Why does a horse need shoes?

[cptrayes]

Bickerchick pleased your horse is doing well nut just wondering what Rockley can do that you can't at home. Presume he will come home so how will you manage?

I'll answer that one if I may.

1. Rockley has a perfect set of tracks which provide graduated stimulation to the back of the hoof, where the horse can choose for itself what surfaces it is comfortable on. Footiness is never an issue for horses at Rockley.

2. If someone has a horse to send to Rockley then their own vet and farrier have already failed to fix it. It is extremely nerve-wracking for an owner to go it alone in that situation and much more sensible for some people to send it to someone with huge expertise in sorting out horses like theirs.

There is nothing Rockley does which cannot be done elsewhere, and it is being done elsewhere. I have done one myself. But it is an excellent solution, especially for those whose insurers will pay.

Regarding what happens when the horse comes home, the bulk of the recovery work is done before they leave. The owner then just needs to carry on with working the horse enough and on the right surfaces (roads are pretty essential for foot trimming), feeding it right and using a trimmer (can be a farrier) who knows when to leave well alone and let the horse build the foot it needs to be sound.

Some people even shoe again when the horse is sound but even then most remain committed to a period out of shoes every year to help the foot stay healthy.

 

[Amaranta]

Did I say it was rocket science? I am willing to admit that I see more now than I did a few years ago, I wasn't born all knowing. I obviously am a slow learner in the basics. Perhaps I'll learn shoes are the best thing ever one day then I wont have to think about forage sensitivities and learn to spot them earlier.

Perhaps I misunderstood your original post, but it seemed that you were saying that you personally noticed more than I personally did - if this is not the case then I apologise for being snarky.

However, even if, by some miracle, you suddenly decide that shoes are the best thing ever, you should still be able to spot forage sensitivities, as should every horse owner, especially those with laminitis prone ponies.

 

[amandap]

Perhaps I misunderstood your original post, but it seemed that you were saying that you personally noticed more than I personally did - if this is not the case then I apologise for being snarky.

However, even if, by some miracle, you suddenly decide that shoes are the best thing ever, you should still be able to spot forage sensitivities, as should every horse owner, especially those with laminitis prone ponies.

I most certainly was not saying that, I was just answering your question.

Bed time.

 

[cptrayes]

I love you Rhino , my 17.3hh (we measured her at the weekend) WB has smaller feet than my 15.2hh had and she can not support herself without shoes and is instantly footy when you remove them. Coupled with a very active lifestyle in the field, when she has them off for any length of time e.g four weeks the hoof wall wears down to nothing despite having a balanced diet. She has been like this since I bought her as a poor 3 year old off a windswept moor in Lancashire. Xrays taken at intervals have also shown very thin soles that have not improved with diet changes, and I have changed my farrier, as the vets advice and xrays had no affect on the one I have used for years. My vet and farrier and myself are now working to correct the negative angle created when she had her shoes off whilst undergoing surgery, and fingers crossed it is starting to make an improvement. I wouldnt put my horse through not having shoes on again.

Can I please ask -

did your diet changes ever include a prolonged period where the horse had no access to grass and where its forage was soaked for 12 hours in copious water before feeding?

has your horse ever been tested for insulin resistance or Cushings (both major causes of thin soles)?

I am just interested, I am not trying to make a point.

One point I will make though, for other people considering or with barefoot horses who may be scared about how short they are, is that the hoof wall is supposed to be worn down to nothing at the toe and heel, and a mm or two at the sides, if that. That is how hardworking barefoot feet look.

 

[Littlelegs]

I can't quote-on phone, but in reference to what Cptrayes said about large feet flaring, I'd be genuinely interested in what the barefoot answer is to that other than shoes. My mares feet aren't particularly big but have a tendency to splay/ flare. She's always been sound, & when in heavy work had shoes, now just trimmed by farrier as in light work. But without regular attention would splay out, & in the past heavy work had the same effect. (obviously never let it go past first signs). She's now older & won't return to heavy work so a moot point, but I'd be interested to learn if another option than shoes would have been possible in her case.

