Don't let this happen to your horse.

As I was doing some research on laminitis, I came across a blog by a farrier. I was shocked by a couple pictures on his blog and had to comment. His description of this picture was that it something he sees frequently.

He was correcting something about this foot, I can't even remember now because I went into shock that he would actually do this to a hoof, on purpose, for ANY reason. And after gutting the hoof, he does nothing to actually correct its faults, like addressing that stretched white line (long toe.)

(Notice the black around the hoof wall. That is bruising from horse shoes.)

In my comment, I asked him if HE did THAT to that hoof? Then added: If so, it's no wonder he sees that sort of thing on hooves frequently.

He came back with with the most arrogant attitude of: "Yeah, I should have my head examined. huh." Then adding that he's only been a farrier for 18 years so you'd think he knew what he was doing.

Sadly, he does think he knows what he's doing, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't!

What he was doing is called "SURGERY."

Now hear this! No hoof care professional, be it horseshoer, farrier, nor natural hoofcare practitioner, whatever we call ourselves, have a license (or a right) to perform surgery on your horses!

Please remember that! We don't have a right to be cutting into the sole until we get to blood, ever, ever, ever! Nor should be be cutting into the corium of the frog. And if we do we need to be fired ON THE SPOT and a vet called in to clean up our mess!

How do you think a horse would fair to have a hoof cut into like that, then be sent back out to trod around in mud, manure and urine?

The problem with veterinarian logic when it comes to hooves is that when they discover a problem, often a farrier is called in to fix it. What isn't checked into is whether that farrier is qualified to fix the problem or make it worse. How does the vet know? How do you know?

Local farriers who are known in the community for having excellent shoeing skills, may not have the skills or the qualifications to treat laminitis, abscesses, navicular issues, pedal osteitis, canker, or the plethera of other issues that can go wrong with a hoof.

Many farriers have never even been to farrier school. They learned from Uncle Joe one summer because they got laid off from their job at the mill and need a way to earn a living. Seriously, there are a lot of those guys/gals out there. And I've heard certified "farriers" refer to them as "horseshoers" in a not so complimentary tone.

One of my customers asked her former shoer why he got into that profession, and his response was: "Strong back - weak mind." I'm sure he was joking, but...well, she's my customer now if that tells you anything.

Now if you are a farrier and you are taking offense at this, please don't. I named one of my pony's after the first farrier we had when I was a kid. Buster Silva. Buster learned from...well, his Uncle one summer when he needed to find a way to earn some money. But Buster was a wonderful horseshoer. He was timely, dependable and had a great horse-side manner. I saw him more than I saw my wayward father and I will always remember him as being kind to us kids when we had rode our horses shoes off and he knew we were paying for new shoes with our babysitting money.

Was Buster qualified to treat laminitis, abscessing, white line disease, navicular? No, I'm sure he wasn't. But we didn't have to deal with any of those issues 40 years ago like we do today. Why? More horses today I imagine, and sadly back then affording a vet was a luxury for most horse people, and a bullet was cheap.

(I think we see more hoof and metabolic issues today because we have too many pasture pets living on race horse diets.)

Another picture from that blog. What was he treating here? An abscess? The abscess wasn't painful enough I guess, so the hoof was cut out from under the horse.

This type of trimming is why THIS horse could never go barefoot. Had he NOT gauged out its sole, the horse might have stood a chance at healthy bare feet.

You bloody it - you buy it!

Perfect Hooves are Made, Not Born.

I believe that perfect hooves are made, not born.

In the wild, perfect hooves are created by the constant abrasion and varied diet. Many people believe that when a wild horse’s hoof goes bad, the horse perishes and is eaten and that is why we don’t see bad feet on wild horses.

I don’t agree. I think we just don’t see bad feet on wild horses because they take such splendid care of them. Once rounded up, it only takes about 6 weeks for those perfect hooves to turn into what we are used to seeing on our horses.

It’s true, that from time to time, we can dissect a wild hoof and find some similar hoof problems that our domesticated horses deal with, but it’s not usually a hoof problem that costs a life.

So what about domesticated horses? Well, for example, this is Neenah.



She’s nearly 8 months old now and I’ve trimmed her feet several times since her birth. The first few trims were with just the rasp. (You have to be very careful with foal feet. There is no room for mistakes on such tiny feet. )

And yes, she’s ONLY had several trims because I’ve mostly had her out on pasture and gravel paddocks where she does very well.



Each time I trim her hooves, I’ve had to do some reshaping, because her feet are not perfect. She has some flare on one side of her left front foot that is already causing separation of the white line (laminae). (Can you see the flare?)

I'm working to correct that. This last trim involved the nippers, for the first time. So we'll be correcting this. Rather than shoeing it as is.



She’s has a tendency to be a bit clubby (upright) on the fronts so I’m careful to take her heels down every time. That's what I've done here.

If I didn’t, and she were someone else’s horse, that owner might be discussing the possibility of tendonotomy or ICL (inferior check ligament) surgery in her near future.

Because she’s my horse that will never happen to her. I will never destroy a healthy part of her anatomy that she will need later, in order to fix something that can corrected at the hoof.

Horses that have had ICL surgeries face an uncertain future of bowed tendons and other injuries because the tendons in the lower leg have to take on the job that the ICL once had.

And as for cutting the tendon itself which is done on some horses with rotated coffin bones…two words about that horse's future; Pasture Pet.

So, it’s up to us. If we bring a new baby horse into the world, we need to get concerned about their hooves the minute they start standing on them.

Our babies can grow up with perfect feet! And who would nail a shoe to a perfect hoof?

Abscess Upate #2

This is Danny, the abscess horse. Remember him? He was on the ground for 3 solid days in pain. When he got up and started moving around, an abscess ruptured. One rupture site was at the coronary band, one on each heel bulb and later his sole practically fell out of his hoof.

It was the worst abscess I've ever seen. Why did it happen? I'm not sure. Was his diet to blame? Not sure, 15 other horses were on the same diet and none of the others abscessed at that time that I know of. He's always been a bit of a Chunk!

I had let his feet go past the 6 week deadline for trimming. Often my horses are like the cobbler's children. They don't get tended to when their feet need attention.



