Shoes or no shoes ?

We have 5 Clydes.. 2 aged geldings, An 11yrs mare her 5yrs filly and 3yrs son {gelded}.. I have been trying the “barefoot trim” on the mare and daughter as done by Pete Ramey and have to say it works for me.. they do a mixture of field and road work and the feet have never looked better. Also because the heels are kept well down and the toe backed up I think it helps with the cpl issue these Clydes have as I feel it opens up the heels and thus improves the pump effect to help drain the endemas. I plan to gradualy change them all over to it.. As I say “It works for ME “.
John

Shoe if you have to. Other wise bare foot is great. Either cheaper or easier depending on who is doing the work. Good for the horse foot health. You just need to know when “you have to shoe”. A lot of road work, rocky trails, and hard logging are the most common examples. I have done a far bit of logging with out shoes, but I wasn’t trying to make money most of the time. A shod logging horse will move bigger logs and make more money. It doesn’t hurt the horse to log bare foot.

I just sold a horse and one of the reasons was she needed shoes on her front hoofs.

I also agree with Mitch it is easy to do the trimming your self, but it would be nice to have some one show you how. I think you could mess up a trim pretty easily if you did not know what you where doing.

I pretty much keep mine shod year-round. I agree that barefoot is best, but I have found it to be lacking when traveling gravel roads, ledgy ground, or for traction in the woods.

As I have said in other posts, the biggest problem with shoeing is not being able to afford to ave it done for you at intervals that will protect the health of the hoof. I shoe my own, and therefore I can keep the hooves trimmed and reset the shoes every 6-8 weeks.

Over 24 years I have played with both with and without, and I have found more benefits with shoes than without. Not saying the hoof is made to have shoes on, but done right, shoes do not have to be detrimental.

I agree with Mitch, handling the horses feet is a big communication builder, whether trimming or shoeing. So don’t let the choice to shoe or not be an excuse not to handle their feet. Even if you hire someone else to do it all for you, handling the feet regularly to perform something other than picking will be valuable.

Carl

I’ve never had to fit boots but the general opinion seems to be that the heat fitted boot is the best. If the horse has never been shod the transition seems to be a lot quicker..like 6 weeks..I have to say I was a bit sceptical at first but after seeing it work on my own team I would have no problem recomending it. When I mention it to most folks they seem to think all you’re doing is running the horses with no shoes..not so…totaly different trim to what our farrier calls a pasture trim..
John

From what I can gather Mitch its a rubber boot made of a rubber that softens with light heat and you can mould into the right shape. Only need them for the transition period and only for horses that have had shoes on usually. Google “barefoot for soundness” and that page lists suppliers for draft horses. Drafts apparantly respond really well to this type of trim…Bob h on this forum does this trim and mentioned it on the shoeing draft horse discussion..
John

@jac 18690 wrote:

When I mention it to most folks they seem to think all you’re doing is running the horses with no shoes..not so…totaly different trim to what our farrier calls a pasture trim..
John

This is a point alot of people miss, John. I use the ‘high performance barefoot trim’ they discuss on the ‘barefoot for soundness’ site. Not only do I rarely need shoes (yes there are times when shoes are beneficial), the horses have no transition time when I do choose to shoe. Keep in mind, I only shoe for specific jobs….skijoring for instance, where speed is crucial…..and only for short periods (less than 12 weeks). When I pulled my skijoring horse’s shoes in March, we were off running down gravel roads the next week.