a problem. It's a huge put-off to most people around here. This is just how it is here where I live and that's why I couldn't understand all the 'palaver' people were going to. It's got nothing to do with being supercilious or taking the high moral ground, it is just something I do not understand because it doesn't happen here as a matter of course. People just feed their horses (rarely with expensive, special feed, just what we see as 'normal feed') and most horses live out all the time on terrain similar to what you have in the UK. Hence my querying the whole thing. I don't believe I was ever rude in anything I said. And my point about how many horses I have which you seemed to take umbrage to (why, I have no idea :confused:) was to clarify that I don't just have one or two horses who happily live like this. I don't have any 'help' to offer because I don't understand why we can but you guys can't. It's not me being obtuse on purpose.

Having read all the comments on this thread and digested everything that's been said, it seems that the fact that most people where I live never shoe their horses at any stage in their lives may possibly be the over-riding factor in this? Anyway I won't be getting involved in any other barefoot threads, one was quite enough for me.
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Most people where I live shoe their horses to walk round a sand school and stand in a stable, where do you live? Sounds very sensible.
 
Well I took my old boys shoes off for two reasons, to save money and to help his arthritis :)

Hes sound, happy and really not getting ridden enough to warrant shoes so why pay for something thats not doing my horse any good. If he isnt sound shoeless then they would go back on, but him being semi retired I dont think he will need them anymore :)
 
Spring Feather said:
No, you also picked me up on this and accused me of being self righteous which couldn't be further from the truth. I've never been involved in barefoot posts in the past as they normally don't interest me. I don't know why I even started reading this post, maybe it was a quiet day on here, who knows. Anyhow for some reason this time I did reply with my comments on how my horses live without shoes. I had no idea there was a barefoot diet; I just feed my horses and have the farrier take care of their feet and that's that. It's not something odd to me, it's the norm where I live, and horses with shoes are noticed and are thought of as if they have a problem. It's a huge put-off to most people around here. This is just how it is here where I live and that's why I couldn't understand all the 'palaver' people were going to. It's got nothing to do with being supercilious or taking the high moral ground, it is just something I do not understand because it doesn't happen here as a matter of course. People just feed their horses (rarely with expensive, special feed, just what we see as 'normal feed') and most horses live out all the time on terrain similar to what you have in the UK. Hence my querying the whole thing. I don't believe I was ever rude in anything I said. And my point about how many horses I have which you seemed to take umbrage to (why, I have no idea :confused:) was to clarify that I don't just have one or two horses who happily live like this. I don't have any 'help' to offer because I don't understand why we can but you guys can't. It's not me being obtuse on purpose.

Having read all the comments on this thread and digested everything that's been said, it seems that the fact that most people where I live never shoe their horses at any stage in their lives may possibly be the over-riding factor in this? Anyway I won't be getting involved in any other barefoot threads, one was quite enough for me.
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Sorry, I didn't take umbrage to how many horses you had. That's what you took from it.

I took umbrage to your comments on "special potions and lotions" and "special food" which came across as very patronising.

You expressed your point of view. I am expressing mine.
 
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hihosilver said:
It is so much better for them in the long run, I would if I could but I have a mare who has soft thin soles so gets footy.
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There is plenty of advice on this forum about how to get thin soles to thicken up hihosilver. Can I suggest that you research diet, metabolic diseases and possibly put up a thread asking people how to cure them? Maybe on phoenixhorse.myfastforum.org where you will meet a number of people with barefoot horses that used to suffer from thin soles.
 
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