He's doing much better, and his main abscess site has nearly made it to the ground. When it get's closer to the ground, the leverage on his toe, will knock the last inch or so out. That's normal because when the abscess was traveling up his hoofwall, it was leaving a trail of dead laminae in it's wake. That means there is no connection of wall to coffin bone below the rupture site.



This is what his little sister is doing to his tail! My niece says she's teething. I believe she's right!



I added this picture of Forrest that I took while I trimming Danny. I just thought it looked kind of cool. It's been so foggy here lately!

Interview Questions

Recently, I was asked to submit responses to interview questions for another informative horse blog. Natural Horse Resource

Since, I worked pretty hard on my responses, I thought I would post them on my own blog. Some will agree with my opinions, which is awesome, and some will not and that's okay too.

An Interview with a Natural Hoofcare Practitioner

The following are Pat Wagner’s responses to the top ten hoofcare questions asked by many horse owners who are considering barefoot soundness for their horses.

Pat is a twice certified natural hoofcare practitioner. Her journey into saving equine hooves started when her own mare could no longer tolerate the damaging affects shoes had on her hooves and spiraled into a life of pain and lameness for many months.

When she realized that traditional hoof care was no longer a viable method for keeping her horses sound, Pat traveled to Georgia to train with one of the foremost authorities on Natural hoofcare, Pete Ramey. Pat recommends Pete’s book, Making Natural Hoofcare Work for You, as well as articles found on his website and his latest DVD release, Under the Horse.

Since that time, Pat has spent over five years training with, and teaching practitioners around the country, attending clinics with experts in their field such as Dr. Robert Bowker, Professor of Anatomy and Director of the Equine Foot Laboratory at Michigan State University.

All their horses are barefoot sound now, and Pat and her husband, Rich, are busy rehabbing less fortunate horses at their farm, the Rainier Hoof Recovery Center in Washington State. Pat is currently a member of the American Hoof Association.

Before getting to the questions, we asked Pat if she had any introductory comments.

Pat: If we have a question about our horse’s hoof health, and the response is a firm “yes” or “no”, we should ask someone else or do our own research. The correct response to nearly every hoof related question is “it depends…”

1. Why is it critical for a horse's hooves to land heels first?

If you consider the biomechanics of the horse, you can understand why heel first landings are natural to the hoof in most instances.

A hoof landing correctly is critical to the tendons and ligaments of the horse’s lower leg. Of the horses whose hoof landing patterns are perpetually toe first, the tendons and ligaments are operating exactly backwards. (Graphic courtesy of newrider.com)

When horses climb hills, descend steep slopes, or negotiate uneven terrain, their hooves will land however they need to in order to start their journey and arrive at their destination. So when we speak of perpetual landings, we are referring to hoof landings as horses traverse flat ground.

From the side, watch a horse walk past you. What you should see are front hooves coming down on the back of the hoof first (the heel). As the horse’s body moves over the hoof, the hoof will pitch down onto its sole (bringing the entire hoof into play), and as the horse’s body moves over and past the hoof, it will break-over the toe as it leaves the ground to prepare for the next heel-first landing.

That was my attempt at describing a healthy stride. Unfortunately, this isn’t the stride you will see on many domestic horses, and certainly not often on shod horses. If you do see heel first landings on a shod horse, hang onto the farrier.

So you might be wondering what is the big deal about a hoof landing heel-first? Maybe your horse lands toe first every stride, and you ride her every day and she does just fine…or so you think.

Why don’t you try it yourself? Walk around for 5 or 10 minutes coming down toe first on your foot then drop onto your heel. With every step, you will feel begin to feel your calf muscles become tense and your tendons and ligaments will feel stressed. It’s not painful, even after a few minutes, it is fairly uncomfortable and your legs will tire quickly. Now walk that way a bit longer, out to your barn, as you move around to do chores.

Imagine being forced, because of improper foot wear, to walk around like that all the time!

When you switch back to landing on your heels first, the rolling over the ball of your foot, you can you feel the difference in your legs? Heel first landings are much more comfortable. Am I right?

Toe first landings for you, might be a great way to tone up your calf muscles, but horses do not have any muscles in their legs below the knee – it’s all tendons and ligaments. I certainly wouldn’t be asking a horse to work hard for me, if I knew his body mechanics were not functioning properly.

Imagine constant locomotion day and night with toe first landings. Not just walking, but jogging and running and sending yourself, with someone on your back, over jumps. Ouch!

Horses whose hooves land chronically toe-first are not a truly sound, and while they are working with backwards mechanics, those same horses are usually dealing with other defects in their hooves as well. Such as run-under heels and long toes, which force an incorrect break-over on their hooves. It’s frequently these horses who are labeled navicular.

Horses live with this discomfort until it becomes painful. Then, they live with the pain until they just can’t cope anymore and then we begin to see chronic lameness for which we begin purchasing all sorts of pricey supplements. Until we retire the horse, or have it put down and go in search of a younger healthier horse, and the cycle goes on.

So if you have a horse in chronic pain when it moves, and it’s a mystery to you, your farrier and your vet. One of the first things I would look at is how the hooves are landing.

2. What does the term “break-over” mean?

When I arrive at a barn to trim a horse for the first time whether it has been receiving pasture trims or if I remove shoes, the most common problem the hoof has been living with is elongated toes. When toes run forward, the rest of the hoof (frog and heel) typically follow.

After toe first landings, a long toe is the most common and damaging fault domestic horses live with.

To get a feel for what horses living with excessively long toes have to deal with, put on a pair of shoes or boots that are 3 or 4 sizes too big for you and wear them for a while.

A hoof with toes that are much longer than they should be cannot “break-over” at the correct place.

One flawed tactic that many hoof care professionals use to correct long toes is to allow the heels to become long (high) – in an effort to balance the hoof.

3. How do you compare natural trims to shoes and traditional trims?

A hoof is a progressive unit which has an amazing capacity to adapt to it’s environment. If you want to see your horse develop hooves that are comfortable on rocky terrain, bring rocky terrain into your horse’s environment. This doesn’t mean forcing a tender-footed horse to walk on rocks, but rather find ways to work up to a horse who is comfortable on the rocks.

The main point to remember is that the hoof changes and adapts to the conditions it lives in and works on. It’s not an inanimate object, like something made up of woody substance, as many perceive it to be.

