Shoeing evangelism?

cptrayes

cptrayes

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Someone earlier in the week posted saying -

"what I'm really struggling with is who are the authors & researchers who are evangelical about the benefits of shoes?"

They couldn't find any so I thought I'd write it. Here goes
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I adore the way the blood supply is radically reduced in my horses leg from the knee downwards when it has shoes on. I love the fact that the reduced blood supply makes his feet grow slowly so I don't have to pay for more shoes. It's a shame his feet are such poor quality, but hey, you can't have it all.

I am thrilled to bits that the shoe covers up the white line, so I can't see that the anaerobic bugs, that die if exposed to air, have a grand place to breed and eat away at the white line.

I love that little pattern of old nail holes that you get, and the frilly edge you get to the hoof as it cracks to old nail holes. So pretty!

I am so delighted when I want to go to a big event and my horse is a missing shoe - again. It's even better if I've had to pay entry fees in advance.

I am ecstatic at paying my farrier £70 a set to nail steel to my horses feet. No-one deserves the money more.

I get a real thrill out of the way my horse slips and slides all over SMA or smooth tarmac roads. Pure excitement!

I love seeing all the xrays, nerve blocks, MRI scans and remedial shoeing when my horse gets navicular syndrome. It almost only happens to horses with shoes on, those barefooters don't know what they are missing.

I am overjoyed that I can continue to feed my horse sugary food and let him get too many fructans in green grass and not worry, because the reduced blood supply below his knee means it doesn't affect his feet enough to make him unrideable. Never mind that he has behavioural issues or may feel constantly hung-over, I'll never need to connect that with what I feed him because laminitis is a foot disease, not a gut disease - isn't it?


I'm sure there are more - perhaps you'd like to add a few?
 
*whispers* air doesn't necessarily 'kill' anaerobic 'bugs' and I would actually be very impressed if a shoe could produce anaerobic conditions as that might help me out and save a huge amount of money on an anaerobic cabinet atm, microaerophillic possibly.
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Okay I'll bite!

After three months of barefoot,
I love the thought of my pony not being terrified to walk on hard ground or gravel once gis shoes go back on. I love the idea that his hoofes will stop chippimg once his shoes go on. I really like the thought of him recovring from the white line desease that set in one month after going barefoot. I like the fact that he will get heel support from his shoes again. I no longer have rto worry that at the end of 12 months potential discomfort (pain) whilst he grows new hooves I might then find he is still as incredibly unhappy as he is now.
I'm not evangelical about shoeing or barefoot. I advocate what suits an individual horse, barefoot hasn't worked for mine, shoeing does. If he was a different horse I might be keeping hgis shoes off. My thanks go to the original poster. I nearly became brainwashed to become anti shoeing despite the evidence before my own eyes. Well balanced posts like OPs convince me that going back to shoes is probably a balanced choice!
 
i am over joyed that i have an excellent farrier, and you obviously had a really crap one! i am overjoyed that none of my horses have foot issues apart from the livery who has a crap farrier! my bare foot horses are no better and no worse than the shod ones! i am overjoyed that the vet comments on how well my horses are shod and balanced! and how well they are in general! (when doing routine vaccs and teeth)
 
Each to their own! I have ridden horses over the years both shod and barefoot.

Current horse came to me barefoot, had been for years, and seemed perfectly happy with the arrangement. Then I had shoes put on him, as I do a lot of road work in the summer. The difference was amazing - he was so much more settled and relaxed, I swear the farrier put magic shoes on him!

I'd always planned to shoe in the summer and go barefoot in the winter (when I hack out less as no daylight after work), but he has been so happy with shoes on that I can't begrudge him £60 every 8 weeks.

The best option is whatever suits your horse.
 
I do an EEEEnormous amount of roadwork in the summer. Has NOTHING to do with whether barefoot works - it's great for barefoot feet to do roadwork!
 
