The shoes have came off, the nutrition has been met, what can we expect now? I was my biggest skeptic. Being a farrier I came from shoeing horses to going barefoot. Before I would ever talk to anyone about natural hoof care I had to prove it to myself. I pulled the shoes and trimmed my own horses for about a year and watched them. Right in front of my eyes I saw the hooves transform from thin hoof walls, tender soles and shabby frogs to hard healthy hooves, thick hoof walls, healthy frogs and tough soles that can go everywhere with ease.
That doesn’t mean I don’t have to use boots, I always take my boots with me when I ride just in case. The front feet are usually all you have to boot but the back feet can be booted also. It depends on how and where you ride as to which one you need. You always need to start your ride barefoot. Take your boots with you and put them on if your horse starts getting tender. This will allow your horses’ feet to condition. The more he walks barefoot the better his feet will be.
It takes about one year for the hoof to grow from the cornet band to the ground. Now the new hoof has grown out and the healthy hoof is on the ground. The nail holes from the shoes are long gone from the bottom of the hoof and you can see the hoof wall is a lot thicker. If the horse is moving a lot, the hoof will have a polished look like it has been buffed. I have seen this transformation time and time again and it still amazes me.
There is no magic in the way we trim. We just take off what nature would if the horse was in the wild and leave what needs to be left. Horses in the wild don’t have a lot of the problems that domestic horses have like founder, contracted heels and navicular. In my opinion these are man-made by the diet, shoes or unnatural lifestyle. I have seen each one of these conditions get better with a natural trim and more natural lifestyle, but sometimes the damage is irreversible.
I try to give my horses the most natural lifestyle I can. I have a few that are prone to founder so they can’t be out on pasture. I don’t want them to just stand in a dry lot or stall all day, so we have fixed an alleyway from their feeding area to their water source around the perimeter of the fence. By the water source it opens up wider and there is shade there. We put rocks in part of the area they walk over to get to and from water to hay to help condition their feet. They have to move to get to water and then back to the hay, somewhat like a wild horse would do.
Like I said earlier, “I was my biggest skeptic,” but now I know this is the best thing I have ever done for my horses. I will never put another shoe on a horse.