A hoof horn is keratinized (hardened) protein, the same substance as your own fingernails. The hoof horn is attached to the coffin bone by two layers – epidermal (insensitive) and dermal (sensitive) laminae. These two layers of laminae are zipped together in a Velcro-like manner. Improper diet, neglect, injury, and shoes can all have a negative impact on this lamellar attachment.

Horseshoes: nailing steel to a hoof causes a multitude of problems for the horse. Here’s a short list.

The shoe locks the internal structures of the hoof into the state it was in when the shoe was applied and takes the outer structures out of function.

The bars, sole and frogs will overgrow in a vain attempt to remain functioning by making impact with the ground. These elements of the hoof need intermittent (not constant) pressure for healthy circulation and to resist atrophy. Constant pressure kills living tissue, like that of shoe nailed onto a hoof.

Each time a shod hoof lands, the concussion is more excessive than the horse’s anatomy was meant to withstand. (Video examples of this can be found on youtube.)

The trimming method that has to be done on a hoof for the application of a shoe has to be different than a natural trim. There needs to be excess hoofwall to nail the shoe onto.

Traditional trims: the main problem I see with traditional trimming methods is that very often hoof material that should have been removed is left behind, and hoof material that should have been left behind, has been removed. Backwards trimming methods won’t promote healthy, sound-on-gravel, bare hooves. So by design traditional trimming methods promote the necessity of horse shoes!

When leaving hooves deshod, a common trimming technique is to leave the bit of hoofwall length past the sole - the notion being that the extra wall length will replace the shoe.

That logic has always confused me. Why would we need to replace a shoe on a bare hoof? It’s not like the hoof was born with a shoe attached and we removed it so we need to put something in its place. Also, that particular trimming method causes some of the same issues that shoes cause for the hoof.

Incorrect trimming methods are directly responsible for the need for shoes; and shoes perpetuate the need for shoes.

4. What can we do to condition our horses’ hooves to riding barefoot?


Most of us still like to use a term that Pete Ramey coined, “gravel crunchers” to describe the type of hoof that can traverse over any kind of terrain.

The horse owner who owns a gravel crunching horse is to be applauded for getting all the elements of a great bare hoof correct, diet, movement, environment, and trims.

However, because we cannot expect all hooves to become sound on gravel at all times, we need to protect those horses from becoming sore footed on long rides over unforgiving trails, or even just being led around the barn.

Some horses live with conditions that promote a sound hoof, while other horses are not in a situation conducive to sound healthy bare hooves and likely will never be.

What then? Shoes? As of now, shoes are the most convenient apparatus, but my hope is if you go to shoes, you search for and find a certified farrier who understands the natural hoof and how to apply as natural a trim as possible that can be shod. Again, look for that heel first landing. Then seriously consider removing the shoes for at least part of the year.
Or consider alternative shoes, like the lightweight glue on shoes.

Hooves adapt to their environment. If you have a horse that lives in a stall on fluffy deep shaving for the majority of its down time and you decide to pull the shoes and take off riding barefoot down a rocky trail, how well do you think that horse is going to do? As dumb as that sounds, it’s been tried. No wonder we hear comments like riding a horse barefoot on the trail is cruel. Yes, it is cruel in that scenario.

You have to help the hooves adapt to the environment you’re going to be riding it on. And no, that doesn’t mean forcing a tender-footed horse to walk on abrasive surfaces until it stops limping.

“Mamas, don’t let your babies grow-up on soft bedding.” Get those babies out of the stall! Get it into an area where it can move around, a lot over varied terrain. Just like babies born in the wild. We’re seeing too many clubbed hooves on young horses. I believe a soft hoof being conditioned on soft footing is partly, if not completely, to blame for this condition.

Second, bring the gravel in and spread it around areas your horse has to navigate every day - for example, in the gateways, around the water troughs, in the paddock, etc. If horses start out this way, it won’t have a negative impact on the hoof and cause sore feet.

What size gravel? Because you will want to keep your expensive gravel clean in order for it to do its job, the most important factor regarding size, I think, is that it’s small enough to drop through your manure fork. You won’t want to be tossing it out with the manure.

Generally when we bring abrasive material into our horses living area, we need a plan. Don’t dump a truck load of gravel into your paddock in the rainy season only to see it swallowed up by mud. Wait until the ground is dry, then dig out the area and remove a few inches of soil that generally turns to mud, and layer in different sizes of rock and gravel.

I always get asked about hog fuel. We’ve tried it. If you layer it deep enough it’s great for a year, maybe two. But as it decomposes, it creates another problem. Not to mention that you never know what you’ll find in hog fuel that could damage a leg or puncture a hoof. Or what chemicals have soaked into it, such a diesel.

5. What do your recommend for protecting our horses’ bare hooves while riding on rocky trails?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could get a company like Nike to patent a truly perfect athletic shoe, or boot?! One that is easy to put on and easy to remove. Marquis is the boot that comes as close to that description as I have found, but it’s still could use improvement.

There are glue-on hoof boots that many endurance competitors are using successfully, including the Marquis Glue on, by Stride Equus. And Easycare Hoof Boot Company has some great new products. One is the Easy boot Glove!

The glue-on type boots aren’t as apt to fly off or cause rubbing like the standard hoof boots, however, for the recreational rider, glue on boots are not as easy to put on and remove as the regular hoof boots.

As more and more of us are going barefoot and expecting to ride on rocky trails and rugged terrain, the demand for manufacturers to get serious about providing us with a great boot may happen. But for now, we have to use our best judgment when choosing hoof protection if we need it.

However, since we must choose from the boots available to us now, it’s important to understand that certain boots work better on hooves of different shapes. For instance, some boots will stay on an upright hoof better and without rubbing, than others. So you have to experiment a little to find the right boot for your horse.

An interesting note is that a couple boot manufacturers are distributing identical boots under different brand names. Same exact boot, different brand.

6. Are you opposed to ever putting shoes on a horse?

I’m opposed to every putting shoes on my own horses. Most horse owners will tell you that shoes remain the most convenient type of hoof protection we can put on our horses today. That’s true, with the exception of the all-terrain barefooted horse that needs no protection.

Although it happens and often at the very worse times, there is less worry about the horse losing a horse shoe on the trail than a boot, and shoes don’t rub soft tissue. I get that. (However, shoes do bruise the walls and soles of the hoof.)

I couldn’t put shoes on my own horses, but I understand a rider’s situation and the convenience of horse shoes. There isn’t anything as good out there yet as a nailed on shoe for carefree riding.

