Shoeing working horses

[Lanny Collins]

Sorry, forgot the link to the glue on shoes.

http://www.soundhorse.com/index.htm

[Does’ Leap]

Lanny:

I spoke to a fellow from the website. Sounds like a good system, but prohibitively expensive – roughly about $200 / horse in materials.

George

[sickle hocks]

Glue ons are often used for therapeutic work where there just isn’t a lot of wall left to nail into…as an example, when a vet does a really extreme resection of the wall where there is separation and necrosis of the laminae. Staying on for longer than eight weeks would be a bad reason to choose glue-ons…a horse that’s working in shoes is going to need a re-set by then.

George there are lots of kinds of rim pads. As mentioned above, there are snowball rim bads…I think these work great front and back and they aren’t that much trouble to put on. There are also wedge rim pads, or rim pads to absorb concussion, etc…sometime’s they are used to just lengthen the hoof…the main thing is that the pad does not cover the entire sole, it’s mainly under the web of the horseshoe.

The advantage of the rim pad is that with the sole left exposed it is less likely to get soft, and there is less of an anaerobic environment for thrush and other things to get started in. The full pad provides more protection for the sole…but paradoxically it can also make the sole weaker (kind of like your bare feet in the spring after you’ve been wearing boots all winter). So it depends on the situation and the horse and the job whether a full pad is desirable, or how long they should stay on. A packing material is placed under a full pad to inhibit anaerobic bacteria and to keep things clean…usually something antiseptic…forshners or pine tar and oakum.
There is some good to be said for modern chemistry..there are now two-part packings that can be applied with or without a pad and can be really valuable at absorbing concussion on some sensitive soled horses…Equipack is one brand name. They can include an antibacterial agent. Sticky stuff to work with but effective sometimes. There are lots of different approaches to using it and a few tricks to applying it without adhering yourself to your barn 🙂

I think once you’re dealing with an unsoundness and making decisions about pads it’s probably worth having a farrier out for at least few shoeing cycles to sort out something that works that you can follow…

ps … plus one for getting a simple forge going. Even if you don’t fit hot, you’ll have a much better time shaping. Cold banging draft size shoes is going to be super hard on your elbows and wrists and not a lot of fun. If you can find an anvil with a round topped horn you will find it better suited to working hot than a cold-shoer style horn with the flattened top

just my two cents…

[Mac]

Holy Christmas! 400 to shoe one horse?!?! My guy does fronts only for 15/head. And thats only if I’m too lazy to shoe ’em. Going rate around here is 20 fronts only. Thats any size horse. I believe if I had to pay what ya’ll do I’d pass out. Wow..
Mac

[Author]

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