I love the fact that my cob can walk soundly on hard flinty ground and stays sound and therefore keeps fitter thus reducing lami risk because of his shoes. I love the fact that his feet look fantastic due to his correct diet and regular farriery. I love the fact he's never had thrush, abcesses, cracked feet, corns etc, because of expert farriery, I love the fact that the road nails stop us sliding on the dangerous road surface around the yard.......what's it got to do with you wether i have my horse shod or not???? FYI I have one shod and two barefoot, one will be reshod once she comes off holiday, the welsh pony will probably never be shod, she has feet like iron...my D does alot of work and needed to be shod and is 100% better than he ever was barefoot. This is exactly the sort of narrow minded, blinkered rubbish spouted by barefoot trimmers, I pay my farrier £20 a trim on my barefooters, another lady I know pays £45 for her barefoot triimer and her horses are so bloody sore and uncomfotable it's unreal.....so mind your own business if people want to pay for their horses to be shod that's their choice, which often hasn't been done on a whim.
 
ps I have nothing against well shod horses if it 's what the OWNER recognises that they need shoes. Not all of us are blessed with the time and the facilities to manage a barefoot horse and I thank my lucky stars that I am.


But if I save just ONE horse from a death sentence from his vet and his farrier that navicular is an incurable disease, I'll die happy!
 
am pretty sure that someone posted on a thread the other day that they had a horse, always barefoot which did get navicular and hence implicating it is not soley a disease of shod horses.
 
That horse, if it is the one that I know of, has very weak heels, typical of a shod horse. It may have been caused by foot balance or nutrition or both.

Navicular syndrome is, I think, unknown in barefoot performance horses. Navicular is almost certainly a predominantly shoe caused disease and there are now dozens, if not into three figures, of cases of horse condemned to DEATH by their vets and farriers, who are now hunting, jumping and living full working lives through being taken barefoot.

"Barefoot" though, it should be noted, does NOT mean "shoeless", there is a LOT more to it than that. Which is why OWNERS may need shoes, even if HORSES, in an ideal world that many owners are not in a position to deliver, do not.

Better a well shod horse than a sore barefoot one.
 
If shoeing doesn't cause navicular why does going barefoot produce a better cure rate than any other treatment by a long, long, long, long way????
 
no idea who the horse was, just remember seeing a post and noted it.

Oh I am all for taking navicular horses barefoot, I believe they are doing research into it where I am based with good results. That makes sense to me. Any navi horses I have known have been treated with eggbars and remained sound and happy and it wasnt the navi that killed them, colic in one case and can't remember the other.

IMO we can all just do our best with what we have though can't we.
 
I agree that most horse owners believe that they are "doing their best". The problem that I have is that they are taking the guidance of vets and farriers who, in some cases, are simply WRONG, as both my farrier (40 years experience) and his assistant (fresh out of college and bang up to date) were when they told me that the horse that I subsequently evented affiliated novice barefoot would NEVER work without shoes because of his flat feet.

"Doing our best" is surely not accepting that the blood supply from the knee down is compromised in unnecesarily shod horses?Especially if those horse are going from stable to arena and back to stable, or who would hack out perfectly happily in boots? There must be thousands of horses in this country shod, with the compromise of blood supply, for no good reason whatsoever.

As I said, I have no problem with well shod horses who NEED shoeing for the owner's sake. But the thousands who are shod simply because we owners have been conditioned over decades to believe that horses need shoes - well I could weep for the horses with compromised feet and for the poor duped owners spending a fortune on completely unnecessary shoes. I should know - I was one for 25 years. The biggest sceptic in the world was me - until I unshod my horse to save his life.
 
the majority of horses working on mixed ground (road, grass, stubble, menage. hardcore) are happier well shod and balanced than barefoot! but it does depend on the quality of shoeing available to you. but a trained and qualified farrier is , in my mind , better than a "barefoot trimmer" at twice the price! but its up to each one to make the choice!!
 
My horses do mixed ground all the time. One hunts every weekend. Barefoot is not shoeless. If you get the nutrition, environment and work right then they are as sound, if not sounder, on tough surfaces than a shod horse. My barefoot hunter is better on stones than his shod counterpart with soles thinned by shoeing ever was.

Not every owner can provide everything that a barefoot performance horse needs. Those owners need to shoe.

The majority of OWNERS cannot provide the environment that a barefoot performance horse needs. particularly if they are in a livery yard. The majority of HORSES can do without shoes fine if provided with the right environment, food and work.

I'll repeat - better a well shod horse than a sore barefoot one. But it's not the horses working on tough surfaces that need the shoes, it's the owners that can't provide an optimum environment. No shame in that, but what on earth is the point in shoeing all the horses who never do more than work in an arena, or a bit of roadwork on flat tarmac???
 
cptrayes, did you post the original post cos you wanted to argue? then i could be up all nite!!! do what suits you and your horse! it does not suit the majority! i have hunted barefoot youngsters! tthey lasted 3 weeks til we wore the feet too thin! i have both shod and barefoot. the ones that work hard are shod and very happy. the ones that trundel along, are happy bare, i would not let a barefoot trimmer near any of mine! been to a lecture (or some) with the farrier(other half) and some of it actually most of it, was scary.
 