So for summer riding, if your horse’s hooves are correct, sound and healthy, a few months spent in protective shoes applied by a certified farrier (check for that, certification is important and many are not) typically won’t destroy a horse’s hooves. But give them a rest out of the shoes for most of the year. Nearly every farrier reference book includes that statement.

Having said that, I have to explain that the type of shoeing I take issue with for many reasons is “corrective” shoeing. In my opinion, there just is NO SUCH THING as corrective shoes. If the hoof itself is incorrect, you cannot correct it with a shoe. You may have a horse that doesn’t limp, for awhile. I feel that most often hooves heal themselves in spite of the shoe, not because of it. I’ve dissected many cadaver hooves of horses that were put down wearing corrective shoes.

If a bare hoof isn’t sound, it won’t be sound shod - you just won’t see as much limping. So if you’re going to shoe to ride, fix the hooves first.

There is something to bear in mind regarding the roulette of horse shoes. There is a large percentage of unqualified horseshoers in the field. Even the best farrier, is going to have an off day. So consider the likelihood that at some point in time your horse will fall victim of a poor quality shoeing job, just as my mare did.

I was given a valuable reining horse, retired at the age of ten after coming lame from the shoes attached to his feet. He has never completely recovered and likely never will. For him, it took only one set of shoes to ruin his career and devalue him completely.


7. Is it true that on working barefoot horses, the hoof wall will wear off faster then a horse can grow it?

Yes and No.

Yes, that is true when the hooves are trimmed in the traditional manner, and infrequently. Leaving the walls longer than they naturally should be, allowing walls to flare, and cutting out live sole material.

In other words, on a flat, flared, incorrectly trimmed hoof, that go for two months between trims, the walls might wear faster than a horse could grow them if you really used the horse hard, but then the horse would probably develop splitting and chipping hooves and a pronounced limp, long before it could wear the walls down.

And no! Hooves that are frequently and correctly trimmed and are not flat, flared and are sound going into hard work, will typically not split, chip, or wear faster than the walls can grow. Healthy, well trimmed walls can stand up to what wild horses test them on, which is much more severe in most cases than what the majority of us ride our horses on.

8. How often should hooves be trimmed?

One of the key differences between traditional hoofcare and natural hoof care is the length of time between trims. The more frequently we can simulate natural abrasion of the hoof, the healthier the hooves.

If I could get to my horses to trim them as often as I’d like, the longest they would go between trims is 3 weeks. My customers who keep their horses on a 4 week trim cycle are the ones always bragging about how well their barefoot horses perform on the rocky trails. But five weeks between trims still works well for most horses.

Even pasture ornaments shouldn’t go past 6 weeks because that’s when we typically start to see stretched white lines, that will eventually lead to separation in the white lines and then we see hoof wall abscessing and white line disease and other issues. It takes a number of trims to get their hooves back to sound health.

If your horses are going out 8 to 12 or more weeks between trims, they will likely not ever develop sounds hooves. There are exceptions to that rule, as with all rules about horses and hooves, such as horses living on terrain similar to that of wild horses and they are constantly on the move. I’ve seen amazing hooves like this on trail horses in California wine country. But even they need a touch up now and then.

I’ve met one horse that was over 20 years old and had never had her feet touched. Except for some flare in the lower half of her hooves, her feet functioned as well as she needed them to, roaming around her pasture. But typically when a domestic equine’s hooves are left to their own devices for many months or years, there will be pain and extensive damage.

9. Do barefoot hooves develop abscesses more often than shod hooves?

Hoof abscess are a conundrum. It sure seems like unshod horses are more apt to develop abscesses, but I don’t believe that is the case.

I hope write a paper about hoof abscesses one day. They are a mystery and not much research has been done on that topic. So I’ll try to keep my thoughts on abscesses as brief as possible here.

There are as many theories about the cause of hoof abscesses as there are hooves that have been afflicted with them.

Diet is one possible cause and I believe that is true. But neglected hooves allow separation of the white line (access) which can lead to environmentally induced abscessing, as well as constant pressure from shoes.

First, there are several locations that abscessing can take place in the hoof. One is inside the hoofwall. We’ve all seen those after they’ve worked their way up the laminae tissue and ruptured at the soft tissue of the coronet band. Separation of the white line, (too many weeks between trims?) allows debris to work its way up the laminae destroying both the dermal and epidermal layers in its path up to soft tissue where it bursts out.

Second, is the subsolar abscess which affects the solar papillae that attaches the sole to the coffin bone and when this type of abscess ruptures, often times large sections of sole material will be lost, and new sole will develop in its place, like a blister.

Thirdly, what I refer to as bar abscesses which start under unkempt bars and will usually rupture near the heel bulbs or under the sole or throughout the entire hoof.

Interestingly, hooves frequently suffer from acute inflammation (laminitis) concurrently with abscessing.

As we discussed earlier, shoes tend to put the hoof into lockdown. So I believe a shod hoof can harbor an abscess or abscesses for long periods of time. And I believe the reason we commonly see abscessing in recently deshod hooves is that once released the abscesses are allowed to surface. That is just a theory.

10. What do you feel is a common trimming mistake that barefoot trimmers make?

Not addressing the bars correctly. Like the rest of the hoof, the bars adapt to terrain the hoof is working and living on as well as seasonal changes.

There have been a number of occasions when I’ve gone in to trim a lame horse and all I’ve done is take down the bars and the horse walks off sound.

Bar trimming is very controversial. In the different natural hoof care camps there seems to be two extremes in the recommendations for trimming bars. One camp teaches students to cut the bars back radically into the live sole. The other camp teaches that we should never touch the bars.

I feel that both methods are flawed. If we take the bars too far back, we rob the horse of its most important horizontal and vertical support for the back of the hoof.

If we don’t ever touch the bars, they become elongated, puffy or flopped over onto the sole, the opposite problem arise.

Because the bars ARE the caudal support for hoof, left unkempt, long bars can lock the hoof into a situation were sole material is retained and the hoof capsule become elongated. I believe that overgrown bars can put undue pressure on the lateral cartilages which can cause pain and therefore lameness. That could explain why taking the bars down to the live sole, (not below live sole) can cause soundness in previously unsound horses.

