Gosh how that saying has come back to me time and time again. I am really torn most of the time between the benefits of barefoot and the ease of just sticking shoes on. Over the last few years I have learnt a lot about my horses feet and still learning what works and what doesn't. I certainly don't think barefoot is the easy way out any more - actually far from it - it takes care and commitment to transition from shod to barefoot.
Sadie
In 2010 I was tired of Sadie's feet looking poor and shoes not lasting more than 4 weeks and farriers who thought she needed long toes resulting in pressure on the tendons. Here are some of the before pics :
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| It was at this point we changed farrier as this farrier thought this looked ok! |
It got worse even with a change in diet and various supplements I made the decision to remove all her shoes at which point her feet looked like this :
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| Sadie front - most of the hoof breaking away and flat footed with no heel and poor frog |
she spent 8 months barefoot and then when we moved yards I shod her in front. apart from a bit of seedy toe at the back they have done really well and currently look like this :
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| Sadie front |
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| Sadie front |
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| Sadie hinds |
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| Sadie hind |
We currently have had loads of rain and so they are constantly in mud hence the nice brown stain but she copes fine and I have had no issues. The photos don't show it well but they have a nice shape to them now inside and the 'flatness' is gone.
Which brings me to ....
Mulligan
Mulls has been shod for most of his life as far as I know. He is 20 in 2013 and had big soup plate flat feet. During one of the farrier visits earlier this year the lad took off his front shoes and said 'cant really do anything with them' ok, fair enough I thought, you are the farrier perhaps the growth is not quite right. However another 6 weeks later - he said the same thing! Next thing Mulls is lame and I have the vet out teaching me about hoof balance, correct shoeing etc! Off we went to see a remedial farrier to be told that his pedal bone was near rotation, the laminae was stretched and there was blood in the white line! Luckily all quickly corrected with good shoeing. It did bring back to me the saying 'No foot no horse!' As the heels had collapsed and this farrier did not have the correct size shoes he did a marvelous job of corrective shoeing and the horse walked away 95% sound. It took a couple of shoeing's and a few months with heart bars but horse was sound.
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| This is the front foot with a shoe fitted back to front to support the heels. |
Anyway this week the farrier has come to do a routine change and is not happy with how the heart bars are performing and unfortunately with the bad weather and the fact you cannot see the frog with the heart bars on he has developed a bit of thrush. We have given him a few days of no shoes (with some pain relief as he is very uncomfortable with no shoes) and the thrush is nearly gone. I have decided that only front shoes will go back on - they will be regular shoes and we are going to give the hinds a chance to breathe, get blood back into the hooves and see if we can make them better as they look a little sick to me. I am hoping that they will do what Sadie's did and now is the best time whilst the ground is soft.
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| Fronts |
They have been scrubbed with hibiscrub so the foamy stuff is just that - nothing sinister. They are then dried and purple spray put on for the thrush.
and the hinds:
the fronts are completely flat whereas the hinds have the start of a bit of concaveness (is that a word) to them so hopefully over the next few months they will do their thing and become healthier.
Just to try and show the flatness of the front feet - I turned him out in school with bandaged feet and he seemed quite happy with nothing on the back but it was a soft surface.
So I will update as time goes on ... if it doesn't work we will go back to shoes.
One final picture - just so that they are not all feet pics - Mulligan rather amused by the paparazzi treatment.
