My Barefoot Journey with Joe

 

**In pulling together pictures for this blog I know see the importance of photographing hooves on a regular basis. My mentor continually reminds me to take more heel off the right front and I now see that I had it lower in March of 2019 than it is today. I now have a dedicated folder for hoof pictures and have them all dated. ***

My barefoot hoof journey started 3 years ago when I had Joe's shoes pulled and learned how to maintain his hooves myself. It was the answer to one of the deepest layers in the onion of his unsoundness. For the past 3 years I’ve been balancing his hooves on my own on a weekly basis. I have my own set of hoof knives and a few favorite rasps. Every few months I spend a Sunday at a clinic with the mentor that taught me how to balance hooves. He checks my work and usually tells me I’m still leaving too much heel. He makes a comment on how Joe’s front hooves almost look like they belong to a horse now, instead of a pony. I spend time on those Sundays watching him trim the other horses in the clinic, always learning new things from each different hoof. Each time I go home a little more confident in my skills and a little less afraid that I am going to screw up my horse. In the beginning it freaked me out to take a hoof knife to cut away extra frog and I constantly questioned my ability to see the imbalance in a hoof. Today I think nothing of cutting into dead sole or cleaning up a soggy soft frog with a freshly sharpened knife. I take my tools with me in the trailer every time we haul just in case something needs a quick smoothing with a rasp after a long rocky trail ride. Each week that goes by and Joe is still walking on all four feet, I continue to believe I'm on the right path. In the past 3 years Joe has experienced more sound days than the 9 years prior. I believe there is a correlation there. 

 

When people at the barn see me working with a rasp on my horse's hooves, there first comment is often about the money I'm saving. For me it was never about saving money. I took Joe barefoot to get him sound. I do it on my own because I consider it an extension of my horsemanship. I also can't imagine how challenging it would be to bring in a trimmer as often as I've found Joe needs to be balanced, especially in that first year. Where I live the majority of the farriers are over booked and are not taking on new clients. My own farrier was traveling from an hour away, and each year kept talking about retiring for good. How in the world would you get someone like that on a weekly schedule? When I learned how to trim Joe, it was recommended that we always clean out hooves with the back of our knives. It gets your hands in the habit of handling a knife and if you see a change that needs to be made you can quickly flip your knife over and get to work. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve done that in between Mondays; my penciled in “hoof day”. I can’t imagine waiting 6-8 weeks or longer to have Joe trimmed. He does incredibly well with small incremental changes that mimic how he would wear his hoofs if he were in ideal conditions, i.e. covering many more miles a day over terrain that isn’t saturated like Western Washington is for months out of the year. 

 

Right Front August 2018

Right Front January 22 2021

Joe’s right front is contracted, his heels are squeezed together, and his frog is thin. His left front was slightly contracted, heels were really tight but over the past 3 years the left front heels have spread out and his hoof looks like it belongs on a horse. When I had him in shoes both front feet looked like soup cans, they were narrow and tall, his steep hoof angles did not match his pasterns. His stride in front was often short and choppy, if he was off it would always be his right front. The right front is still a bit higher in the heel than the left, but its dramatically better than it was. I had been told he was diagnosed with navicular in that hoof when he was 4.

I had both front hooves radiographed in 2019, there was some shadowing on the right front navicular bone.  I don’t have comparison x-rays to look back on, but what I saw was minor compared to what I had expected.  I told the vet that I trimmed Joe’s hooves myself and if there was anything he didn’t like, I needed him to tell me. He surprised me when he told me I was doing a good job. He even showed me the angle of the coffin bone compared to the angle of the hooves and how I was pretty much spot on. He backed up what my mentor said about keeping the height of the heels down, especially the right front. He also said, “If he ever comes up lame on that hoof, I need you to believe him”. That statement hit me hard, it was as if the vet was relaying something Joe has told him; he was speaking on his behalf. The few times Joe has come up sore on that hoof since the vet visit, I’ve backed off and given him time to recover. I also boot him front hooves for our trail rides that include graveled logging roads or terrain I’m unfamiliar with. I have the option of taking them off if the footing is good, but 6 miles in is too late to decide I should have booted up at the beginning of the ride. 

August 2018

 

March 2019

 

I am not of the “barefoot is the only way” opinion. I don’t believe it works for all horses and I know it certainly doesn’t work well in all circumstances. Barefoot is working well for Joe because I maintain and balance his hooves every single week, or as often as needed. I also have no plans to put him or any horses I plan to own in the future in shoes. I’ve been handling horses on a daily basis since I was 7 years old. It never occurred to me in all that time that I could manage the care of my own horse’s hooves. To be honest with you, I wasn’t even particularly good about consistently picking out my horse’s feet prior to this shift. Now, I’m downright anal about, I use that hoof cleaning time to look for any small changes or imbalances. I haven't had to deal with thrush since I committed to it. 

My daily hoof care routine involves a thorough pick out with the back of my knife. I then use my favorite $6 scrub brush to get rid of all the extra debris before flipping my knife over to get down into the collateral groove. I have a rasp handy to smooth out anything that needs it. Weekly I have dedicated time set aside to trim and balance all 4 hooves. Some weeks they need more work than others, some weeks only the front need to be trimmed while the hind can wait another week. All of it is dependent on various conditions, how many hours of turnout, the terrain I ride him on, did he get any new supplements or miss any doses of his regular regimen, hay changes and seasonal grass changes all impact the growth of his hooves. By working closely with Joe’s hooves everyday I get access to an amazing data feedback loop that rivals the dashboards of my day job in technology. Our barefoot journey is not only a major component of Joe’s soundness, it has also become a major stepping stone in my journey as a horseman.

January 20th 2021