Shoeing - changing the shape of the foot with different shoes

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Christmas Crumpet

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I know I keep harping on about these Natural Balance shoes but the more I think about it, the more I am convinced I am right.

My new horse came with normal hind shoes on and she had normal shaped hind feet.



My farrier then put Natural Balance shoes on her and has obviously set the shoe further back than she is normally shod. She has worn the toes down and squared the foot off on both hind feet. You cannot see the toe of the shoe because it is set that much further back.



The two types of shoe are quite different in the toe.



So surely if you put a Natural Balance squared toe shoe on a horse and set it back further than the horse is used to being shod normally, it will square the toe off in accordance with the shoe and how far back it is placed? My horse has worn the toe back to where the toe of the shoe is. If she hadn't worn the toe back then the toe would hanging way over where the toe of the shoe is?

Farrier is coming this Friday and I want to be armed with the facts and why I want horse to be shod with normal hind shoes again. This was the first time he had shod her all round. I am of the opinion if it ain't broke, don't fix it. He said he was putting Natural Balance on her hind feet because her toes were too long.

Any opinions very gratefully received.
 
You really need to put the camera practically on the ground if you want us to be able to see the hoof angle.

Long toes (often coupled with under-run heels) is a common thing that i see with shod horses and it is BAD. The fact that your farrier has said that your horse has long toes and that he wants to do something about it, is a good thing IMO. Yes, your horse does have a squared off toe, but it has been shod with heel support (good). You don't want to have the breakover delayed (ie the toe is long), could your farrier have shod with NB to bring the breakover back to where it should be?

I can't comment further with the info given.
 
Will take some ground level photos when I get home.

I guess what I am asking is whether the position of the shoes and her long toes means that she is now naturally wearing her toe down to where it should be and that it looks drastic where she has squared the toe off because the toes were too long.
 
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I believe NB shoes are supposed to bring break over back so are set and shaped to allow this. That's a pretty dramatic wear effect on your horse. I find it interesting the hind NB shoes break over is offset and your horse has worn the toe to match. When you take pics take some sole ones as well for interest.

The thing is long toes are usually due to diet (excess sugars) so often it's a case of keeping mechanical control of the hoof shape through shoeing and trimming it seems to me.
 
I would ask - Is she squaring off the toes because she has long toes and the farrier has shod to how her hoof should be?

http://rockleyfarm.blogspot.co.uk/

Look here and especially look at the way Prince is growing a new angle on his hooves and the way that you can see how he will grow his long toes out.

The problem with 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' is that the toes can get longer and longer and longer... so really you had been in a broken situation all along, you just didn't know it.

Is she sound?


ETA - AP is correct, diet is key to healthy hooves.
 
I disagree that the main cause of long toes is diet .
The main cause of long toes is bad shoeing .
A farrier who try's to get the breakover back is a good one in my book .
It's hard to comment from those photos and it does look like a lot of wear but if the horse was sound I would not be worried if the horse was mine.
If my farrier does something I am not sure about I get my vet to take a look and comment ( you do need a good equine vet for this ) if the vets not happy I get her to take it up with farrier .
This has lead to the farrier coming and reshoeing a horse once .
 
There's an awful lot of bad shoeing about then, what about my laminitic pony that has never been shod but her toes shoot forward and heels grow fast when she is unstable? My older cob mare had long toes recently after a spell on the grass here. She is not shod either.

Shoeing and trimming can keep control of a hoof, so poor shoeing or trimming can allow hooves to 'get away' but in my view you will be always chasing the hoof if other measures aren't right for an individual.
 
I think she came with long toes because her previous owner was a bit rubbish on getting her shod on time! She will be done every 5 weeks with me. Farrier happy with that timing.

Pony is also now on a low sugar/starch diet of Hifi Molasses free chaff, micronised linseed and Pro Hoof. Her previous owners liked feeding lots of sugary/starchy things.
 
amandap said:
There's an awful lot of bad shoeing about then, what about my laminitic pony that has never been shod but her toes shoot forward and heels grow fast when she is unstable? My older cob mare had long toes recently after a spell on the grass here. She is not shod either.

Shoeing and trimming can keep control of a hoof, so poor shoeing or trimming can allow hooves to 'get away' but in my view you will be always chasing the hoof if other measures aren't right for an individual.
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No this not correct , far far too many farriers shoe with shoes that are too short and give inadequate heel support as well as moving the break over forwards .
This is a result of the shoeing not the feet.
Too many horses get no shoeing breaks and wear the shoes for too many weeks between shoeing ( I never let mine go longer than five )
Too many owners get annoyed when horses lose shoes and shoeing for good heel support will always make the shoes more likely to come off so farriers shoe to keep shoes on and that's a start of a slippery slope .
 
Goldenstar said:
No this not correct , far far too many farriers shoe with shoes that are too short and give inadequate heel support as well as moving the break over forwards .
This is a result of the shoeing not the feet.
Too many horses get no shoeing breaks and wear the shoes for too many weeks between shoeing ( I never let mine go longer than five )
Too many owners get annoyed when horses lose shoes and shoeing for good heel support will always make the shoes more likely to come off so farriers shoe to keep shoes on and that's a start of a slippery slope .
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So there is an awful lot of bad shoeing about then? A lot of farriers must be compromising standards to pander to owners as well.

How does bad shoeing explain horses with long toes that aren't shod? I don't get it, surely you must mean bad trimming? In which case bad shoeing is not THE cause of long toes.

I always like to ask why a hoof is growing/trying to grow a certain way.
 
amandap said:
So there is an awful lot of bad shoeing about then? A lot of farriers must be compromising standards to pander to owners as well.

