When going barefoot doesnt work....

laura7981

laura7981

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Cutting a long story short, i have a small pony who developed EMS and as a result came down with a not to severe case of laminitis. She was shod on her fronts as my son rides her and we have lots of gravel tracks around here.

She has been sound and back in work for a while and the vet has recommended that she stays barefoot as this improves the circulation in the foot etc. The thing is, she really isnt 100% comfortable walking on hard ground with naked feet so im really considering getting her shoes put back on....would this be such a bad thing?

My vets really big on horses going barefoot but i just dont think its right for my pony. We went to a small show with her yesterday and much of the ground at the place was gravel and stones, we ended up taking her home early beause you could see she was struggling even when my son got off her. Shes still quite sore today so shes in on a nice shavings bed.
Has going barefoot not worked for anyone else? id be interested to hear other peoples experiences .
 
Your vet knows the horse better than strangers on a forum, so if your vet strongly recommends barefoot, then if I were you I'd be looking at her diet and management to see why she's not coping. What is she fed? How long is she turned out for, and on what kind of grazing? How much work is she in, and on what types of surfaces?

Simply taking the shoes off is not enough, in order to keep a horse in work without shoes you really need to look at the bigger picture. (Which you may well have done, but it's not clear from your post ;))
 
WHat about using hoof boots on her when ridden? I havent used them myself, but I'm sure others on here can offer more advice.
 
Diet diet diet diet!! All to do with diet.....I'd suggest going on the UKNHCP forum - lots of very experienced barefooters on there...

You might want to use hoof boots as well...you can take them off and allow the hoof to behave as it should, but they will still provide protection if your pony is footy.

If she has had EMS her system is very compromised...these can be the hardest cases to go barefoot, but the longterm rewards will be worth it....
 
Hoof boots are great for general use and then she'd proably cope ok for the odd show day.
The saddlery shop doa great service on all sorts of makes and are very helpful in recommending which to go for depending on your horses hoof shape and size.
http://www.thesaddleryshop.co.uk

What about her diet? Do you have her on magnesium at all?
 
I tried very hard with my small native mare, but although she showed improvement (when her shoes first came off, she was footy on any harder or lumpy ground, even grass) she was never happy walking on even very small gravel, or stone chipped roads, and she was being ridden a lot. She had shoes back on. I had a problem too with her feet wearing away very quickly indeed. I am not keen on boots, they are expensive and don't seem to last. Pony had shoes back on. She is barefoot now as she is rarely ridden, and therefore foot doesn;t wear away anythign like so much, and she is far more comfortable.

I would speak to your vet, as as someone esle said, they know the pony better, and give your concerns about her comfort on stony ground. See what they suggest.
 
Rather than putting shoes back on, why not use hoof boots? Your vet probably wants the horse to stay barefoot so as less trauma to the hoof itself. Constant nailing is going to weaken the hoof and the hoof wall which isn't a good idea when recovering from lammi. I would definitely look down the hoof boot route :)

xxx
 
Hi barefoot didn't work for my old lad and I really wanted it to as he had navicular. I had a really supportive farrier who was willing to try anything.

We tried going without shoes and I bought some boa boots for him, but even with these, it just wasn't really working. He was more comfortable with shoes.

I didn't change his diet as is often recommended because I wanted him to be out in a field eating grass for at least half the day. He wasn't getting hard feed just hay.
 
As others have said, diet diet diet!! but also look at how she is trimmed. make sure you get yourself a good farrier / trimmer who can advise you on diet and explain their trim and also work out an exercise plan for conditioning her feet.

I was given one with my boy and looking at it, I would suggest that you pony might need to be left a little while to get used to being barefoot before you start doing 'conditioning walks' in hand over varied terrain (about 20 mins 3x per week) then building it up gradually.

I can't stress enough how important diet is though. you may not feed anything but she may actually NEED something so do look into it.

hoof boots are definately a good investment. don't go by brand, go by what fits the shape and size of your mare's feet.
 
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