Bars that have rolled over onto the sole are great places for hiding debris that will eventually cause abscessing. (Note: if your horse is popping abscess one after the other, especially out the back of the hoof, check the diet and the bar length.)

I feel, as trimmers we need to avoid those two extremes of gouging out the bars, or leaving them untouched. We need to help the bars find their healthiest length for each hoof. When the bars arrive at their happy place, we will know and that’s when we should leave them alone.

Summary:

There are many more questions about the proper care of equine hooves than there are answers. I could easily have elaborated on the responses to the 10 questions above for many pages of text.

I believe that proper hoof care, and learning to trim a hoof naturally is easy, but not simple. There is much more to keeping a hoof healthy than just the correct trim, but I believe, the trim is the foundation for a healthy hoof. You can get every other aspect, diet, movement and environment exactly right, but if the hoof isn’t being trimmed correctly, soundness may never be achieved.

So I ask you, how could Mother Nature have so completely dropped the ball with the horse and his hoof that we superior humans have the answer for where she messed up? Please believe me that there was no mistake in the hoof that was provided for the horse. It’s a brilliant piece of anatomy. Our job is simply to assist the horse in maintaining their hoof soundness by making wise decisions regarding our horse-keeping practices.


“If a hoof isn’t sound barefoot, it isn’t sound.”

Fun in the Snow!

Keeping the horses fed and making sure they have unfrozen water is sure challenging this time of year.

What goes in, must come out!

My horses tend not to drink as much water when I use those heaters that go inside the 100 gallon Rubbermaid tanks, so I use these heated water buckets. Which mean lots of refilling during the day. Sometimes I dump the warm water from the bucket into the bigger tank and refill the bucket for them. I can better track how much water they're drinking with the smaller buckets also. Keeping them hydrated is as critical in these cold temps as when it's hot out.


Missy, my wonderful quarter horse mare whose been with me the longest is 20 now and has a 5 month old at her side, so she has shelter when she needs it and plenty to eat.

This is Missy's first born, Danny, on the opposite end of their loafing shed. They are in a separate area from Spencer and his buddies. (Neenah, missy's filly, and Jake a 3 year old Quarab rescue, are in with Danny and Missy.)

Just trying to keep everyone fed and as comfortable as possible. I don't blanket my horses unless I see one of them shivering. Keeping hay in front of them usually keeps the shivers at bay.

Corner feeders are in both sides of their shed. I've noticed that horses don't like their butts towards the opening of a shed, facing in, when they are eating, but these guys have learned to accept it.

Jake and Neenah use these fence feed buckets for now. These buckets are a bit frustrating for Jake, because it's not easy for him to get a good mouthful. But that's okay. Plus I think it's up too high for him here, so I started setting them on a lower fence rail. That seems better.

The Parelli Playfield in winter. The pond is frozen and I walked out on it yesterday. Kind of scary, but the ice didn't crack! I told Rich about my excursion out onto the frozen pond and his response was, "The ice must be really thick, huh." He cracks himself up sometimes. I've just learned to roll with it.

Update: It has been snowing all day. It's gotten fairly deep!:0)

Do horses' feet get cold in the snow?

(This is a great question that a friend just emailed me. I had to post it!)

Neenah!

Yes, but they have this awesome system in their hooves. Researchers have discovered that horses have a shunt in the main vain at the back of their hoof, that shuts off the flow of blood to the hoof when the temperatures are really low. Then when hoof temp drops to a certain point, the shunt opens temporarily to allow warm blood to flow through it. Then it closes and on and on it goes to keep their hooves from freezing completely. That function is likely part of the reason why horses get laminitis.

So thinking about a steel shoe attached to the hoof, and steel nails driven into it, the steel, it would seem to me, would radiate the cold into the hoof so that system wouldn't function as efficiently. Shoes are a bad deal in the winter time especially in the snow.

I took this picture on a hike in the Little Book Cliffs, near Grand Junction, Colorado. We were looking for wild horses. We found them and it was kind of scary so I didn't get lots of great pictures. If you look closely, you can see the backs of two wild horses grazing on something. I'm not sure what they were eating out there. A little bit of everything I would imagine so that's why I like to feed my horses a variety of different hays. The brown and white horse is a stallion and he was a little bit snorty about us getting too close to his family. So we didn't.

So now I'm wondering if a foundered horse's hooves would freeze in the snow because the circulation in a foundered hoof isn't functioning normally....hmm. Or would the cold help them feel better. Somehow I don't think so, but I don't know?

Understanding the Relationship Between Colic, Laminitis and Founder.

Some of you have asked me questions that I’m going to try clearing up. To explain this topic in the best way I know how, I’m going to take you back and forth in time a little bit. My time! Just warning ya. Hang on and when you come to the end, you should have a way better understanding of these conditions. If not, let me know what the sticking points are and I’ll try to do a better job in a later post.

Is colic and founder the same thing? No

Can colic lead to founder? Yes

Does founder mean certain death for a horse suffering with it? No

Is shoeing and stall rest the cure for founder? No, not in my opinion and in fact the exact opposite of what we should do.

Clear as mud? Keep reading, it gets worse. Just kidding.

Colic, as most of us know, is another term for bellyache. That’s pretty simple. When a human baby get colicy, we’re simply saying, he has an upset stomach.

So now I want to share a story with you about how confusing the terms colic and founder can get you into serious trouble with your horses and why we all should know the difference.

About 13 years ago, I was just getting back into horses and I purchased my mare, Missy. Before that, I didn’t have much involvement with horses for about 10 years and I never really had a good understanding of colic and founder and had never heard the term laminitis back then. If I did, I let it pass as a complicated thing I would probably never need to know about anyway. I was wrong about that and if that line of thinking sounds familiar to you, please read on.

Me and Missy in 1998

One afternoon, Missy began showing signs of a bellyache.

Now this wasn’t my first experience with colic. My last horse that I lived with back in 1979, was an Appy gelding named Joe. He had gotten into the grain barrel and ate about 25 pounds of sweet feed. (Yes, sweet feed…I know why not just feed them a carton of Hershey bars every day.)


Joe and me in 1979 (Don't laugh at the tack, it was the 70s.)

I came home to find him thrashing around on the ground. Scared out of my wits, I called the vet, I was told to keep him walking. So I walked with him most the night, crying and pleading with him to get up every time he tried to lie down. I blubbered things like, “Don’t you die on me!” It was a very dramatic and overwhelming situation that I will never forget.

