Show off your Horse Shoes

Jason, I was gonna PM you, but then thought others might benefit from this info as well.

When you post a reply, scroll down below the ‘post reply’ button and you will see a link that says ‘manage attachments’. Hit that button and you can browse your drive for the photo you want and it should show up in the message.

Hope that helps. I’ll know it worked when I see your shoe! Jennifer.

Is everyone using shoes on all four feet or do some do the fronts only and what do you think about that.

Here are photos of my Drive Caulk shoes that I save mostly for ice, but they do have mud caulks as well. I have tried several other incarnations of traction shoes, but for working horses on icy ground these are the best solution I have used, chips fly, and there is no slipping. Note two toe caulks so no skating at the toe, inside caulk is turned to prevent slipping out, and to help minimize striking. As far as injury from caulking, the old timers always said, “it’s a long way from the heart”!

hope the photos come through ok, Carl

Git-Up-Doc:

How do you post large photos in the main body of post? I have done attachments, but these are larger and clearer.

Thanks.

George

I finally have a minute to expound on the ice shoe thing.

Practical application of animal power depends on giving advantage to the animals when applying their power to a task. Frozen conditions, especially ice, or at least hard packed frozen snow, offer incredible advantage for transporting logs, or any heavy load for that matter.

Borium and drill-tek offer some protection against slipping if you are just traveling on a icy road, or crossing some icy patches on a skid trail, but when you get 600, 800, or 1000 BF on a sled on ice you want to have shoes with fail-safe traction.

I got several pair of these drive caulk shoes about 15 years ago, and found them to be excellent. There are dropped forged steel so they wear very little. The weak link is that they haven’t been made for years, and I eventually ran out of caulks. Last winter I was told of an old-timer who had a bucket of shoes in his barn, including three un-opened boxes of caulks.

I only use these shoes in the winter, to save them explicitly for use on ice. During the 3 other months, I use a store bought pulling shoe, which are virtually useless right now with all the rain and ice we’ve been getting. I plan to put on the drive caulks this weekend, then get the bobsled out and start packing a trail.

They do look dangerous, but I have found that the horses get very few injuries, and it is always winter when I use them, so the cuts are clean, and generally heal quickly. The biggest problem is they cut up the barn floor wicked.

Carl.