No, I posted it because I want people to stop shooting horses that get navicular. It's the other posters who chose to argue. There is absolutely nothing in my original post that can be argued with, it is all fact.

I have said it does not suit the majority, what more do you want?

You hunted your youngsters with either the wrong preparation, the wrong nutrition or the wrong living environment or a combination of all three. I've made it very clear, not all owners can provide what is required and clearly you are one who cannot. You and your horses are better off with shoes.

BUT, if your vet and farrier tell you that one of your horses has incurable navicular, PLEASE do not have it shot unless you are desperate for the insurance money. There are plenty of us around the country who know how to rehabilitate it.
 
ps ofcourseyoucan your farrier "other half" can gain points for Continuous Professional Development from the Worshipful Company of Farriers by attending UKNHCP training courses. These are not "lectures" so I doubt if it was one of those that you went on, and I agree that some of the others are VERY scary.
 
here we go.BOLLOCKS BOLLOCKS the youngsters hunted were fully prepared, fit and well fed. and well trimmed and balanced! the correct environment in that they hunted in conditions that they were used to. what am i not supplying? i am so curious!!!
they simply did more miles than they had hoof! a bit like your finger nails. if you ran then along the road for 150 miles then you would get sore as wearing down faster than they grow!
 
perhaps you would care to enlighten me where i went wrong? wrong preparation - all fit well clipped and innoculated, all trimmed and balanced? (feet) wrong nutition - well fed acording to work and temperament? supplements as req, and electolytes on an as req basis? wrong living environment - excellent grazing, hard core standing a stream to drink from and walk through, stand in to their hearts content?stables with mats and full shavings beds? pleasse tell me where and and what point i went wrong? the OH woould be so pleased to have less to shoe and so much cheaper????
 
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pleasse tell me where and and what point i went wrong?

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Start by looking at your full ingredients list of your feed, and seeing if there is any cereal or sugar in there. You don't need to share, it's none of our business what you feed your horses.
 
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No, I posted it because I want people to stop shooting horses that get navicular. It's the other posters who chose to argue. There is absolutely nothing in my original post that can be argued with, it is all fact.



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Oh come on, your OP wasn't written in a 'factual' style, it was written in a sarky 'I know best style' - posters are just responding to your points and you then have the cheek to accuse them of being argumentative.

'Barefoot' evangelism *sigh*
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Perhaps the style could be seen as patronising (I don't think it is and agree wholeheartedly with cptrayes) but it's certainly NOT codswallop.
 
I'd disagree with it not being codswallop...this kind of narrow minded diatribe gets peoples backs up and is very rarely helpful. At no point did the OP expand on the comments regarding owners failures to provide optimum conditions for allowing horses to go barefoot, she/he simply kept repeating the same line over and over again...the post is both arrogant and patronising. Adopting a my way or the highway approach to horse welfare is codswallop.
 
I kind of resent the implication that barefoot works but only if you 'make the effort'. I put a lot of time and effort into going barefoot with my pony, he was extremely fit not fat, was on a cereal and sugar free diet, kept on moorland grazing, hooves kereteked, reputable trimmer etc.

It has been a complete disaster!

He has gone from being able to do 3 to 4 hour rides on our lanes and the Pennine National Bridle path to being incredibly uncomfortable just walking for 10 mins up the lane and back. He now has white line diease in one foot which was fine when the shoes came of, his feet chipped so badly with the 'mustang trim' that my farrier had to re trim them and leave them for 3 weeks till he had enough foot to shoe and to cap it all he has thrush! He has never had thrush before in the 15 years I have owned him

Never again for this pony, but might be different with a different pony of course. It really worries me that people can be so narrow minded as to be 'must be shod' or 'must be barefoot' , really in my view it must be what works for each individual horse or pony.

P.S He really hated easyboot epics , wouldnt go out of a waddle in them and old macs rubbed him like buggery so boots did not help one bit
 
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Especially if those horse are going from stable to arena and back to stable, or who would hack out perfectly happily in boots?

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and the number of posters who have said they have had issues with boots rubbing is very high. =sore horse
 
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