Is there any way you can get a horse's foot naturally to stop forging or overreaching. My horse was shod, fell on some loose chippings on the road, I had his shoes removed because he was tripping prior to that and he has been fine on normal slow walking. HOWEVER when he trots or walks actively he forges/overreaches and he went down again on smooth ordinary tarmac with no hint of a trip. Vet now says that he needs rolled toes and I don't want to put him back into shoes again. So can it be done barefoot?
Hi Sutton, nice to 'see' you on here!
Have just had a quick word with hubby -he says that the toes can be rounded off a little. To be honest, the best person to talk to about this sort of thing is your farrier rather than your vet. That's assuming that your farrier is the approachable type
Well 22 anyway so I think his and my schooling days are over. I do try on hacks to do half halts and try and get him off his forehand. He is a draft horse you see so very much onthe forehand although he's more like a percheron than a shire, no feather and a chunky monkey with a thick cresty neck which apparently is a characteristic of the breed. My farrier is very good and he says he thinks his toes are as short as he could make them.
Hmm, as you say schooling probably won't help here. Paul says it sounds like it could be a confirmational thing. The other possibility is to go back to shoeing and put a heavier shoe behind and a lighter shoe in front (your farrier will know all about this) but then it comes down to a choice about whether or not you want to go back to shoes. Sorry can't help anymore, but hope you can resolve it.
Hi Sutton
If his toes are backed up as far as they can be then you probably need to address the heels instead. If they become long and underslung then the whole of the foot grows further forward than they should be. The foot needs to be brought back under the boney column where it can support the weight properly. It is the equivalent of you trying to walk with your feet stuck out in front of you (except that we'd fall over because we only have 2 legs). So yes it will probably be a conformation thing, but you have to look for the underlying cause of that conformation.
This is hard to explain without diagrams but is explained very well on KC La Pierre's video - I have a copy I'd be happy to lend if it would help (but it is NTSC format not PAL, although you may be able to get a copy made in PAL format).
Long underslung heels are so common in shod horses that I have found that even a good farrier will consider them "normal" and "ok". But if you look at eg Jaime Jackson's books you will see that wild horses don't have them. Incidentally my horse no longer has them (as of about May 2002) and (as I keep saying, sorry!) this is the first winter in about 6 years that he hasn't been lame and "arthritic" - no coincidence, I would suspect!
There is also quite a lot of worry amongst vets and farriers re. heel-lowering. Again this is explained very nicely on thr KC video but basically because of the way shortening an underslung heel will support the leg better you can actually end up with an as-good or better hoof-pastern axis. A shortened heel doesn't necessarily mean lower.
The other big question is how to do it - KC did seem to say that it can be done all in one go. Jane Berresford (who trims Jak) doesn't agree with this and will do it gradually so as to take into account all the joint/muscule/tendons further up the leg which will obviously need to adapt to the new foot. You may find an osteopath/massage therapist useful if the change is very big
But is underslung heels the same as contracted heels. I know he has contracted heels and farrier has said he can do little to correct it as it is a breed/conformation thing. To me the heels look too long and I would like them set back under the bulb more but overall the hoof doesn't look long at all. I do trust my farrier as he has never tried to talk me out of anyting, barefoot, rolled toes. He explains things but I haven't got the knowledge to argue. He says he can't get his heels back any more and his toes are not long. I have to take his word for it as I don't profess to know more than him!
As i understand it contracted and underslung are not necessarily the same but they tend to go hand in hand. The foot won't look long if the toe is being backed up but this is also because by having a long heel the weight is shifted forward onto the toe and so the natural wear will probably be too much at the front.
You can indeed improve contracted heels and we are doing it right now! Still got a little way to go as there is a lot of frog material squashed upwards but is gradually working its way down. It is however true that there is no method of decontracting heels within conventional farriery (they used to use grooving but it didn't work).
Whereabouts are you? You may find Jane Berresford or Charlie Girdlestone (the only current KC trimmer) trim near you. Alternatively if you are able to get to a wide range of hacking you could go for the self-trim option and allow your horse to find its own feet (this is basically what Jane encourages anyway). So you want to do a mixture of tarmac, wet sand (but not too much as very abrasive) etc etc and gradually things should improve with little intervention from your farrier.
This self-trimming approach WILL improve contracted heels. One thing you have to be careful of though is that if the horse is exercised on sand then it will develop a mustang roll. This can encourage contraction if the horse is always kept on a soft, muddy field. So a bit of exercise on tarmac (which encourages flat edges instead of a roll) and/or some hard standing in the field (or equivalent, eg yard stable etc) will help keep the decontraction going
By self trim, you don't mean me doing it doing it do you? Self trim you mean horse sorting himself out? I live in the West Midlands. I've tried Jane in the past but she's not taking any more clients on. Would the KC la Pierre bloke journey to this part of the woods.
