Why do people have their horses barefoot?

ilvpippa said:
I would love my horse to go barefoot. But she has awful feet, always cracking & breaking.

She gets footsore within minutes of being on concrete. Very strange as i know she was barefoot up intill 6 playing polo & then while she was being retrained to be an allrounder.

I dnt know whether to have a bash at the barefoot thing, incase the reason for the cracking is because of pressure of the shoes & nails in her feet!
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Can we translate that as "she was sound barefoot while she was a working horse who was in a stable and away from grass"? And that treating her as a "normal" (i.e. able to graze all day) horse coincided with her reaching full adulthood and her metabolic rate dropping. Thus compounding the fact that your mare grows weak feet because she is grass sugars intolerant? This is extremely common, the overwhelmingly number one reason why some horses "can't go barefoot". If you want to give it a go, your best bet would be to try again in winter, boot her for hard surfaces to start with, see how she is in spring until the grass comes through.
 
Why do people have their horses barefoot?

Simple answer for me. I've had all of my boys since foals/yearlings. They had never had shoes. When it came time to introduce them to ridden work I thought to myself "why should I jump on the bandwagon and put shoes on my horses' feet right now, just because they've started work? Instead let's wait and see how they get on".

Well, my boys got on really well and never did have shoes put on (haven't needed boots either, come to think of it) and one of them successfully completed an 83km endurance ride last Sunday, completely barefoot.

I now think the day that my horses are shod is a very, very, long time away!
 
potty_4_piebalds said:
I have always had my horses shod until about 18 months ago when my farrier convinced me to take of my old boys back shoes he wanted his fronts off as well but i didn't want his fronts off, after having his shoes of his feet did improve loads.my other is barefoot because she is a mini shetland but think she could do with shoes really as she is footy on stoney uneven ground, she is fine on grass, in the school and on the road.
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Surely there isn't a Shetland in the world that couldn't cope without shoes if it is restricted to scrub and seaweed to eat like they would be in the wild??? A concave little foot two inches across which can't carry it's share of less than 100 kilos on stones is surely a sick foot on an unhealthy horse??? If you have her diet well restricted, are you sure your pony doesn't just have thrush - same symptoms.
 
lucy1984 said:
cptrayes, yet again, always a pleasure to read your posts. :-)

Great post OP. A real eye opener for the old school folk.
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I agree, cptrayes and a few others post realisitc and informative posts. Hats off to you 'old school folk' with open minds.

Mine are all barefoot because when I became a 'born again' horse owner I asked the question, 'Why do they need shoes?' I couldn't find an answer that made any sense so cue search on the net found Jaime Jackson and began a fascinating, enlightening, heartwarming, frustrating, bitter sweet journey that has ensured that my belief in seeing horses (and all creatures) holistically has become as automatic as breathing to me.
I don't 'do' anything much with my lot but I want my horses to be as healthy and strong as possible as well happy/content and feet imo are a big indicator and influence in horses general health.
 
martlin said:
Because they don't need shoes.
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Just so:D

Nothing to do with it being better for their feet, if shoes were advantageous I'd have them put on.

Most of mine are breeding stock and don't even get ridden. The riding horses do minimal roadwork and don't need them. Not a single one of my horses has ever been shod in its' entire life.

It's cheaper too, $35 for a trim v $130 for a set of shoes, x 7 :eek:
 
The question should be (IMO) why are horses shod! I think people should need a genuine reason before they shoe a horse otherwise they should be left barefoot. I have both, I have a barefoot trimmer to my 2 retired veterans (who have had numerous hoof problems over the years but are much better now) and my competition horse is shod because its simply too slippy to not use studs for eventing and show jumping on grass. However, I do have his shoes taken off over the winter (basically when everything goes indoors).
 
Because my TB wasn't sound in shoes and remedial farriery wasn't helping and he was rehabbed barefoot as a last chance to see if it helped. It did :)

The experience has made me look at feet in a whole new way.
 
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