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Post by Yann on Jul 23, 2009 10:47:09 GMT 1
Absolutely, diet is usually the key to solving these sorts of issues and there's often a limit to what you can do depending on where and how you keep your horse. Even so, I'm not sure you can always solve the problem with every horse, Susan's Flynn is still footy on stones even though she's gone to tremendous lengths to control his diet. I suspect Tess would be the same, although Rio might not.
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Post by Susan on Jul 23, 2009 11:35:02 GMT 1
Yann and others what KC also pointed out was the larger breed horse may well never be 100% on stony surfaces and that I can live with as you ( or most know) I have these amazing hoof wings so life isnt stopped at all from doing all I want to do. He has always had an issue to gain enough concavity which is important. But we always strive for perfection and who knows I may get nearer to it as time goes on. It isnt that he cant handle stones as you have said but he wont handle them for a longer hack. I can ride across the car park which is road plannings and up the track to the road which is again earth embedded with road planning and loose ..and I find them the worse.
What we havent also touched on is we have each horse with its own history and damage it will have suffered in the period it was in shoes. We have not taken into consideration the enviroment the horse will have had before it went into shoes and then of course the diet we have talked about. Even before we had the knowlege we have and had. Many know Flynn came out of shoes in a bad way. That flaring we had seriously stressed his hoof wall and inner structure. Who knows if that can ever be repaired enough adding the excess weight he carried all though that period. So I dont think we will ever have a real clear black and white answer to each and every horse. I do not believe we can ever say a horse should be right at a certain point in time either. It is all so different and as you have mentioned the enviroment we keep them in and of course our own expectations. I do not see wearing a boot as failure either. If you consider a shoe nailed on for 24/7 365 days when you may only need them to be out of the paddock or stable for perhaps an hour to two a day at max.. then I cant see how the shoe is the best answer if it can be addressed in another way. Shoes nailed on are never for the best of the hoof quality. They may well be best for the horse and its owner and what they want to do. That is not about a horses hoof quality but what we choose as owners. That can be for many reasons as well. Even remedial as in Junes shetland and its bad laminitus. So it will always be a balancing act. Plus we have to add the quality of farrier applying the shoe.. and we know sadly we do suffer a lack of enough good quality farriers and also trimmers and it is in their hands we do have leave it do mostly. Oh in an ideal world.. but we dont live in one.. I think this subject will always have a huge learning curve for us all.So circulation & LGL are only part of it I feel.
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Post by mandal on Jul 23, 2009 12:03:56 GMT 1
Susan I agree and even the 'professionals' are on a huge learning curve atm. Laminitis especially is getting lots of research so I feel we are in an really exciting time where knowledge is being gained and different ways are able to be accessed by the ordinary horse owner so we no longer have to be totally reliant of what one or two professionals say we can do our own research and make imo more informed decisions about our horses. I don't see using boots as 'failure' either Susan and I especially like the fact that they are only applied when required. I think I tried to mention other aspects apart from diet affecting horses feet... I do agree it depends on how damaged or under developed the hoof is to start with as well as diet and management afterwards. I suppose a 'normal' 'model' horse would have fully developed feet at around age 7/8 so apart from sorting out 'issues' horses may have a good few years of development to catch up on. I also wonder if it can ever be really caught up in some horses as the weight of the adult horse on under developed structures may to some extend inhibit development. Just musing here...so to go back to blood supply to the foot, I wonder if an adult horses weight on an under developed foot will inhibit circulation...
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Post by Yann on Jul 23, 2009 12:54:55 GMT 1
I'm not sure how true this is, I know several big heavy rock crunching barefoot horses. I suspect they're prone to the same variables as all the others.
Nor do I, far from it. But if the boots aren't good enough to avoid spoiling the riding experience on a regular basis and limit what the horse and owner can do together then they are an issue.
That's the big if - for some horses and owners it can't.
Couldn't agree more - I think I've already posted that I quite possibly wouldn't have reshod my horses without the farrier I now use being around. If you don't have access to a decent farrier then that makes a big difference.
I think it probably does the opposite and causes inflammation, you can get red hot feet on horses with poor structure recently out of shoes.
Some horses don't seem to progress though as you say, there might well be a genetic component to that as well.
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Post by Amanda (S Yorks) on Jul 23, 2009 14:48:16 GMT 1
Exactly how do you know this is the case though?
My mare has a whole bundle of issues that led to me reshoeing her last September after 4 years of being barefoot. I knew that she'd gradually become less comfortable over stones and rough going over the last year or being unshod, but thought that I had it under control by limiting her grass intake and booting her over the worst of the stones. Prior to that I could ride her over all surfaces with no apparent problems, bootless.