Later I was actually told by other horse people including my farrier at the time that my horse had foundered. He hadn’t foundered, but this advice created further confusion of the terms in my mind.

At the time, I didn’t know it would have been okay for him to lie down, just not to roll while he was down there. I made that poor boy walk for hours, but he got through the episode with no further complications that I was aware of. He was a lucky boy and walking him was the right thing to do.

He was also fortunate not to have twisted his intestines when he was thrashing around on the ground. That can happen when they are allowed to roll around on the ground in an attempt to relieve the pain. It’s typically referred to as “twisted gut.” And to visualize that think of balloon animals and how the artist twists the long balloon tubes to create the figures. One twist like that in a horse’s gut and there are only two situations that follow: surgery and/or euthanasia.

So here I was many years later with my beloved mare, Missy, in the same situation, but I was never certain what the cause of her bellyache was, just that she had one. I had switched from sweet feed to mixing my own grains and I added rolled corn which if it isn’t used fast enough can mold. That was just one thought. I don’t do that anymore either.

I called the vet for Missy and explained that I thought my horse was foundering, should I keep walking her, I asked. “NO!” was the response, DO NOT WALK HER!

Well, I couldn’t figure that one out, walking Joe was the right thing to do for him when he “founder!” Right?

Well, Missy was not foundering, she was colicing and yes, I should have been walking her, but the vet had heard “founder” and her advice not to walk her was correct.

So when the vet arrived and determined that I was ignorant. She tubed Missy and my sweet mare pooped for us and seemed fine afterwards.

After that experience, I decided I’d better do some research. So I purchased a big fat veterinarian’s handbook. I tried to figure it all out from that. But it was boring to read and over my head.

So back to now. We know that colic is a bellyache and a horse should be walked and helped to relax. Yes, it’s okay to let them lie down and rest, but not roll. If the colic is from impaction, pooping is always a good sign. If you walk the horse until it poops and seems to feel better, I’d say you got them through it and just keep an eye on them for awhile to make sure they’re behaving normally again. Watch for signs of acute lamintis. That would be sudden tender-footedness or simply look for a ring around the hoof to grow out from the coronet band a few weeks later. That would mean that yes, the horses laminae was affected during the event.

Okay, so as for founder, we need to discuss laminitis to figure out what causes founder and to discuss laminitis, we need to know some basics about hoof anatomy.

First, laminitis is simply the term for inflamed laminae. If you hit your fingernail with a hammer, it not only hurts like a sonofagun, but your finger feels pretty warm afterwards. Well, laminitis is not quite the same thing, but that was a fun analogy and would have related better to mechanical laminitis. Another time!

What is laminae? Well, if you look inside a hoof, you have the coffin bone. That bone is attached to the inside of the hoof wall with laminae.

Think of the laminae as a Velcro fastener. The outside of the coffin bone is covered with dermal laminae, the soft side of the Velcro.

And the inside of the hoofwall is covered with epidermal laminae the rough side of Velcro. The two sides zip together creating a very strong attachment of bone to wall.

The epidermal laminae (wall side) doesn’t actually have a blood supply, but the dermal laminae does and when something goes wrong with that blood supply, the dermal (sometimes called “sensitive”) laminae becomes inflamed and hurts!

At the onset of that inflammation, whatever the cause might be, we’d refer to it as the acute phase of laminitis.

What do you do if you can catch it at this stage. Try to extinguish it. First response for this is to get the hooves under cold running water (That’s what I’ve heard and read anyway.) and call the vet. DON’T walk the horse! (Whether the cold water is the right thing to do, I’m not sure, but it sounds right for now.)

Causes of laminitis could take me days and pages to describe. But it can be caused by mechanical means – shoes, sudden pounding ride on pavement, termed road founder, but mainly, it’s organically caused, or dietary. The horse ate something or a lot of something that he shouldn’t have. That would be considered “organically caused” laminitis.

So back to Joe the Appy who got into the grain barrel. What took place was that he ingested a bunch of sugary grain suddenly.

When that sugar (fructose) made its way to what is referred to as his “hind gut” where fermentation of food rich in fructose takes place, the bacteria that is a normal part of the digestive receives a sudden gusher of the food it thrives on.

In order to handle such a huge influx of all that yummyness, the bacteria must begin reproducing at an alarming rate in order to digest it all. That sudden increase in the population of fructose loving bacteria now enters the blood stream. Weeee!

We all know that blood flows throughout our entire bodies, but for horses whose hooves have a fairly complex circulatory system in order to function properly, blood is the nourishment for the dermal (sensitive “bone-side”) laminae.

But with this new development of 25 pounds of sweet feed in one sitting sent to the hindgut causing the bacteria to reproduce like mad and take a ride on the bloodstream subway, the blood isn’t enriching the laminae any longer, it’s poisoning it. Make sense?

Instead of a nice normal blood supply that the laminae is accustomed to receiving from the heart, it’s now dealing with blood that is out of balance. Inflammation is the first sign that the sensitive laminae is in serious trouble.

Now the horse is in the acute phase of laminitis, but let’s say no one notices and really we normally wouldn’t catch it here. It’s sudden and passes rather quickly.

Like with Joe. He got into the grain barrel when I wasn’t home. He probably did suffer a minor bout of laminitis shortly after the colic. Any major disruption in a horse’s normal life can cause that. But I wouldn’t have known it even if he could have put a big sign on his butt that said “My feet are ON FIRE!”

There was no sign of lameness and likely there wouldn’t have been because his hooves were locked into a pair of steel shoes. But he didn’t founder, if he had, there would have been lameness eventually even with shoes. What should I have done in that case? First! Get rid of the shoes and DON’T force him to walk if he’s not comfortable doing so.

So here’s something to ponder while we’re talking about diet. What happens when a horse doesn’t ingest a huge amount of sugary feed all at one time? What if we are just feeding a few pounds of sweet feed every day?

The horse may not be showing any signs of lameness, so he must not be suffering from laminitis. Right?

Well, no. The constant influx of too much rich food can cause what is referred to as sub-clinical laminitis. That is laminitis with no sign of lameness. The dermal laminae is not doing as well as it would be if the nourishing blood that was circulating through it was well…healthier.

