*Shock, horror* not trimming foals?

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soloequestrian

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I had a bit of an exciting thought the other day about my new foal. Perhaps I might never need to trim her (feet!)? It took me many years to realise that I was doing no good at all by trimming my adult horses feet - for one, I was making him marginally worse by trimming, for the other I was having no effect at all except expending energy! They are both self 'trimming' (I prefer 'self regulating' actually because it is the rate of growth, not necessarily the rate of wear that seems to be important) now all year round, even at the moment when work levels are minimal - very occasionally I take out a chip but it is more cosmetic than anything. Interested in experience or opinions on this!
 
They need to have access to suitable surfaces in order to self trim, if the field does not provide this then you risk the feet getting over grown and unbalanced which in a foal could be damaging for it's future soundness, if the field is suitable then it could work but as said you still need to get the youngster used to having the feet dealt with including by other people just in case it requires treatment at some point.
 
Um, yes, I said 'trim', not pick up! I'm not planning to neglect her feet, just hoping that I won't have to trim. I know there is a lot out there about horses needing work on hard surfaces in order to self trim, but that is not my experience. As long as they are healthy and nothing changes suddenly, they appear to be able to self REGULATE on soft surfaces only.
 
soloequestrian said:
Um, yes, I said 'trim', not pick up! I'm not planning to neglect her feet, just hoping that I won't have to trim. I know there is a lot out there about horses needing work on hard surfaces in order to self trim, but that is not my experience. As long as they are healthy and nothing changes suddenly, they appear to be able to self REGULATE on soft surfaces only.
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If that is the case why do we see so many young and old horses with desperate feet. My young colt came to me age 11 months, never been touched and lived out all his young life. Feet were so splayed and spread he tripped up at every step.
 
AdorableAlice said:
If that is the case why do we see so many young and old horses with desperate feet. My young colt came to me age 11 months, never been touched and lived out all his young life. Feet were so splayed and spread he tripped up at every step.
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Diet would be the most likely reason - if they are not getting the correct levels of minerals hoof growth can be affected badly. This can happen easily if the horse has only been on one pasture - either due to lack of minerals or equally high levels of certain minerals such as iron. If he was on very lush pasture, another reason could be low grade laminitis. Letting any horse get into that sort of state is neglect.
 
soloequestrian said:
Diet would be the most likely reason - if they are not getting the correct levels of minerals hoof growth can be affected badly. This can happen easily if the horse has only been on one pasture - either due to lack of minerals or equally high levels of certain minerals such as iron. If he was on very lush pasture, another reason could be low grade laminitis. Letting any horse get into that sort of state is neglect.
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Interesting but not remotely practical to soil test every paddock a foal might find itself on.
 
Domesticated horses don't roam over huge and varied areas, plus, they are expected to stand up to some kind of work so that's where the difference is I'm afraid.
I didnt get mine done for nearly a year when he was 2 and turned out on the hill, but one was starting to splay a bit when he was nearing 3 so I got them done then.

Now he just gets a trim as and when. Sometimes he can go 6 months, sometimes 8 weeks. Depends on the time of year and where he's turned out.

But I would have been in trouble if I'd left him completely to his own devices.
 
An adult horse in work is quite a different proposition to a foal. A slight imbalance in the foal's foot, if left uncorrected, can lead to permanent skeletal crookedness.

I took on a 2 yo section D who had never seen the farrier as 'his feet have never needed trimming'. What the previous owner meant was 'I am too tight to pay for a farrier, his feet aren't falling off so what's your problem?'. He had to be pts at age 4 (unrelated problem) but it took a long time to sort his feet out.

IMHO you are simply asking for trouble if you think you can get away without having your foal's feet trimmed.
 
I may be being thick, but a healthy horse grows hoof from the coronary band, and the hoof will continue to get longer as long as the horn continues to grow. I can accept that hard working barefoot horses self trim, but I cannot get my head around how a foal, living in a field, can go without trimming during the period in its life when it will be growing like a weed. The self-regulation you refer to suggests that you think it's a good thing for new horn not to grow. Could you elaborate please-I simply don't understand why a horse (particularly a foal) not growing new foot can possibly be desirable!
 
