Before beginning our solo ride yesterday, I dragged out the hoof stand and did Jasper's feet. I was surprised how fast they've grown--he had about 1/3" of hoof wall, has been ridden regularly, and was last done 3 weeks ago. I should probably be doing him more frequently. The time has a way of slipping by--I need to get a calendar up and start keeping better track.
Fronts--the front left is finished and the other isn't.
Hinds. The left is done.
Any suggestions? I've been doing my own feet now for about 6 weeks, and am enjoying the challenge and the work of it. Thanks to freshman anatomy and all the hours spent researching my senior paper ("Barefoot horses: 'New' Developments in horsekeeping"), I decided I felt comfortable tackling the challenge. I also love that I don't have to listen to my old farrier's opinions about keeping my horse barefoot!
5 comments:
When looking down at the sole (4th pic) it looks like you could be a bit more aggressive in taking the hoof wall down. There still appears to be a bit of separation between the wall and sole.
Being more aggressive with my trimming is the hardest part for me!
Good work!
I didn't notice any separation, I think that photos can be a little deceptive. I posted up Phebes hoof photos ONE TIME. People thought her heels were high. She has a mild club on her left front and the heels were down to the sole plane...can't go any lower than that people! With all that said take my suggestion tongue in cheek because as I said photos are deceptive and you are looking at the real thing. It did look like you could take off a little more off the outgrown hoof. But all said and done Jasper has nice little feet! Awesome you wrote a paper on natural hoof care. Are you booting at all?
Thanks, Heather! I agree--I'm just learning and so being aggressive is where I'm definitely lacking. Looking at the pictures, I can see he's still got a bit of wall I could be taking down, but it makes me so nervous to do it! I'll bite the bullet and do a bit more rasping, though.
EG-I also agree--I don't see separation, but I do see hoof wall that could be taken away. I'm still too chicken to be more aggressive. THanks for the suggestions, though, I will attempt to rasp more wall!
I think you're doing fine! You can wait a week or two and see how things look. Feel with your fingers around the sole area for any uneven or bumpy spots and smooth those out.
E.G. - that was me, I didn't think the heels were so much as too long as just underneath/underslung (farther forward) looking in the photo. You are right about how photos can be deceiving, and that could be all it was.
I just posted new photos of Chief's feet, and in one hind shot the foot looks really long in the toe, and it's not - but the photo really distorted that.
Yeah, it is all the angle of lens vs. the hoof, things can look kind of "wonky" when they really aren't too bad! The frogs in photos often look like inzees instead of outzees. Chief has beautiful hooves. So you are doing something right :)
The biggest flaw I see in my own horse's hooves is she toes in slightly on the left (which is also the mild club) so she has a lot of load bearing on the inside hoof wall, the wall tends to flare on that side from the extra torque and load. I'm not quite sure if that should be left alone, or if an attempt to balance would throw other things out of whack? Doug has been slowly working on her fronts and she is just....almost....fitting those 0.5 gloves. Her angle right now is just slightly too upright for a perfect fit.
I love barefootin!
Post a Comment