 

[cptrayes]

I can't quote-on phone, but in reference to what Cptrayes said about large feet flaring, I'd be genuinely interested in what the barefoot answer is to that other than shoes. My mares feet aren't particularly big but have a tendency to splay/ flare. She's always been sound, & when in heavy work had shoes, now just trimmed by farrier as in light work. But without regular attention would splay out, & in the past heavy work had the same effect. (obviously never let it go past first signs). She's now older & won't return to heavy work so a moot point, but I'd be interested to learn if another option than shoes would have been possible in her case.

You'd need to look underneath and see if the flare was because the white line was spreading. If so, that's a diet issue.

If not, and the white line integrity is good, then you just need to accept that the horse wants a wider base of foot than looks pretty. You can try rasping it off to make it look better, but that just thins the hoof wall for no purpose other than a cosmetic appearance.

With a foot like that, I'd keep it as short as the horse is sound with, as any extra height will simply go out sideways.

Soundness is what counts, not looks

 

[Littlelegs]

Cptrayes- thankyou. Her white line has always been fine, its always been more me worrying that too much spreading would lead to cracks & uneven weight. Keeping them as short as possible is what we've always done & she's sound, I was just making sure there wasn't something I was missing. Thanks again, I find a lot of the barefoot posts very interesting.

 

[Goldenstar]

You'd need to look underneath and see if the flare was because the white line was spreading. If so, that's a diet issue.

If not, and the white line integrity is good, then you just need to accept that the horse wants a wider base of foot than looks pretty. You can try rasping it off to make it look better, but that just thins the hoof wall for no purpose other than a cosmetic appearance.

With a foot like that, I'd keep it as short as the horse is sound with, as any extra height will simply go out sideways.

Soundness is what counts, not looks

Mine has developed a flare on both fronts very slight on one more on the other he's sound and trimmer advised leave well alone it appears to be growing out as you can see an angle change coming down from the top and he says he has seen horses develop them and see them reduce or disappear in time his white lines are great
Does not look great but he seems happy.

 

[RainbowDash]

Hi,

Interesting thread BTW - enjoying reading everyone's take on this.

My boy has front shoes - he was barefoot when I brought him. The area that I ride in is a country park built over a former colliery - rain washes the tracks away to reveal bricks, hard stones and all other deposits left by the mine - you can never tell that the ground will reveal next.

Most of the horses/ponies have fronts for protection really.... interested in your thoughts on this barefoot people.

 

[HashRouge]

I'll answer that one if I may.

1. Rockley has a perfect set of tracks which provide graduated stimulation to the back of the hoof, where the horse can choose for itself what surfaces it is comfortable on. Footiness is never an issue for horses at Rockley.

2. If someone has a horse to send to Rockley then their own vet and farrier have already failed to fix it. It is extremely nerve-wracking for an owner to go it alone in that situation and much more sensible for some people to send it to someone with huge expertise in sorting out horses like theirs.

There is nothing Rockley does which cannot be done elsewhere, and it is being done elsewhere. I have done one myself. But it is an excellent solution, especially for those whose insurers will pay.

I agree with this. My sister's gelding has just gone to Rockley, and it was a hard decision for her to make, it really was. He had his shoes taken off before he went because his vet said that the remedial shoeing just wasn't working for him and, to use her words, it was time to "start thinking outside the box". Now, he was instantly more comfortable out of shoes (which would surprise anyone who'd seen the state of his feet) but we eventually decided that we just didn't have the expertise to go it alone. We don't know enough about diet, we don't have access to any non-grass turnout (my sister was very worried about lami with him) and we just don't know enough about feet. Our other horse had her shoes taken off in September last year and we've done that at home, but she is far less complicated - she has arthritis in her coffin joint, but otherwise she has pretty good, strong feet. But with my sister's gelding - well, I don't know what we'd have done if he hadn't gone to Rockley. It's not even that we decided remedial shoeing wasn't working for him, our vet (who is excellent) said so herself.

 

[Miss L Toe]

Simple answer, when the work they are doing causes them to wear down the hoof faster than they can grow more hoof.

This can happen if the horse is not exercised regularly or fed an adequate diet. but think on, people save £500 per year on shoeing, they should put some thought and cash in to the feeding and work of the animal, there are few horses which wear away their hooves, wild mustangs travel 30 miles a day in search of their grub.
If your horse is shod but the hooves don't grow the farrier will not be able to replace the shoes. so all hooves grow to some extent, and they grow in response to nutrition and exercise, if the horse is ill, you will see a response in the hoof.
Hoof boots are so much better nowadays and are worth a try if you are struggling with barefoot work.