If your horse were in that situation and:

a.) say you go out for a local competitive trail ride one day. Your horse appears healthy and gets a daily work out in the arena, and has shoes on! You figure he should be able to handle a 25 or 30 mile ride. But then he comes home with serious lameness from that ride. After a week of rest, he get’s better and is lame off an on from then on.

Or b.) what if your horse is pregnant and is dealing with a hormonal shift or imbalance that also has an affect on her body in addition to the her sensitive laminae that isn’t feeling so well and she starts to gradually show signs of lameness.

Or c.) a combination of situations or events that are heaped on top of hooves that are already not doing quite as well as they could be, but we aren’t noticing anything out of the ordinary and we just keep doing what we’ve always done, because it’s worked so far.

What I’m saying is that one thing might not cause the laminae to go into the acute stages of laminitis, but a combination of conditions could bring it on and then we are left scratching our heads trying to understand what happened.

Next: What is founder? Well, let’s go back to our Velcro, or laminae and the blood supply it’s receiving is not enriching like it should be. In fact, the dermal laminae is being poisoned. It is becoming weaker. Either suddenly or over time - depending on the situation.

What if we’re taking about a long term condition of a horse who is not on the healthiest diet he could be on? The signs would be lameness off an on, sometimes on trail rides, or after working for a few hours in the arena.

Have you ever heard someone say, “I think he’s just lazy and starts limping to get out of work, because he only limps when…”?

I have. Horses are smart, but in the wild showing signs of lameness means: I’m probably going to be someone’s dinner soon and the herd will kick me out because they don’t want a horse tagging along with them that has a “BBQ” brand on his butt. Some of that mentality never leaves our domestic horses, so trust me, when a horse is lame, he’s genuinely hurting.

So the blood supply to the laminae is no longer nourishing it as much as it could be which means the dermal laminae will start to weaken and begin loosing its attachment to the epidermal laminae. The cells the dermal laminae normally generate go willy nilly! It’s been suggest that as the lamellar attachment is lost in the front of the hoof, and cells are being generated like crazy in the back of the hoof, what results is a hoof that appears long in the heel and shorter in the toe. A founder hoof.

If nothing is done to turn the horse’s situation around, the laminae attachment is eventually simply going to fail. And that is often when a vet will tell you, your horses coffin bone has rotated.

The dermal laminae loses its grip on the other side of the Velcro. It will essentially die. The coffin bone rotates (possibly). That’s founder.

Coffin bone rotation is a controversial thing with natural hoofcare practitioners and I won’t go into that here, but it may or may not happen.

Okay, so then there is chronic laminitis, which is really a foundered hoof that just isn’t getting any better. It could get better if the right things were done for it, but because it can take months and sometimes years to improve that horse’s situation, euthanasia is normally the next step.

There are other causes of founder. Such as “road founder” but I really believe that anything other than organically caused laminitis is not the true cause of founder. I believe a horse who is dealing with sub-clinical laminitis for a period of time and then is put into a second or third situation, trail ride, pregnancy, someone tossing apples over the fence in the fall or when temperatures are just right for grasses to be full of sugar, that horse is set up for full-blown founder.

I want to touch on one more topic for a bit in this long post and that is grass founder. Or acute laminitis caused by letting a horse out on rich pasture in the spring and fall.

Grass is one of the most natural, best sources of nutrition a horse can get. When I purchased Missy, the folks who boarded her would lock her in a stall night and day for weeks at a time during the spring to keep her off the lush green grass.

When I got her, she was a skinny little thing, with a shaggy coat and kind of pathetic looking really. I had no idea that bringing her home and letting her eat the lovely grass on the dairy where we lived at the time would cause her to bloom into a really lovely mare.

Missy, within a few months of coming home, leaves her thin, shaggy body behind.

Before I got her, she was standing in a dark stall, 24/7, getting grain and hay twice a day which they thought was better than letting her eat that wonderfully nutritious grass? NOPE! You can’t fault them for being careful and you only know what you know at the time.
But that logic is backwards in most cases and here is what we need to know in order to understand “when” grass is dangerous.

Grass and grazing on it, isn't necessarily dangerous just because it’s spring, or because it’s wet, or it’s tall, or lush, or green and pretty, or anything of the other reasons I've heard from horse people. In fact, that’s likely when it’s the best thing for a horse! Just not suddenly and for 24 hours a day when they're not accustomed to eating it.

It’s dangerous during times of the year when we are experiencing sunny days and cold nights! Which coincidentally is Spring and Fall, normally.

Why?

Because on sunny days grass becomes little sugar manufacturing plants. Grass is busy generating the stuff it thrives on.

Now if we have a sunny day, and our grasses are generating all kinds of nutrients and sugars, and at night the temperature stays above 40 degrees, the grass will then respirate that excess (toxic levels) of sugars out and keep only the good stuff!

It keeps what it needs to be nutritious and healthy and gets rid of the toxins.

So the next day, the grass is safe. Maybe not safe for an obese horse with Insulin Resistance (IR) issues to be tossed out onto all day, but for a healthy horse, it’s probably not going to hurt him especially if he’s slowly acclimated to it.

But what happens when the night time temps dip below 40 degrees is that the grass plants CANNOT respirate the toxins out. It goes dormant for the night. And the next day when the sun comes back out, the grasses go back to work, generating more fructose - sugar.

After a few sunny days, followed by really cold nights, when I look out at the grass I see the Oompa Loompas marching around out there and their song starts running through my head! Yours too?

So there you have it as best I can explain it and what seems right in my mind. When a horse founders, you’ll eventually see white line separation at the surface of the hoof and that leads to other issues that we can get into later, like White Line Disease and abscessing. I believe all of those issues go hand in hand. If your horse suffers from one of those conditions, chances are another one was in place, we just didn’t realize it.

Here’s the million dollar question: Can any of those conditions be the result of poor trimming and shoeing?

Absolutely!


Missy and Rich having a moment not long after we brought her home.


PS: In the next post, I’ll talk about choke and my Arab, Pearl, who is prone to choking. Choke is often confused with colic.

Trimming a Foundered Horse

One of the problems I've been having with Cricket, the mare who foundered this past Summer while she was being boarded on a friends pasture, was getting her to stand on 3 hooves while I worked on one hoof.

This is Cricket's 2nd founder event. She came here in chronic pain. She was rehabbed within 5 months and was doing well until she was put into a situation that sent her back into acute laminitis.