I bred a TB 9 years ago. He has been kept out 24/7 most of his life, in at night in the worst of the winter. The fields are fairly large and hilly. I needed to trim his hooves fairly regularly, but as he began walking on roads in hand, then long reining, then bring ponied, and finally ridden, the interval between trims grew longer and longer. I haven't trimmed his hooves literally for years now.
BUT I would say unless your foal covers significant distances on abrasive terrain, you will need to trim, and you don't you could have serious problems.
 
I wouldn't think a domestic foal would get anywhere near enough miles on the clock to self trim.

I put a deposit on my youngster when he was 6 weeks. For some unfathomable reason the breeder was reluctant to trim his feet. We shared vets at the time and she told me that when she went to chip him at five months his feet were so long she ordered them to get the farrier immediately!

It took my farrier about 6 months to get his feet right once he came to us at 6 months old. I just hope it hasn't done lasting damage; fortunately he's growing very correct and clean limbed at 2.5.
 
Alice developed a slightly boxy front at 6 weeks, she was trimmed every 2 weeks and did physio for 6 months. Today at 30 months old she has perfect foot and limb alignment. Without the care, significant cost and effort she would be deformed.
 
Z
AdorableAlice said:
Alice developed a slightly boxy front at 6 weeks, she was trimmed every 2 weeks and did physio for 6 months. Today at 30 months old she has perfect foot and limb alignment. Without the care, significant cost and effort she would be deformed.
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It really really annoys me to see young horses with deformities that could have been corrected with timely intervention as a foal .
If people can't be bothered to do the right thing they ought breed a foal.
 
Auslander said:
I may be being thick, but a healthy horse grows hoof from the coronary band, and the hoof will continue to get longer as long as the horn continues to grow. I can accept that hard working barefoot horses self trim, but I cannot get my head around how a foal, living in a field, can go without trimming during the period in its life when it will be growing like a weed. The self-regulation you refer to suggests that you think it's a good thing for new horn not to grow. Could you elaborate please-I simply don't understand why a horse (particularly a foal) not growing new foot can possibly be desirable!
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It makes biological sense that the hoof grows to match the speed of wear, and that is what happens with my adults. Why would it not happen with a foal? I'd be interested to know how much length people have seen trimmed off foal feet, rather than trimming flare for instance which is a different type of growth. Feet don't just grow in length - foal feet obviously grow in width too, but the work of Bob Bowker provides a lot of evidence that they do this by depositing horn from the inside all the way down the length of the feet as well as by expansion of the coronary band. What I'm seeing in many replies to this is 'we did this and it worked, so it must be the way to do things', which is not a particularly good base of evidence for any course of action. How do people know what would have happened if certain interventions had not taken place? No-one has a control animal that had the same condition but they didn't do the intervention on. How many animals do have a good diet that suits the pasture they're on? Would it really be more expensive to test feed (not necessarily soil - it's not the same thing) and base diet on that, rather than hoping things are correct and then intervening only if they turn out not to be? I'm just musing about this, and knew people would be horrified at the thought, but then five years ago many people were horrified at the thought of barefoot horses and now I can use the term 'self trimming' in polite company without fear of having my head blown off.
 
OP in her post is making the assumption that the foal will have perfect straight legs and perfect feet (eg no pigeon toes). Self-trimming may or may not work - it all depends. But you have the foal CHECKED and treatment /no treatment/ trim whatever depends on what your vet/farrier sees. I don't see how you can alter the foal diet until it is a yearling and getting hard feed (if its getting any at all).
 
Patterdale said:
Now he just gets a trim as and when. Sometimes he can go 6 months, sometimes 8 weeks. Depends on the time of year and where he's turned out.

But I would have been in trouble if I'd left him completely to his own devices.
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Blimey! I must be doing/feeding something wrong then as if I leave mine more than 8 weeks (in clay based fields) then they'd be curling up, flaring, breaking off or causing incorrect stature even though they are in good health so it's usually 6 - 7 weeks between trims. I'd be a whole lot richer if I could leave them longer but for their benefit and future longevity, I can't.
 