So why then, when shoes went back on, did she improve so dramatically that she was a different horse whilst in the FIELD? Not over stones, concrete or gravel, but on soft, grassy pasture. I had liveries who were new to the yard and in the dark about her lengthy history commenting on how much happier she seemed, how she was moving better and even more importantly, how she was interacting with the herd and playing more. This was people who barely knew her at the time seeing a very marked difference in my girl. If she'd been comfortable on her bare feet in the field beforehand, why did she only display this behaviour after shoes went on?
My belief is that despite appearances she was never fully comfortable on her own shoes, at least not in the latter days of being shoeless. No-one picked it up, not me nor her vets or EP and that was despite repeated testing with hooftesters and rock hard hooves. She didn't bruise or abcess, have WLD, thrush or any of the things you might think would have hinted at there being an underlying problem.
Actually, as far as I'm concerned it's about providing the best possible quality of life and standard of care that I can for my horse and our circumstances. I know that shoeing isn't fantastic for her hooves and that I'll pay the price for it, in my case it means pulling shoes over winter, hoofcasting as necessary and reducing or even stopping riding for the period of time she's without them.
It will be really interesting to see what happens when her shoes come off, and also, if the same thing in terms of improved movement, attitude and temperament will occur when they go back on in the Spring.
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Post by Susan on Jul 23, 2009 15:23:51 GMT 1
This is the problem. we have Yann with his horses I have mine Amanda has hers but they are all different. Yann speaks of a heavy horse doing work on rocks and stones fine. But and it the BUT huge BUT they are all different. We cant compare them to each other then to say one can do this and one can do that. They have their own history it wont be the same. They have so many different variables it is a minefield. KC was making a more general statement that the larger horse often can have more difficulties to do a 100% job all round unshod. What ever situation we compare to we will have the ones who do and the ones who dont.
When a part sentence or even a whole one is snipped to answer without all of my post it can also take out the context it was written in. Yann uses my ref to boots.. and says if they arnt good enough then it isnt any good. I fully agree but my sentence included my own custom made boots which do allow me total freedom. I have had useless boots and the spoilt what I could do.
Shoes we believe from what we know mask feelings so for a start they will allow the horse to feel more comfortable then it may well feel unshod if the that statement is true. Then we also have the half inch of metal lifting the foot structure away from the stones it would feel if unshod that again will make it feel more comfortable. Like a boot would.. but if the boot still does not allow comfort and a shoe does that leave me to believe it is masking feelings. So we could go on to say is it right to mask what nature gave the horse the sensation to feel because we want to do more then the that unshod foot is able to do. I am not saying that is right or wrong before I need a tin hat but opening up another point to the debate. I have often ridden out with shod horses and seen them trample over places Flynn takes care with? it isnt the stones of discomfort but security of footing. He is saying I need to take care. Nature gave them the feet to do that. Self preservation I believe. If it is slippy he will slow down and take his time and I mean when it is really slippy. The shod horses are sliding and slipping but regardless still continue on. Is that not allowing nature to tell them as it was meant to be. What ever we do we compromise in some way simply keeping horses in a domestic enviroment. So it comes down to how much we want to compromise for what we wish to do.
Amanda you say your horse simply was not comfortable in her own shoes as in unshod( I think you meant) It may be there is another underlying issue that even experts you called on had no answer to. So that left them with only one answer shoe.. well nothing wrong.. if that is your choice. To then take them off for periods of time is at least allowing the foot to restructure and rest and then go back to shoes. That is what did happen many years ago. It is how we have moved on to shoe 365 days a year and continue and not give any break that perhaps causes the many more issues we in this modern time see.
It is a debate that will continue for a long time.. but then that is what DG do.
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Sam C
Olympic Poster
Posts: 737
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Post by Sam C on Jul 23, 2009 15:41:09 GMT 1
I think Yann might have hit the nail on the head with this one with the theory of reduced distortion/expansion either limiting or maybe stopping inflammation alltogether. For me that's a more likely explanation in these cases than just reduced circulation alone, where any raised pulses or heat are gone within a couple of days of being shod. If you get things right you can reduce inflammation within a matter of hours (which is what I think is happening here), whereas I believe reducing circulation to the point of numbing the foot would be a long term effect over many months/years - by shoeing anyway, you can do it very quickly with cryotherapy but the two are quite different!
