Draft horses barefoot?

[Claddagh Farms]

Carl, thanks for clearing that up….not coming from a purely horse background, and being tighter than the bark on a tree in winter I see shoes as an unnecessary expense in my case. I’ve also seen some poor shoeing jobs and have heard plenty of complaints about ferriers and lame horses. I am sure this is equally true in the natural hoof world. Bottom line is, unless we look after our horses we let them down and they don’t give us their best.

I think, however, if we do plan on doing winter logging…given the terrain on my farm…I will look into some kind of caulked boots for Tony. He is very good about me working on his hooves, but I was warned that he has to be tied solidly in a stock to be shod…. I may just be a big softy…but I don’t think I could do that to the old fella.

[carter]

My own experience of going barefoot, is in winter, the warmth and ability of the hooves to flex (being unconstrained by metal) meant snow does not ball up in hard icy lumps, so the horses don’t totter about unbalanced. They can walk more surely on sheet ice too.
I do not ask them to move large amounts of timber, so cannot comment on how it would be then, in woodland.
I agree with Carl, that whichever way we choose, poor trimming and shoeing will do great harm, so do it right, or get someone who can.

[Author]

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