*Shock, horror* not trimming foals?

I too think that unless you can provide a range of surfaces you are going to struggle with acheiving 'self-regulating' hooves in a foal. On soft ground with a balanced diet your foals feet are going to grow and if left untrimmed they will start to flare, they will not chip off as they would do naturally on stone and rock and they are not going to be rasped naturally on the roads like your adult horses. It also depends very much on the breed of the horse, how quick/slow growing the feet are/ if there are any inherent breed abnormalities which may be effected by foot balance etc eg OCD/ tendon problems. I have a 4yo that had never been trimmed when I got her in May, yes she is self trimming now, but her feet were flared, she was pidgeon-toed and dished slightly-all as a result of not trimming and being kept on soft ground (with the correct diet). Now she is on a range of surfaces and her feet have become better, but all as a result of quite a bit of work!
Edited to add- My horses are barefoot and self-trimming as a result of being kept on a range of surfaces and exercised appropriately, but they are adult horses (4+), are in work and came to me with overgrown pasture-kept feet! My sons horse is shod because her feet wear very quickly and she would not cope with our range of surfaces in addition to hunting, she is a WBX and has 'softer' feet than the other two. She also arrived with overgrown pasture-kept feet but lost them after 2 weeks of arrival-just on the yard and with some light hacking.
 
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soloequestrian said:
1. How many people have tried not trimming - adults or foals - to see what happened?
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Well, plenty. There are thousands of horses born each year who never ever see a farrier. Most would be considered as welfare cases.
If your theory were correct, then these horses which are turned out and left to breed would all have good feet. Truth is - they don't.
 
an adult barefoot horse in work whose growth always exceeds wear regardless of the quantity of work (within reason, I do have to manage a full time job too ;) ) In at night currently, out 24/7 in summer, diet devised along barefoot recommendations.

If you don't trim him he ends up with excess wall all round, though more medially as he has a tendency to land slightly laterally.... despite being straight legged and sound (he's welsh, they tend to dish a bit :p). - plenty of roadwork and stony tracks included. probably about 20 miles a week hacking but sometimes more.

'It makes biological sense that the hoof grows to match the speed of wear, and that is what happens with my adults.' - so I presumed we were talking adults as well as foals.
 
soloequestrian said:
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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I'm not sure the gold standard is not trimming tbh. That comes with lots of provisos, enough movement and work on varied terrain, not changing exercize regime too quickly for eg.

There are schools of thought that believe keeping on top of hooves is preferable to letting them over grow before trimming and perhaps this applies more to foals that don't get enough movement/wear?

Personally (not being a breeder) I think many foals are too coddled or conversely, left out in fields with no dietary supplementation or variety of surfaces or hoof care.

When you think about it early life is crucial. I believe hooves take as long to mature as the body and the hoof needs to be 'exercized' to enable structures to strengthen/mature to cope with the weight as the horse grows. So frog, digital cushion and sole need lots of pressure and release (aka footfalls) and lateral cartilages need lots of coping with uneven terrain. Walls need abrasive surfaces to wear. Body needs to move to develop and a good horse friendly diet to grow healthy.
 
Honestly, I can't understand why you wouldn't trim a foal's feet- even if that's just running the rasp over them. It's good training for the future, means there's another set of eyes on the feet to spot any (potential) problems and it means that if anything goes wrong, the foal is already familiar with strange people touching and working with his feet.
 
meandmyself said:
Honestly, I can't understand why you wouldn't trim a foal's feet- even if that's just running the rasp over them. It's good training for the future, means there's another set of eyes on the feet to spot any (potential) problems and it means that if anything goes wrong, the foal is already familiar with strange people touching and working with his feet.
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I agree.
 
Patterdale - I was meaning in a monitored situation, where management is generally good.
Amanda - you're saying kind of the same thing, that there are many foals whose management is less than ideal.

I'm not saying that trimming will never be necessary in foals, I'm saying that it might be a possibility that trimming may never be needed.