How does bad shoeing explain horses with long toes that aren't shod? I don't get it, surely you must mean bad trimming? In which case bad shoeing is not THE cause of long toes.

I always like to ask why a hoof is growing/trying to grow a certain way.
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I am referring to where the shoe is nailed to the foot .
Which is what we are discussing here in this case.
As OP says the horse has been allowed to go to long between shoeing so what the farrier is doing makes sense .
And yes there's a lot of bad shoeing out there and a lot of bad foot care .I try not to look at horses from the knee down when I am out and about it's an unpleasant experience too much of the time .
 
These toes don't need to come back much but if your farrier thinks they should be shortened he should rasp them back as part of his normal preparation trim.

NB shoes are simply rolled toe shoes marketed as something radical.
 
Please do not jump down my throat!............ the first pictures do indeed look "normal" but are not detailed,I would want to see if horse was walking out properly at the time and compare it with now.
I would be happy if a good farrier explained that he wanted to change things, and that the effect would be "such and such" but in the long term "another outcome"
This story about "supporting the heels" what does that mean? Do wedges "support the heels" why do heels need "support?
My comment on NB shoes ... they are heavy, I do no want heavy shoes at the end of my feet. I am an athlete, my horse is an athlete, given the choice of wearing lead clogs or rubber plymsoles, what do you select. NB are more profitable for farriers, but that is not the point. If they are not needed, or are creating a problem ..........
 
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A natural balance shoe will sit further back than a conventional rolled toe shoe they are not quite the same .
 
So here is my point… if the natural balance shoe sits back further than a conventional shoe (which she has been shod in all her life. She is 13 now) then could this be the reason she is wearing her toe down so much - because the shoe is set that much further back than she is used to?
 
My comment on NB shoes ... they are heavy, I do no want heavy shoes at the end of my feet. I am an athlete, my horse is an athlete, given the choice of wearing lead clogs or rubber plymsoles, what do you select. NB are more profitable,for farriers, but that is not the point. If they are not needed, or are creating a problem ..........[/QUOTE]

I did wonder also if they were heavier.
 
MrsD123 said:
Please do not jump down my throat!............ the first pictures do indeed look "normal" but are not detailed,I would want to see if horse was walking out properly at the time and compare it with now.
I would be happy if a good farrier explained that he wanted to change things, and that the effect would be "such and such" but in the long term "another outcome"
This story about "supporting the heels" what does that mean? Do wedges "support the heels" why do heels need "support?
My comment on NB shoes ... they are heavy, I do no want heavy shoes at the end of my feet. I am an athlete, my horse is an athlete, given the choice of wearing lead clogs or rubber plymsoles, what do you select. NB are more profitable,for farriers, but that is not the point. If they are not needed, or are creating a problem ..........
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If you shoe with shoes that are too short the heel is left out behind the shoe and the break over moves forward the shoe obviously hits the ground leaving the heels functioning much less than they would that what causes the lack of heel support in fact it's the tendons and ligaments of the limb that are lacking the support .
I paid the same for NB shoes as I did for normal shoes so no cost advantage for the farrier here .
Personally from the pictures ( which are not great ) I don't think the shoes are producing a problem .
And it has to be said the best equine athletes in the world are managing to perform shod .
I have only seen wedged shoe used to raise a heel to keep pressure off a damaged limb where a horse has broken down .
 
We used to have an arab on loan who with NB shoes on would do this to his front feet (possibly even more so). He was taken back to normal shoes maybe with side clips - I don't remember completely and I was less foot geeky then. I think even now though my opinion would have been that whatever the NB were doing to change the breakover he was doing his feet no good whatsoever over consecutive shoeings- to the point we were limiting work because of it and as a good doer this didn't help either. I'd have a chat to the farrier about going forwards and what he is trying to do and the best way of going about it for your horse.
 
carolineb said:
So here is my point… if the natural balance shoe sits back further than a conventional shoe (which she has been shod in all her life. She is 13 now) then could this be the reason she is wearing her toe down so much - because the shoe is set that much further back than she is used to?
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My guess is yes she is wearing her toes back to the shoes. NB shoes are set where break over is deemed to be correct, so if the toe is long they are set back.
 
carolineb said:
So here is my point… if the natural balance shoe sits back further than a conventional shoe (which she has been shod in all her life. She is 13 now) then could this be the reason she is wearing her toe down so much - because the shoe is set that much further back than she is used to?
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I think that's what going on it's not necessarily wrong it may be very right.
If it where me I would get my vet to take a look that's what I to when I am not happy
However I don't insure my horse so don't have to worry about silly exclusions and things like that.
 
I think we did find that the thinning of the hoof wall at the toe/angle of it was starting to compromise the white line/become an infection risk, that was one worry at least.
 
ester said:
I think we did find that the thinning of the hoof wall at the toe/angle of it was starting to compromise the white line/become an infection risk, that was one worry at least.
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I imagine if the foot is still running forward there comes a point when you have to thin almost right through the wall to try and keep the top of the hoof short.
 
Yes, though I don't remember him having particularly long toes/feet that looked wrong in normal shoes. I do remember it was very disconcerting to observe as it is somewhat uncontrolled thinning compared to farrier controlled if that makes sense. I don't know if this sort of wear is potentially related to general quality of horn too?
 
Are the second set of photos the same shoeing? Because the toe wear doesn't look anywhere near as dramatic as the first photos.
 
Just goes to show the camera does lie - they were taken about 10 minutes apart. I took the first photo in the field then moved horse onto the tarmac drive.
 
CB - I think that you have found a good farrier that is actively trying to get the breakover right for your horse and is interested in the hoof balance.

ETA - i do think that the horse does look like she's been shod for many years without a break. If she was mine, I'd want to give her a break from shoes.
 
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