09.27.06

Barefoot natural horse hoof care introduction

Posted in Horses for the horse crazy at 7:54 pm by petArtist Cmoses

Lately I’ve been reading and seriously investigating barefoot horsekeeping and am quite taken with the concept. Our horses Abby and Willow’s Bask went to Acadia National Park’s carriage roads barefoot for a week, and Gilford (age 3 percheron/arabian cross) has never been shod and I don’t really want to shoe him either.

It’s real interesting, I bought Pete Ramey’s book Making Natural Hoof Care Work For You and am studying the concepts and practices that are being developed by him, Jaime Jackson, and others. Ramey makes the point that for 7000 years horses were ridden barefoot in all conditions, and much more aggressively than today, before metal shoes somehow became necessary.

They describe wild horses, all having hooves tough as rock– including their soles– that when captured and penned or pastured for a while their hooves start to deteriorate and they get domestic horse soundness problems. They believe the horse’s natural state is to be outside 24/7, moving almost constantly, traveling 20-plus miles daily over ALL types of terrain including the worst rocks and gravel, foraging for fiber and eating nothing rich or concentrated.

I agree that this is what nature intended. Being unable to duplicate these conditions with most domestic horsekeeping, the goal of natural hoof care as Pete Ramey explains it is to trick the hoof into RESPONDING as if these conditions WERE present. Simply put, the hoofwall is kept short and rounded, and the sole and frog are encouraged to contact the ground to toughen up and to stimulate new hoof growth. Through this process over a few months’ time, given variable footing and lots of moving around, the sole and frog become thick and tough, the sole naturally concaves (dishes upward away from the ground), and the hoof wall becomes hard and strong.

A horse wearing shoes cannot toughen up its sole because the sole is lifted away from the ground, not just by the thickness of the shoe but by hoof walls which are usually longer than they need to be and grow ever longer with the horseshoe shielding them from normal wear. As well, it is common farrier practice to pare away sole, thus it can never develop truely thick callous.

Totally-pasture-kept horses, even when barefoot, almost never toughen up their soles as much as necessary. They need varied footing or else to be used frequently on varied footing– typical pastures are just too soft. Packed hard dirt pens can actually be helpful in this situation (remembering that the horse must also move around a lot.) Some people are putting pea gravel into areas their horses frequent, to help toughen up their soles. People conditioning their horses’ bare feet can use hoof boots for riding in extreme conditions and during transitioning to barefoot.

Riding and driving on pavement is working well for our horses, not tons of trotting but just wearing the hoof excess off. When hooves are kept properly trimmed in this barefoot method, the sole becomes rock-hard, thick, shiny and calloused and not susceptible to bruising. The hoof itself (measured from coronet to toe) is kept short, rarely over 3 1/2 inches long. Between the trimmer’s visits, the horse owner can use a rasp and do his own shaping-up. Some learn enough to maintain their own barefoot trimming.

Pete Ramey, formerly a traditional farrier, cares for 700 barehoof horses in north Georgia. I’ve read about– and seen pictures of the hooves of– barefoot trail horses used daily in the Rockies and barefoot Tennessee Walkers used daily AT GAIT in the Tennessee mountains (which are quite rocky and FAR from dry.) These horses are going barefoot with almost total success and soundness. And competitive endurance horses going barefoot and wearing hoof boots are doing 250-plus-mile rides over 5-6 days, completely sound.

I have seen Abby, a 20 year old morgan/percheron mare we owned for 6 years, with soles AND HOOFWALLS becoming tough in a few months’ time, and I never would have believed it was possible with her. When we kept her she was always shod, had crumbly hoofwalls, pulled a shoe off frequently, and she has dropped heels/flat feet in front.

Barefooting will be an experiment you can follow here, with our own horses as the guinea pigs. Our (open-minded) farrier Robin is reading Pete Ramey’s book and will use his trimming guidelines on our 20-yr.-old Arabian mare, our 3-yr.-old perch/arab, and our yearling perch/arab. Since we live in New England, where the most common reaction to the barefoot concept is well it’s too wet up here for barefoot to work, we will be a great test. Stay tuned for progress reports! And please COMMENT on your own barefoot horse experiences (below, just click COMMENTS) !

Websites on barefoot horse care–
Pete Ramey’s site
Articles by Pete Ramey
Jaime Jackson’s website
general barehoof information
heal the hoof, practice and education

BOGHS lameness research center in Plymouth, NH (2005)

For RELATED POSTS, search petArtistWithPeaches on:
barefoot
trail riding
hoof boots
__________________
Connie Moses, petArtist– website: PortraitsWithHorses.com
(horse and pet portraits)

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