...yes I do mean letting the horse trim its own feet. I find I will occasionally have to give a quick rasp as well to get rid of flares and encourage the wall to grow straight but less and less often now that things have improved so much.
KC is from the US and comes over occasionally to give courses. If you get in touch with Justine Jenkins (Wales) or Charlie (ie Charlotte!) Girdlestone (Surrey) on the BarefootUk yahoogroup then you will be able to get details of them. It's a shame Jane can't take you on but hardly surprising as she has so many clients and still has another full-time job.
Glad you find this useful but I'm not an expert and so would advise anyone interested to do their own research rather than just listening to me. I'd hate to pass on anything I may have misunderstood....
Can confirm that self trimming is the best thing since sliced bread! Apart from having a much better back (!) Henry has the most beeyootiful feet, that are almost completely decontracted after just over a year of barefoot. My knives are so unused that they have a bit of rust on them (oops!). I did try to use them a couple of weeks ago (couldn't find my rasp) and I've completely lost my touch! My friend was also told that her horse's contracted heels were irreversible. To that I say "Claptrap!"
My only interference now is to balance the hoof using the rasp when necessary (when I don't lose my rasp that is!). That really is all it takes. Would your farrier be open to showing you how to hold/use a rasp?
I've got a rasp and a paring knife which I used to use for my Shetlands but I could never take enough off, I was a coward. I've also got some pincers/cutters so I might have a go but I feel that I don't know sufficient, particularly when the farrier pares away the frog with gay abandon and trims the shetties soles so that they are pink and I think he will go into the hoof itself if he's not careful. I don't think I could ever be that aggressive in trimming.
Hi Sutton - wouldn't advise using nippers without some practise on dead feet first (not everyone's cup of tea!). It's easier to make big mistakes with nippers unless you have developed some skill and know what you're doing.
Rasping takes longer and is harder work, but that makes it easier to keep a check on how much you're taking off and where.
Mace is almost wholly 'self trimmed' and so is Corrie. Jones had his shoes come off as soon as he arrived in the autumn with very contracted heels - and within that he has worn his feet into a wholly new shape - very much like the shape of the feet of the others. I used to have a farrier I could trust for advice, but he left. I now ask the vet when he visits - but sofar he has only ever said 'these feet are really good!'
I would try doing a lot of roadwork barefoot - if it really does not work, then you can always go back to shoeing. But I bet you anything that the heels come down.
I had a lovely old girl who was always shod - at one point with a bad farrier she stumbled the whole time. I switched farriers, and the new one gave her a much lower heel, and she hardly stumbled again.
Hi, sorry I've dragged this thread up again after so long, but I'm interested to find out more. I had Geri's shoes off for afew months last year but she seemed so sore and was also having back problems, the physio advised me to get them back on again. Here are the details:
all shoes off while at grass January and February 2002
All shoes back on again mid February 2002
All shoes off mid April 2002, at grass and doing light road work
Front shoes back on early July 2002, lunging and long reining in field, no riding on road till Mid August
Natural Balance shoes in front early September 2002, and back shoes on. Road work for 6 weeks (I never trot on the roads) then just out in field (it's a long story, she should have had her shoes off then, but anyway)
Back shoes off February 2003, light hacking round farm (concrete yard and lanes, mud tracks and fields)still Natural Balance in front
End April 2003 front shoes off too, at last! Resting in field, began to lead her out in hand along smooth tarmac road in last 2 days. Fine first day but abit feely yesterday, and trying to put toe down first.
Her heels seem quite contracted and kind of look like they're sliding away in under her foot (not good at technical terms!) and her feet certainly aren't symmetrical, she sometimes stands abit hen toed in front, although she moves quite straight. Her back feet are much better than her front, the frog is fleshier and larger, the heels don't look so squashed. When her shoes were off before her feet became quite lopsided, with one bulb of the heel becoming more squashed looking than the other: is this normal or could that be because of the way her feet were trimmed by the farrier?
i want to know more about keeping her bare foot, because she's had ongoing back problems which I'm sure are connected to the feet in some way. My farrier is not very in to it but is coming round slightly. What books should I read? How much in hand road work should I give her to self-trim? I'm going to get a balance saddle so I won't be riding her until she muscles up more and I get that anyway (providing I get to the bottom of her troubles, see the other thread I started about that!). My problem is that I'm stuck in Northern Ireland and so I can't get any of the people recommended above to look at her. I'm planning to ring Jane Beresford and ask her if she'd take a llok at pictures of Geri's feet and give me some advice, but she may not have time for this. I'd really appreciate any advice anyone can give. I've been to the barefoot website and the strasser one and have read shoeing a necessary evil, but my farrier really disagrees with some of the stuff the strasser approach says.
Any advice greatfully recieved, if you don't want to post it you can email me h.toner@qub.ac.uk!
