Barefoot or Metal Shoes?

[adrianf]

i always used metal shoeing.

but i'm a big fan of hot shoeing, when its done properly

one thing thats interesting is that most farriers only cold shoe these days, even if the horse has problem feet

i did track work with one guy and when i spoke to his farrier, the useless sod didnt even know what hot shoeing was

its like shoeing for us, if you get a good fitting shoe your feet are better off. and there is no better fit that hot shoes

[Callum]

I'm a big fan of hot shoeing too. All of our horses get hot shod whenever they are getting a new set of shoes fitted.

I just love the smell of burning hoof first thing in the morning

[gt1cm2]

ewww suppose you like the smell of burning rubber too! could never get use to that smell, even when I was getting my horses shod.

Shaasta didn't know how to react to the smell of burning hoof first time she smelt it, she was only 3 at that time!

[Baroque]

I run a mixture of shod, partly shod and unshod with my horses.

Merlin has softish feet which are now fully shod. I tried him with fronts only and he kept slipping behind so got the back shoes put on and the slipping problem went away. The back feet kept chipping as well because they are white, so the shoes helped protect them more.

Some of the ridden ones are front foot shod only, we trim the backs about every 2nd or 3rd farrier visit as they tend to wear them down ok by themselves and just need reshaping, and the ones with very hard feet are left unshod, ditto for the broodmares.

[Colin & Lynlee]

When I first rode at pony club, I had a pony with small straight up and down hooves. The farrier reccomended leaving shoes off to improve his feet. On ribbon day the Senior Instructor told the judge he wasn't shod because we couldn't afford it!. That cost me a ribbon which cost me the cup. (No lasting bitterness:))
When I last had a horse I had two excellent farriers, one with American experience and one british. American trained one left the toe much longer than I was used to but had good physics and physiological evidence. British trained was quite strong on barefoot and he felt that for my horses, they could stand an hour a day working on dry Canterbury paddocks and up to 20 mins twice a week where there was some roadwork on gravel.This seems to me a good way to decide. If it works great!

My daughter was borrowing an old standardbred with a very badly dishing back leg. He'd had it from birth and it didn't slow him down - he still won a race or two. We were very careful about shoeing him to start with but after advice I let his toes grow a little and took his shoes off and his action improved.

I used to do a lot of the regular trimming myself and then get farrier in a couple of times a year to do a reshape. Given the shortage of farriers and our distance from town, they were more than happy to have this relationship with my horses feet.
As you will see from my horse stuff for sale, I no longer need my hoof knife or cutting pincers.

Lynlee

[Chevalier]

Some interesting information about the suitability of certain regions to horses:

The lamellae histology of the Kaimanawa horses is still being analysed but from gross appearance there were at least 2 of the 50 horses showing signs of laminitis.

The photo adjoining shows 1 of these horses; a middle age mare that was quite lame.

I will give a more detailed case study of this mare in the months to follow.

There has been some confusion in interpretation of the Kaimanawa scientific paper abstract which was released with the last newsletter.

The conclusions section states "Contrary to popular belief, the feral horse foot type should not ideally be used as a model for the domestic horse foot."

This statement when read outside of the entire text of the paper is perhaps misleading. We do not suggest that ALL feral horse feet are not good representatives of healthy feet, but that the Kaimanawa feral horse population, specifically, have suboptimal foot health and should not be viewed as ideal models. This statement is discussed in detail in the academic paper now relased which has been accepted for publication with the Australian Veterinary Journal.

Read more at http://www.wildhorseresearch.com./Documents/Newsletters/Jun-09.htm

[BigMac]

Do any race horses run shoeless?

Are there rules for race horses reguarding shod vs non shod?

TTFN

[gt1cm2]

Horses are not allowed to race in NZ barefoot, they must be shod

[Chevalier]

There are, however, a few barefoot horses around the world:

http://www.thehorseshoof.com/barefootperf_race.html

[BigMac]

Cool. Thanks for the info.

TTFN

[hawke]

Hi all, I have three horses and two have been barefoot for well over five years. The one thing I have noticed is that the older mare (13yrs) have now had a shape change in the front and I got Richard to ask the farrier he is apprenticed to and the reply was that as they are working on a hilly and during the summer very hard ground that she has just developed the typical mustang shape. I found this quite interesting. All my horses are sound the latest arrival is a TB all white feet and he has been with me and barefoot for 9 months, all feet are fine but a do put on the "Worlds best Hoof Oil" if there is a sign of change. I will shoe when doing extensive training of road riding. Good having a farrier in the family though, lol. :)

[hawke]

Hilly paddock even!