Ester - how long have you left your horse? Mine both have feet that on close inspection don't look pretty - they are both quite square looking, not a perfect 'horseshoe' shape. I wonder what is different - my fields are not particularly abrasive and they are out all year round, but never grow excess length.

I'm still disputing the belief that lots of work is required for feet to stay self trimming. There has to be a mechanism to slow growth in the same way as growth increases when the horse works hard. If the reduction in growth didn't happen, any horse that had done endurance barefoot for instance would grow hooves at a ridiculous rate when the workload decreased. My boys do very little during the winter and don't ever grow excess hoof length. In the summer the younger one will be up to about 40-50k per week on hard forest tracks, so either his feet never grow and never wear or he does change his hoof growth patterns. I don't see why this would be any different in a foal. I do think that to get ideal development of the internal structures to cope with hard work in the future, a variety of surfaces are needed and we are building up to going for walks on our foal feet to help that to happen, but I suspect this won't be for a while yet.
 
Running a rasp over them to get the foal used to the experience is not the same trimming. I can easily get other people to pick up feet, it doesn't need to be a vet or a farrier.
 
soloequestrian said:
I'm not saying that trimming will never be necessary in foals, I'm saying that it might be a possibility that trimming may never be needed.
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I am sure it is possible but I do think you have to have knowledgeable guidance or know what you're doing. I'm not saying you don't btw just making a general point. :)
 
After 6 weeks he has significant excess medially, obviously he doesn't help himself by wearing unevenly in front- his hinds could go longer but 8 weeks is the longest I have done (and regretted). I certainly don't mind them looking unpretty at all and he does have a hind with a bit of a wonk but this is just excess.

I imagine there are different growth rates depending on work, but question whether the growth can ever slow down sufficiently to account for no 'work' and soft paddock turnout.
 
I bought Blitz at 7 months. Once he moved off the breeders yard at 9 months he was trimmed every 6-8 weeks. He has very, very strong horn, and it grows straight as an arrow.

Last summer, when he was 2, my farrier went on holiday (as one does...) and it was almost 12 weeks betwen trims. At the next visit my farrier had to trim almost an inch of hoof wall off. There wasn't a crack or flare to be seen, but Blitz was walking round on egg cups. There was no "self regulation." Just not enough work on abraisive surfaces to keep up with the growth, as he was out in a field being a baby with a group of other horses.

I'm now on quite a strict 6 week schedule, as my mare needs frequent balancing trims as she grows out a horrendously overgrown hoof, but even then it is easy to see the difference - Tartine needs a slight rasp and rebalance, Blitz needs the nippers out and every 6 weeks the farrier removes about 1/2 inch of wall.

As with the other posters, with a foal you have to be careful you aren't compounding a minor conformational flaw by allowing the hoof to grow to meet the conformation at the time. Until the epiphyseal plates harden/fuse you can affect limb straightness.
 
ester said:
I imagine there are different growth rates depending on work, but question whether the growth can ever slow down sufficiently to account for no 'work' and soft paddock turnout.
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I agree, constant access to movement on abrasive surfaces is most likely needed imho. There must be a limit to how much growth can be slowed in a healthy, well nourished horse.
 
No, but if you suddenly decided to work your horses on roads, instead of tracks? Or in winter as well as summer? Or moved 3 miles down the road? Your current regime would change. Your new foal is just that, new, and as such will need careful monitoring (eg how sure can you be that the extra protein that you are feeding him will not adversely effect his foot growth?), and conditioning- for instance, if as you say your horses feet don't grow, even if your foals feet don't grow either, when you start to back him and take him out and about, will he cope with external conditions and surfaces? Hooves naturally grow less in winter and do respond to work variations in my experience, but foals and youngstock are different, their bodies are preprogrammed to 'grow at full speed' for the first couple of years, and 'grow' for the next 4. And every breed, type, individual is different!
I would not take the responsibilty for the foals feet myself and would absolutely have to consult at the very least with a farrier/trimmer and indeed a vet on a fairly regular basis-not specifically but definately as a general oversee!
 
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