Thank you in advance,
Helenx
It sounds as though she has the very typical long underslung heels plus contraction that so many shod horses end up with. Mine included. Jak is also a bit pigeon-toed and I kept asking the farrier to even them up. To which he said he couldn't because it was the bone alignment and not the foot balance. Now that is the case for some horses but I was pretty convinced then and even more convinced now that Jak's problem was foot balance. As soon as Jane started trimming him she started to straighten him up and I am sure that this has really helped his shoulder problems (hardly surprising he had shoulder arthritis with his feet pointing inwards and the heels too far in front of his leg!). When you look at the soles of her feet do the heels look longer on the inside than the outside? And thus the whole wall? This is the case for Jak and so he tends to break over slightly to the outside of the foot. I use this as a guide when I'm trimming - if the breakover is too far round then I know I need to take more off the inside. The hind feet tend to be the reverse of this for Jak. A tip KC gave us was also that if the foot is landing on the outside wall slightly before the inside wall then it means that the inside wall is slightly longer (not the outside wall as you might expect) and so this acts as a self-protection mechanism (a bit like when you have a stone in your shoe - you land on the part of your foot which doesn't have the "extension")
The contraction will improve the more work on hard surfaces you do. Jak's still pretty contracted but you can see from the way his heels have separated and the frog starting to "un-squish" that it is improving. For now I wouldn't worry too much about it and concentrate on her comfort as your priority. I think Jane and KC say a nominal 20 mins a day working on a hard surface but being realistic if that means 2 hours at the weekend then that's not the end of the world. Having good drainage will really help.
As for books etc - the best info is probably still http://www.barefoothorse.com KC's video is also good and apparently there's a new one out or coming out soon (as is his book supposedly). Jaime Jackson's books are good too. Gene Ovineck (sp?) is good, although more shoe-orientated. J. Rooney has a book I don't have but think it's meant to be good. Robert Bowker writes good articles but don't think he has a book. Various others that I keep meaning to read! Plus the various yahoogroups - do a search on barefoot as I can't remember what they're all called.
For a while I got really hung up on learning as much as I could but since Jane started trimming him and I learnt to do what Jak needed rather than following a theory/method I've stopped - too many behaviour books taking up my time!). I spent hours reading the various arguments on the yahoogroups! But now as long as Jak's comfortable, able to do the work I ask him and the contraction is getting gradually better then I'm not too worried anymore about who says what. Most of the time Jak self-trims and I just neaten up the flare and breakover. It's much easier this way!!
Another reason not to get too hung up on theories of barefoot trimming is that no-one has got it all right so far. Some of what Strasser says is great, a lot of it is scary. Some of KC's theories are a bit whacky according to people who understand them much better than I do. So if you want to start reading about theories then you kind of have to read all of them and try to find a "combined truth".
But if you stick to low-risk trims (ie JaneB/Marjorie Smith or KC) then while there are subtle differences in theories and even the trim, the important point is that it won't hurt the horse. Not all the Strasser trimmers have bad reputations but there is a much greater risk.
And just to reiterate - despite all my rantings, I'm not an expert so please don't take what I've said at face value. Just what I've gleaned from various people and my experience of one horse.....
Thankyou Catherine- I like your thinking. I think my own gut feeling tells me that anyway! I am off to look at Geri's heels now, I think she may well be the way you described. Thank you again for the support, I was considering doing a strasser course with a friend but the more I read about it the less sure I was and I knew absolutely that I didn't want to trim her feet so much!! I quite like the idea of a little gentle rasping and letting the road work do the rest, if I can get advice from Jane to get started.... I will definitely contact Jane this week. Then I will show what she says to my farrier and we can go from there!
Thanks again, will you be at Dee's symposium? Will look forward to meeting you there.
Helenx
Thought I'd better put the correct spelling so you can search for him! I bought his book 'NEw Hope for Soundness' and thought it was the easiest read ever! Hurrah! I like the way he gave outlines of how different terrains would affect hoof shape and WHY he trims as he does. In the book he also outlines the differences in the trim he believes should be apparent between a shod and unshod horse. For those who haven't heard of him, Gene was a pioneer of the Natural Balance movement. Even though his book was the smallest, I still rate it as the best one I've read so far on barefoot (I haven't read Jaime Jackson and I've given up waiting for KC!!).
Apologies for resurrecting this thread, but I've just had Esme's shoes taken off and am reading all I can about barefoot trimming! Been trawling all over the web and found the sites mentioned, plus other interesting ones, including one called the iron-free horse, or something similar!
Catherine - any chance I could borrow your KC video? I'm hoping Jane will be trimming Esme for me and showing me how to do it myself eventually, and I'd really like to see the video.
I think you're staying with Marie soon - I could pick it up from you there, assuming it's okay for me to borrow it? (Sorry if I've got my facts completely wrong - Marie told me who was going to be staying with her, but typically I've forgotten!)