In my opinion, each time a horse goes into acute laminitis, then founder, the subsequent damage to the laminae is worsened with each event. I suspect that is due to the fact that after foundering, a hoof doesn't ever completely return to the state that it was before the first event due to the damage incurred by the laminae and solar papilae - once compromised, always compromised, at least to some degree. This my not be true in every case, but possibly in most cases.

So Cricket just could not tolerate the pain associated with standing on three hooves. I tried everything I could think of and became very frustrated with her lack of cooperation, but at the same time, I knew she was in a lot of pain. I tried mass doses of pain reliever and finally raising her in a sling, which I thought was my last resort at the time. But this smart little mare prooved me wrong.

For a long time, I couldn't do anything with her feet to help her and the condition of her hooves was really becoming a huge concern. Her frogs were getting extremely thrushy as well, so I knew that was causing much of the pain she was experiencing.

Feeling defeated, I was beginning to wonder if the kindest thing for me to do for her was to put her down.

Cricket laying down for me so I would work on her hooves.

But I started going into her stall with my tools anytime I found her laying down on her chest and I'd ask her to lay down completely on her side. Surprisingly she complied the first few times I did that!

Now, everytime I walk into her stall with my tools, I say, "Lay down Cricket" and she complies. She clearly seems to understand that I'm trying to help her and she's letting me know this is the only way she can grant me access to the bottoms of her hooves. It's pretty amazing and cute!

Partially trimmed founder hoof.

Sometimes she lets out a big sigh, like "Oh good grief, this again...here you go."

Horses are so smart! What more can I say?

Some of you have had questions about lamintis and founder and are confused about the two, how they relate, and the causes. If you would like me to explain what causes laminitis, please let me know and I'll be happy to do that here.

Thanks,
Pat

Delilah's Story

This is an amazing story about a horse - Delilah - who lost her hoof and her family who is standing by her helping her through some difficult procedures.

The photos are amazing. Please take a look and help if you can.

Thanks.

Parelli's Again.

Here is a copy of a thread from our American Hoof Association Forum. I felt so strongly about it, I thought I would add it here.

A natural hoofcare practitioner from New York started the thead with this:

Check out this guy's site.

and then check out some photos of the Parelli's horses feet.

When do they come out with the savvy feed line (filled with molasses)?

My response:

Yep, this is very sad. At this year's conference, Linda brought this new farrier out to introduce him to the crowd. She was elated with his work. "Way more than shoeing!" is what she chirped to the crowd after she'd ridden poor Remmer for about an hour during a lesson with Walter Zettl.

Linda announced that her Dutch Warmblood, Remmer, was moving better than he ever had before. Poor Remmer was obviously hurting to my eye, but he wasn't obviously lame, I think because the hooves were so locked up and he probably had some pain equally in all fours. I didn't even notice Allure’s feet. But I could only see from the stands.

I did notice the 2 and 3 year olds were already wearing shoes. The farriers who started that website and the DVD have Parellis so bamboozled. And the Parellis, who I have the greatest admiration and respect for seem ignorant about hoof care, sadly, for such a bright couple.

I posted my experience about the 2008 conference on my blog because I was so sad about their views on hoof care. They advocate dumping molasses in their horses' water and the water of the students’ horses. Which I didn't know until Kay told me and one of the students there confirmed. It would not surprise me at all if they come out with a sweet feed that has their name on it.

During the 3 days of the conference, if I heard Pat say the word "Natural" once, I heard it a balizzion times. He says it makes his heart hurt to see some of the contraptions people put on their horses, torture devices to get the horses to cooperate with them. But his heart is okay with those hooves apparently. My heart was hurting for their horses.

At a tour stop in Billing a few months prior to the Conference, I personally handed Pat two copies of Joe Camp's book, with a note from Joe and a note from me inside along with my business card. I hoped that they read his book, but Joe said a few negative things about Linda (he was complimentary of Pat, but NOT Linda) so anything else he had to say in his book probably turned her off...if she read it. It would have had that affect on me as well.

So Bummer! Parelli's have such a profound impact and millions of horse people all over the world, including the Queen of England and her trainers! They are teaming up with amazing people like Driving Instructor, Nate Bowers whose dad was the most well known expert in natural driving trainer in the country, and the Dog Whisperer - Cesar Millan, and Dressage Horsemaster, Walter Zettl.

And now these farriers who came up with a tricky way to make owners think they are onto some amazing new contrivance for correcting hooves with shoes. And Parelli's they've gotten so far behind these farriers, their DVD is now advertised on Parelli's website!

And THAT has had a profound impact on this one Parelli student. And believe me, I’m not just someone who has dabbled in their training methods for a few years. Although, I've only passed the first Level assessment test with my mare, the Parelli professional who evaluated my test announced to a crowd of students that I was sitting with, that my test was 500 times better than his own. I was knocked out by that. I’ve been a practicing Parelli since 1996.

I'm a Parelli Amabassador! You should see my house! I have ALL the Parelli Level's programs (old set & new set) I have two sets of his original VHS tapes from his earliest days, and every set of DVD's they've introduced since then, Liberty and Horse Behavior and the Success Series, as well as the new Patterns programs.

My closet is full of Parelli shirts, jackets, coats, hats as well as pins, keychains, etc. In my barn, I have 5 carrot sticks and halters, so many different length ropes, I can’t keep track of them all.

I have the complete set of Savvy Club DVDs and CDs. We've devoted an acre of our property to a Parelli Playground AND I have tickets to a conference in Reno next year!

Two years ago I ordered a Parelli Saddle with my name on the gold plate on the back of the cantle along with all the accessories – a year later it arrived on my door step, that’s how back logged they were on their saddles!

I have invested thousands on what these people offer, because when it comes to their theories, I'm a believer! I use what I’ve learned to help other horse owners and with every customer’s horse and they "usually" love to cooperate with me.

It's not just about getting along with horses, it's learning the psychology of horses that works on any animal, including people!

But what they're doing with their horses' hooves and now that they are advocating a farrier who nails shoes and pads onto hooves with underun heels and long toes and they use a laser level to impress them by shoeing horses from the knees down, goes against everything I know to be true about the most important part of the horse besides his mind...okay...deep breath.

Sorry to get so emotional…this one really hits a nerve, but I'm glad you brought it up. I wish we could do something about it.