 

[Miss L Toe]

absolutely mine are all currently shoeless and that's fine with the amount of work they are doing, the new boy is possibly going to need fronts as he really doesn't cope with the stony farm track and i can't avoid it if i want to hack off the farm!

of course the barefoot taliban will now tell me that he could go barefoot if i did x y and z and how i'll only be masking the problem of his footiness with shoes trouble is instead of prompting me to investigate and pursue keeping him barefoot, the preaching has actually put me off the whole 'barefoot movement'!

Try boots and good trimming, regular work and a good diet.
If the feet are cr~p they can probably be improved with exercise and diet and by regular [six weeks] shoeing. But even if you shoe you should still feed and exercise regularly to improve the feet.
Sorry to preach, but if people come on here asking questions, we assume [rightly or wrongly] that they are open to new ideas. The barefoot advice is pretty much the same [perhaps this is why you see it as preaching] I would rather walk in hand for a hundred yards rather than shoe, but I used to be on an estate where all the tracks were very bad, and we had a world class farrier, so he was shod then.
If I was exercising on tarmac, I would never shoe, as it is so much safer without.

 

[cptrayes]

Hi,

Interesting thread BTW - enjoying reading everyone's take on this.

My boy has front shoes - he was barefoot when I brought him. The area that I ride in is a country park built over a former colliery - rain washes the tracks away to reveal bricks, hard stones and all other deposits left by the mine - you can never tell that the ground will reveal next.

Most of the horses/ponies have fronts for protection really.... interested in your thoughts on this barefoot people.

Very similar to all the farm tracks that I hunt over, and the stony tracks I hack along, then? My test patch
for how well my horses are coping with grass is a car park made of 40mm limestone scattered on bedrock. If they can't walk across that without flinching, I know it's time to take them off the daytime grass.

Have a look at the video of horses on Exmoor on the Rockley Farm blog and website and you'll see numerous horses managing really nasty stony tracks.

Half an inch of steel shoe doesn't protect a horse's sole from an inch high piece of broken brick, but having really calloused bare feet does, and so does being able to feel every nuance of the ground under their foot.

 

[Artax]

I agree with this. My sister's gelding has just gone to Rockley, and it was a hard decision for her to make, it really was. He had his shoes taken off before he went because his vet said that the remedial shoeing just wasn't working for him and, to use her words, it was time to "start thinking outside the box". Now, he was instantly more comfortable out of shoes (which would surprise anyone who'd seen the state of his feet) but we eventually decided that we just didn't have the expertise to go it alone. We don't know enough about diet, we don't have access to any non-grass turnout (my sister was very worried about lami with him) and we just don't know enough about feet. Our other horse had her shoes taken off in September last year and we've done that at home, but she is far less complicated - she has arthritis in her coffin joint, but otherwise she has pretty good, strong feet. But with my sister's gelding - well, I don't know what we'd have done if he hadn't gone to Rockley. It's not even that we decided remedial shoeing wasn't working for him, our vet (who is excellent) said so herself.

Isn't it great that there is now options for horses like this in the UK? Where before there was only a dead-end. Literally.

 

[Goldenstar]

Isn't it great that there is now options for horses like this in the UK? Where before there was only a dead-end. Literally.

definatly even the most anti barefoot person would have to aggree that it's great there is another route for horses who are not responding to the most common routes of treatment .
In my case if any of mine suffered foot trouble shoes off would be my first line of attack but that's not really based on the current debate it goes back to seeing hunters roughed off onto hills when I was a teenager which now I think it though provided low sugar grass and plenty of movement over different surfaces those horses had good feet but really keep the shoes on type shoeing in winter but every summer nature sorted them out.
What is new is my realising that you can work some horses with no shoes .

 

[amandap]

Perhaps I misunderstood your original post, but it seemed that you were saying that you personally noticed more than I personally did - if this is not the case then I apologise for being snarky.

However, even if, by some miracle, you suddenly decide that shoes are the best thing ever, you should still be able to spot forage sensitivities, as should every horse owner, especially those with laminitis prone ponies.

Sorry, I didn't respond fully last night. Apology accepted.

Yes I agree with your point.