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Post by mandal on Jul 23, 2009 16:14:27 GMT 1
So if shoes do reduce inflammation we must then ask is this good? I suppose it boils down to the cause of inflammation after all I don't believe a healthy hoof can become inflammed from exercise, provided it's built up gradually, so surely there must be something underlying going wrong? Take diet as a common reason for soreness... the hoof is inflammed due to dietry imbalances (high sugar for eg).... the hoof is shod and horse is no longer sore. problem solved?? I know most of us on here wouldn't go about it this way but ime this is what often happens and the diet problems remain we just are no longer aware what effects they are having on the feet. This is one of the reasons I believe so strongly that BF is so important as it is pushing Farriers,Vets, Scientists and owners to really look at what is going on and take steps to find out and resolve issues that may have remained with only a sticking plaster treatment. Hopefully many of these things will become better understood so we can all make better choices for our horses. ;D
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Post by Yann on Jul 23, 2009 16:15:23 GMT 1
Hi Susan, it wasn't my intention to take you out of context - I think I made the point about boots being fine if they worked. Even that isn't absolute - although I could go and buy a pair of hoof wings too and have them stay on come what may there simply isn't enough tread on the bottom of them for the riding we do. Me too, I would consider a horse to be lame in those circumstances, and I would be surprised if it would be any better shod. Both my horses are 100% in boots. I don't think you can discount the individual horse here either, some are simply more careful than others. However in my experience you won't see a lot of difference over rough ground between shod feet, booted feet and really good bare feet, if they're comfortable, they're comfortable. The thing is that when you're booted the horse has even less information about what it's walking on, unless you're on concrete the frog and sole will still be doing some sort of job even in a shod foot. Slippy ground is always a contentious one, everybody seems to have different experiences with this. My own experience, and we have a lot of slippery ground and steep slopes to hack, is that my horses are much more confident on bad going with shoes on. Simply a function of the extra depth of bite into the ground. Polished road surfaces are a different matter though, give me a boot or bare foot there any day
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Post by arabmania on Jul 23, 2009 17:56:04 GMT 1
i can only account for that of my own experiences and that of my daughters (arabheaven). my mares were both fine in shoes but i was always concerned about the foot not working correctly and HATED watching the shoes being put on and the live soles sliced away. i could see WLD during shoeing but wasn't able to treat it. One of my mares went lame with her previous owners if she even cast a shoe in the field. Both mares had flare. ever had LGL ? who knows? both are now barefoot and conditioning well. on high fibre feeds only and magnesium supplement. scarce field and fed haylage. both cope well over all terrains. one mare is being clean traxed tomorrow (finally) to treat the ongoing WLD. My daughter has never looked back with our homebred gelding since going barefoot. he copes over all terrains and is also fed high fibre (he tied up last year after taking advice to change his feed from a well known food company ). I cannot seem to understand the logic in vets advice for treating LGL and laminitis. I fully understand the 'keep off grass for a while and lose the weight' advice but the ongoing box rest with heart bar shoes and deep bed horse trots up sound ( which he probably will do immediately) and still on box rest? i check digital pulse everyday and have a hard wire brush to check the whiteline every few days. if my mares get it i want to catch it early. this cannot be done with shoes on. it can't!
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Post by mandal on Jul 26, 2009 9:51:31 GMT 1
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Post by goldenhorse on Jul 26, 2009 10:36:03 GMT 1
I have read through this (twice!) with great interest, though I admit that the more I read about hooves and laminitis the more my head has started to spin! I have noticed something - (though despite all my reading not really worked out what is going on) - with the older mare. She is a laminitic, and had it in her back feet previously. She has been without back shoes since the other mare came, and only recently I decided to try all four without shoes. I have stuck it out for a while, but it is pretty disastrous at the moment - as she has practically come to a standstill! However that isn't why I am adding this, the curious part is that she has more heat and more obvious raised pulses in the front feet since the shoes came off, somedays she has only had pulses in the front feet. Now obviously it is something to do with circulation - hence my interest in this thread - but as to exactly what is going on - well, I did say I had got to the head spinning stage so I'm not even going to guess, but I'd be interested in anyone else's guesses!
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Post by geeup on Jul 26, 2009 12:59:58 GMT 1
www.wildhorseresearch.com/Documents/GPS%20Tracking.htmso the larer the paddock, the more movement, I ownder how much grass or calories need to be consumed to replace the energy. Would turinng out to a large grass paddock acutalluy be as benifical as stabling and turing out to a small one? how much is laminaitus caused by lack of exercise compared with too much sugar? Is this feesable? Is it possible to have a calories in and out score ofr horses?
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Post by beany1 on Jul 26, 2009 13:21:43 GMT 1
Inflammation has a purpose - it brings the white cells to the area that needs healing. Swelling too has a purpose, and sometimes I think we get obsessed with wanting to reduce swelling and inflammation when it is actually part of the necessary healing process. However, reducing the inflammation does also reduce pain, which is a good thing of course. Oedema damages the laminae, and cold-hosing reduces both the oedema and inflammation and gives some relief with laminitis. So would shoeing bring the same relief> It seems to for the short-term. At what cost - as Mandal says, the research is moving forward right now and hopefully there will be some answers soon. If shoes are found to be beneficial in the disease process I would be the first to put shoes on!
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Post by geeup on Jul 26, 2009 14:15:07 GMT 1
well said beany ;D
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