Keeping horses barefoot

bilbahorse

I have heard that shoeing horses is bad for their feet and a bit of research on the Net brought up a few sites like <snip> so I want to investigate further.
I am not trying to save money (although that would be nice too!) but if these sites are to be believed, horses are happier without shoes, and ride better.
Does anyone here have any experience of riding horses without shoes? Who do you get to trim the hooves? How often? Will a farrier do it? Or can I do it myself?

Ave Sodalis

Personally, I'd shoe a horse, only because it gives the hoof more support when on them. Shoeless is fine in an arena but I doubt it would be too good for them when on a hack for risk of bruising.

I think it depends on the horse to be honest. Some need shoes for balance, some do better without shoes.

A farrier would trim them and know how far back to pair them if you explain your situation. I would get a farrier to do it for a while anyway, until you get used to the lenght. Bare in mind that the hoof wall will need to be smooth to avoid injury.

chevalfou

Dear Bilbahorse
I have seven horses of various breed (Connemara, ID and TB) and aged between 2 and 15. I have kept them all barefoot for the past 4 years, and 5 of them are regularly ridden on the road. Their feet are perfectly healthy, they are never lame. and I never have to pay a farrier bill.
Like most horse owners, I assumed that horses had to be shod to be ridden or hard ground and that doing otherwise was careless at best. How wrong was I!
My (now) 14 years old ID mare kept throwing shoes off, and then couldn't be ridden until I could get the farrier in again, which sometimes took weeks (we are very isolated). Her feet were in poor condition. It was no fun for either of us.
In the end, I heard about barefoot and took her (and my other riding horse, a TBx) out of shoes. It was a long road. It took over a year for the mare to be fully comfortable on the road (although now she canters happily on ANY surface), and I had to learn barefoot trimming because no one was doing it in my area (don't believe anyone who tells you that a farrier can do it, most can't). I read everything that has been written about barefoot trimming, and got some help from an experienced barefoot trimmer from the North (Dermot Mc court, hoofscupture.com, he's good, get him to take your horse out of shoes and get you started with barefoot trimming if you can). 4 years later, I am sure it was worth it, for both of us.
One of the main problem with going barefoot is that shoeing horses damages their hooves. So when you start shoeing, you are entering a vicious circle. I have a 5 year old Connemara gelding that I bred and trained myself, and who therefore was never shod. He never had any feet problem, and will canter anywhere, anytime. But when you are taking a horse out of shoes, their hooves have to heal, and if the horse has been shod from an early age, and for a long time, the healing process (called transition) takes a long time. That's were most people give up and go back to shoeing. I didn't, but it took 15 month for my ID mare to be completely fine without shoes. The TBx, who was younger and had better hooves to start with, quickly adapt to his new barefoot regime.
You mention two excellent websites on Natural hoofcare in your first post, read them carefully, they both explain natural hoofcare wery well. The more you know about barefoot, the more obvious it becomes that this is the proper way to keep horses.
If you are serious about keeping your horse barefoot, get a copy of Jaime Jackson book "Horse owners guide to natural hoofcare" and if you want to trim yourself,a copy of Pete Ramey's book "Making natural hoofcare work for you" which is an excellent trimming guide by one of the most experienced trimmer anywhere.
I personnally think that trimming should be done by the owners. It's not that difficult nor physically demanding (a lot of barefoot trimmer are women, I don't know any women farrier) and if you are doing it yourself, you will do it when it's needed, rather than wait for the trimmer / farrier to be able to come. Plus it's a lot cheaper, a 20 euros rasp will do 15 trims, that's over a year for one horse, and the other tools you will need rarely need replacing, see the tools section of the <snip> site for details.
If you want to get first hand experience of trimming, and see our barefoot horses in action, we are also running a barefoot trimming course for horse owners in Mayo, see our website, <snip? for more details.

convert

Thread closed. If anybody would like to start a genuine discussion regarding the shod v barefoot horse, feel free to start a new thread.