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Don’t Buy Fruit at the Hardware Store
You’re shopping for a sweet, luscious, juicy apple. Do you go to the hardware store? NO. They don’t do fruit.
I ask myself…why do folks with barefoot horses hire a farrier? Maybe it’s because they don’t know any different. Or they don’t know their options. Or they don’t know what a farrier is or what they do. Maybe it’s what they learned a long time ago and never stopped to ask why. Maybe they think it’s the right thing for their horse.
Don’t get me wrong, I love farriers. They are talented, skilled, knowledgeable tradesmen (and women) who have an important offering. They are craftsmen of the shoe. If I had shoes on my horse, I’d definitely call a farrier.
But the world has evolved, and so have practitioners who work on horse feet. Now a days, these fall into three general categories…farriers, ‘natural’ trimmers and equine podiatrists. There are lots of differences between them.
- Farriery is a several hundred year old tradition, born when the horse was used very differently by man and is the art of crafting a shoe and attaching it to the bottom of a horse’s foot.
- ‘Natural’ trimmers apply a trim to the hoof capsule of a barefoot horse. Natural trimmers might use any one of dozens of different approaches, but generally speaking, this craft is modeled after the feral horse hoof.
- Equine Podiatrists are specialists in horse foot. Not hoof…, foot. An Equine Podiatrists is neither a farrier nor a natural trimmer; in fact, an equine podiatrist is not a ‘trimmer’ at all. He/she may apply a trim, but this is only a tool in the toolbox of ‘get the foot healthy’ tools. It’s the ‘innards’ that are the focus of the equine podiatrist-not the ‘outers’.
We live in a specialized society (lucky for us). Specialties evolve as information flows and becomes plentiful about one subset of a larger category-so much information sometimes that it is a full time career to understand one smaller subset of the larger category. There are thousands of examples. The Equine Podiatrist is the specialist of the subset; foot of the larger category; horse. Most often, if you have a concern about a specific item, you want to find a specialist in that area to get the best, most current, knowledgeable and experienced help.
Timing’s everything
Does it matter how long you go between trims? Yes, it does!
Many horse owners think that the practice of trimming the horse’s feet is necessary because the horse can’t ”wear them down himself’ in domestic life. While there is truth to this, it is only the beginning of why it is important to trim.
Each structure in the horse’s foot has a job. The job is either to utilize or to dissipate energy; energy created by the stride. If the structures job it is to utilize energy and it is not able to do so, the horse’s stride will be less than effective and you will see less performance. If the structures job it is to dissipate energy and it is not able to do so, the energy (which has to go somewhere) will be forced upon structures that are not meant to deal with it and you risk injury. Proper trimming allows each structure to do it’s job.
In addition to energy utilization and dissipation, all of the individual structures of the horse’s foot work together to support various biological functions; for example circulation and neurological function. Triming keeps the structures capable of supporting these functions, and each other, again allowing for peak performance and decreased risk of injury.
So where does the timing come in? How do you know the proper timing between trims for your horse? The time between regular trims should be long enough to allow for new growth but no so long that you see obvious, gross hoof deformity on the outside of the foot. Keep your horse’s foot trimmed so that he needs slight trimming/rasping/tweaking on each visit to return him to optimal balance and shape. If you wait until your horse’s hoof wall looks obviously distorted to the naked eye, you’ve gone too long. Remember, there are lots of things that have gone on on the inside of your horse’s foot for some time before it ever shows on the outside, so if you see it on the outside, it’s been too long. Horses benefit from a consistent trim schedule, typically every 4 to 6 weeks. Some will go longer, and some even shorter. How will you know? Look at the foot and it will tell you….if they look like they’ve been freshly trimmed, there is no flare and the bars are not laid over go a bit longer, up to a maximum of 7 weeks; if they have lots of flair, bent over bars and a frog that occludes the collateral grooves, tweak it shorter. Have your horse’s feet trimmed before it looks like he needs it!
Bring on the Rain!
Many horse owners choose to keep their horses inside when the weather is bad~rain, snow, wind, wind and rain. The horse, and his feet, are meant to prevail in all types of weather~let them out! Exposure to weather helps your horse in many ways, his mind, his skin, his feet for sure. Horse’s feet are very much conditioned by the conditions in which they live. To have tough feet, expose them to the desire to be tough!
If his feet are not optimal now, support them using Perfect Hoof Wear while they make the transition to stronger, healthier feet. An evaluation of the structures of the feet will determine their current capabilities and can put you on the path to building them up! Time outside in all kinds of weather, ability to move around as close to 24 hours a day as possible, exposure to different ground environments are all great tools for the healthy development of your horses most important asset; his feet!
Infection Free is Happy To Be!
No matter what geography you live in, you can keep your horses feet infection free year round. Follow these steps consistently for infection free feet;
Daily
- Hoof pick debris all the way into the collateral groves, inside the angle of the bar and around the inside of the hoof wall
- Wire brush the same areas
- Spray/saturate with Silvetrisol – complete underside and all around the outer hoof capsule up to and including the coronary band
- Provide some reprieve from a muddy moist environment some part of each day
Anually
- Clean Trax the feet annually-preferably following a wet, muddy season if you have one-whether you think you need it or not
If you follow these steps for 4 weeks and continue to have active infection, start looking for something else, some other route cause. The route cause you’re looking for is not of the infection, but rather of why the infection won’t clear. First stop: look at the immune system.