There are plenty of examples of hoof growing an awful lot faster than the speed of wear whatever would make sense biologically though.
 
ester said:
There are plenty of examples of hoof growing an awful lot faster than the speed of wear whatever would make sense biologically though.
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The only one I know of is a study of feral ponies that live on sand - the surface is exremely soft, and they have really long hoof walls that extend way past the soles. Any other examples I have seen are flare, not length, which tends to be diet (or illness) related. I'd be interested to know of other examples.
 
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Adina said:
OP in her post is making the assumption that the foal will have perfect straight legs and perfect feet (eg no pigeon toes). Self-trimming may or may not work - it all depends. But you have the foal CHECKED and treatment /no treatment/ trim whatever depends on what your vet/farrier sees. I don't see how you can alter the foal diet until it is a yearling and getting hard feed (if its getting any at all).
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Yes, you're right about the assumption of a good limb to start off with. I do have an issue with trusting vets and farriers in this area though - my barefoot education has taught me to be extremely wary of experts.
Why would you not feed before a year old? My foal is getting a feed each day that balances her minerals and gives her the extra protein that she won't get from forage. The level of energy in the feed is negligible though - research shows fairly clearly that it is energy level that leads to issues with contracted tendons.
 
Maesfen said:
Blimey! I must be doing/feeding something wrong then as if I leave mine more than 8 weeks (in clay based fields) then they'd be curling up, flaring, breaking off or causing incorrect stature even though they are in good health so it's usually 6 - 7 weeks between trims. I'd be a whole lot richer if I could leave them longer but for their benefit and future longevity, I can't.
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Maybe I'm just lucky!
(*whispers* he only eats grass!)
It's a good, very old mix of grasses and plants at the foot of moors so he probably gets quite a natural foraging diet. He does have lovely balanced feet though. He's been about 3 months now but ill get the farrier in the next couple of weeks or so probably.

ester said:
There are plenty of examples of hoof growing an awful lot faster than the speed of wear whatever would make sense biologically though.
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This. I think you're being a bit blinkered to your idea OP, sorry! :)
 
Patterdale said:
Maybe I'm just lucky!
(*whispers* he only eats grass!)
It's a good, very old mix of grasses and plants at the foot of moors so he probably gets quite a natural foraging diet. He does have lovely balanced feet though. He's been about 3 months now but ill get the farrier in the next couple of weeks or so probably.



This. I think you're being a bit blinkered to your idea OP, sorry! :)
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Um, no, I'm being a biologist. From my point of view, most of the horse world is blinkered!
 
ester said:
There are plenty of examples of hoof growing an awful lot faster than the speed of wear whatever would make sense biologically though.
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I agree.

I'm no foal expert but I do think you need to be very careful and need a good Hoof care professional to keep a close eye. Varied terrain is important in my belief, just soft grass may not provide enough wear or stimulation to structures. I also believe a good diet is important foals do need appropriate mineral intake to grow good tissue.

Quote:
"Foals vs. Adults
From a trimming standpoint I approach foals and adults the same. The big differences between the two come in “Importance” and “What to expect”. With a foal, you are faced with rapidly closing window of opportunity to effect permanent correction to the limbs. By the time the foal is one year old (or less), the changes you can make to the joints are much more limited. When a foal fails to become straight limbed in one to two weeks of life, it is time for immediate action."
From article below about pigeon toes.
http://www.hoofrehab.com/Pigeon-toed.html
 
Thanks, I think the discussion on here is really interesting. There are definite examples of horses which self trim/ regulate with very little work (my two boys), there are hints that there are adult horses that need trimming in this sort of environment, there are examples of foals that seem to need trimming and there is an example of a foal that is doing just fine so far without any interference. I also have some examples from another forum of foals that do well without any sort of trimming in their early years.
I'm now wondering several things:
1. How many people have tried not trimming - adults or foals - to see what happened? I don't mean leaving them until they are welfare cases, I mean leaving them long enough that you can clearly see the pathway they are going down. I said at the start that it took me years to realise that trimming my boys was doing them no good whatsoever - it took a lot of self control to just leave their feet alone but now that I do it is obvious it is better for them.
2. The gold standard for barefoot now is rock-crunching and self trimming hooves, as far as I can see. I am very lucky that I have an adult like this. Should this perhaps also be the gold standard for young stock - rather than assuming that trimming will be required, assume that if it is required there is something else going on that needs to be corrected?

Look forward to more discussion!
 
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