 

[tallyho!]

definatly even the most anti barefoot person would have to aggree that it's great there is another route for horses who are not responding to the most common routes of treatment .
In my case if any of mine suffered foot trouble shoes off would be my first line of attack but that's not really based on the current debate it goes back to seeing hunters roughed off onto hills when I was a teenager which now I think it though provided low sugar grass and plenty of movement over different surfaces those horses had good feet but really keep the shoes on type shoeing in winter but every summer nature sorted them out.
What is new is my realising that you can work some horses with no shoes .

Quite, a lot of horses are all year round working horses (I mean competing etc) and only the real hunters get time out of shoes. A friend of mine managed a hunt yard in Gloucestershire and they all roughed off around about now for months, shoes off, into big roaming herds (not sure if they were trimmed or not... probably once or twice). Does the average pleasure rider rest their horses anymore?

 

[Goldenstar]

. Does the average pleasure rider rest their horses anymore?

And that's a big issue now my farrier is absolutely convinced that they need twelve weeks a year as a minimum unshod or else the amount of problems rise a lot.
I have always done this because it's how I was brought up.
My OH's ID has a major wieght issue so can't really take a long break so at the. At the moment he's shoes off in his sixth week I think being lead on different hard surface one day lunged the next the plan is to see if we can get though to October without shoes using boots if we need to and then go back to shoes for hunting ( I am not sure if I could trust OH if was the horse bilaterally sore to notice ) . Them we could manage him on a six months on six months off basis

 

[tallyho!]

Seems ideal Goldenstar. I agree, that it would be difficult to give some horses a break given various issues like weight gain, not enough roaming space etc.

What does everyone think about the paddock paradise track system thing? I wish I could do it here... Not possible so we use muzzles to control calorie intake.

 

[amandap]

What does everyone think about the paddock paradise track system thing?

I have had a grass one and loved it. Sadly it's too wet here until I can afford to put a road up the nearside of the fields.

Here's a seriously high tech system in Austria. How are those feeding arrangements for calorie control?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Uu7f1kE7x8&feature=youtu.be

 

[Goldenstar]

Seems ideal Goldenstar. I agree, that it would be difficult to give some horses a break given various issues like weight gain, not enough roaming space etc.

What does everyone think about the paddock paradise track system thing? I wish I could do it here... Not possible so we use muzzles to control calorie intake.

That's why I am trying to crack this on off system so I can tick fat boy over without shoes then shoe for his proper job ( I think it's too risky to expect OH to embrace this) .
Tracking systems sound great and I could build a great one here but my chances of selling this to OH are slim .
So I stable during the day and work tbh I have always stables the hunters during the day when resting as we have terrible flys.

 

[Miss L Toe]

I totally aggree the farrier regulation acts mainly to protect the farriers buisness not the horses welfare or else something would be done by the truly terrible shoes I see at every show I go to.

It's not always the farrier to blame, I have seen people who only call the farrier when the shoes are falling of, in fact when most have fallen off, I don't know why they shoe, but presumably they can't afford a new set of shoes every six weeks.

 

[Goldenstar]

It's not always the farrier to blame, I have seen people who only call the farrier when the shoes are falling of, in fact when most have fallen off, I don't know why they shoe, but presumably they can't afford a new set of shoes every six weeks.

Very true it is not always the farrier.

 

[tallyho!]

I have had a grass one and loved it. Sadly it's too wet here until I can afford to put a road up the nearside of the fields.

Here's a seriously high tech system in Austria. How are those feeding arrangements for calorie control?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Uu7f1kE7x8&feature=youtu.be

Are those British horses? They seem to have the art of queuing for the bar well well rehearsed!!

 

[Goldenstar]

amandap I am saving that to show my OH at the weekend he will choke on his G and T.

 

[scribble]

my farrier is great and trims properly, however my mare has fronts on now. I have had horses in the past and most have been barefoot and been fine. My mare is a 16.3 wb whose workload has increased now she is 5 and also was very footy on the roads/hacking and slipped on grass to the extent that she fell over 3 times with me on her. she looses her confidence when this happens so she had fornts put on. Her feet are great in terms of condition etc and she has all the normal stuff in her diet. Just that without shoes she is footsore and slippery and wears her feet down due to workload. She didnt have them on last year and went round Gt Witchenham up to a good 3ft high, dressage, hunter trialed etc.