Taking His Shoes Off, Tell Me What I Need To Know?!

[Jackson]

Please

He's the horse in my signiture, and has been unshod on his back feet for a month and a half now, he's coped well, especially as we do lots of road work. His feet were due last week, but obviously with christmas, he is having to wait until this week

He's never footy/sore, but he's due a break now (which will involve hacking in walk three times a week and probably not much else) and I'm thinking that it would be the perfect oportunity to take his fronts off, and get him used to being barefoot, hopefuly for good?

His frogs on his front hooves are pretty poor, they suffered in the dry weather this summer, I think, as they always looked pretty healthy and big before, but are small and that worries me after reading that they circulate the blood through the legs and all the rest. His backs were like this too, but since having his shoes off, in my eyes his entire hoof looks better in general.
I would love to have him unshod all of the time, just not sure how to go that way?

I will get some photos after his trim/shoe removal and before if you would like, but I just want to know what I'm getting myself in to really, and what I should be doing.

Obviously I will be disgussing this with my farrier but Please tell me all about it!

 

[TigerTail]

Firstly get your diet posted up - thats critical.

Then let the farrier take the shoes off but DO NOT let him touch the sole, see the other BF thread going on at the mo, it will make him incredibly sore.

Make sure your farrier is on board, does he trim any other barefoot horses you see working? He should never ever be taking a knife to the sole on a BF they need leaving to self exfoliate.

Get yourself as much info as possible, PEte Ramey, Jamie Jackson Nic Barker are all great authors,. There is also Lucy Priorys blog http://barefoothorseblog.blogspot.com/ which is a wealth of info.

There is no reason he cannot go barefoot, the key thing is that you are prepared and dont panic and put shoes back on is he is a bit ouchy to begin with

 

[Jackson]

Thank you for the reply, I was just taking a look at the other thread.

I will have a read of that blog too.
His diet at the moment is the grass that he can get from his field, plus one haynet daily. He's looking really well on it, lots of energy and a very glossy coat.
He also has acess to a salt lick and has a carrot every day

 

[Jackson]

Shameful/less bump?

 

[dressagelove]

There have been hundreds of barefoot posts recently, search the forum!

 

[Jackson]

Thanks, I've been reading a few of the very recent threads appearing on the new post thing, but it never occured to m to search!