Cyn, our barefoot horse - feet pictures. :)

[WashingtonBay]

I think I've only rarely taken pictures of Cyn's feet.

Cyn is sound barefoot on all of our trails and logging roads... no shoes, no boots.

And this is what her feet look like. IMHO, they don't look like a lot of other barefoot horses with 'barefoot horse trims', but they sure work well for her as is. Thought I'd post them for discussion. :)

This is her right front. She was trimmed today.

[Kaitlyn]

Wow, the bottoms look amazing!

[Arrow]

And how often do you hit the trails with her?

[WashingtonBay]

This year, regretfully not much. But on a good summer with fewer excuses, she did 8-15 mile rides twice a week. We're casual riders, after all. Any more than that, and I'd be concerned about wear issues, because the farrier would have nothing to take off even after 8 weeks. But she's never been ouchy, not once.

[WashingtonBay]

These patches on our regular trails are probably the toughest on her, or anyone... big round rocks that roll under foot. They aren't easy for anyone to walk in, including me. It's heading down hill, and I always feel like I might become part of a sunday cartoon involving running on a bunch of marbles.:cool: But she does OK.

http://www.baywindfarm.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=589&stc=1&d=1225417714

[Gypsy Rose]

Looks an awful lot like how Gypsy's feet are trimmed- I always had her shoes pulled in the winter, and this was the first summer she went barefoot.

We don't put on as many miles in a week as you do, but we had no issues either.

[APPYT]

They look great!

[westmanfarrier]

Nice hoof.

Like most traditional farriers, I find that barefooters are trying to trim to an "ideal." Obviously the extremists on both sides have different ideals. A horses hoof constantly changes, it is an elastic structure. There are many variables, which have been discussed often. The environment, where the horse stands most of the day, being a very important one. A horse in a very hard, abrasive environment will have very different wear than one in a soft, moist environment. There has been a study, I can't remember who did it but I'll try to find it, where two groups of feral horses hooves were studied. (Paraprasing from memory here) One group on hard pan type environment, the other on a soft enviroment. The horses on hard ground tended to have shorter heels and a shorter foot with a narrower shape. The hooves on the softer terrain tended to have longer heels and a wider hoof. Is this because the hoof is self correcting to the environment? In softer ground wouldn't a wider hoof have more flotation to keep the bones in better alignment? The longer heel would sink into the ground a bit, but still support better.

I asked of a local barefooter why she must take the quarters out and lower the heels on her clients at every trim on a couple of horses at a stable with soft turnout. Maybe the hoof is trying to put more surface area to the ground in the soft ground where these horses live.

Like I have said before, I continue to study all of the trimming methodologies. I think there is a lot of good information out there. Environment must be taken into consideration. I believe there is no one way for every horse, but some very good basic guidelines if you are well versed in anatomy and biomechanics. Every trim method basically has the same basics at their roots.

[WashingtonBay]

When Cyn is due for her next trim I'll take some pictures that show how they wear. I really should go take a front-on picture today to compare because that's where her wear shows up.

As she wears, she develops a squared, blunt toe with some rounding of the edge, but not to the degree I see in a 'mustang roll' trim. And I've never seen her develop a scooped quarter. Her living conditions are sandy dirt. Wet all the time in winter, fairly dry in summer. Few rocks. Her riding conditions are a lot of dirt paths, with patches of both the loose round natural rock above, and some long sections of crushed gravel where the trail footing and drainage has been improved.

I rather wonder if in trying to trim the foot to a mustang proportion, they aren't removing the material the horse needs in order to wear it naturally. Said another way, if horses were cars, we might say the ideal state of the car tire is bald, because that's what it looks like when it's worn.

Edit: I found an old picture of her feet in their 'worn' shape.

[FrogInABlender]

Boy, Cyn's feet look good! But then I've always thought they did. I'd like to see your farrier put a mustang roll on her, but other than that she looks great. :)

[WashingtonBay]

Ah - Hi - I just cross posted with you about that, sortof. :)

[westmanfarrier]

I rather wonder if in trying to trim the foot to a mustang proportion, they aren't removing the material the horse needs in order to wear it naturally. Said another way, if horses were cars, we might say the ideal state of the car tire is bald, because that's what it looks like when it's worn.


Once again WB, a good point. In most of my trims, unless there are conformational or injury problems, I am leaving the hoof the way it looked when I walked up only a bit shorter.

[westmanfarrier]

Boy, Cyn's feet look good! But then I've always thought they did. I'd like to see your farrier put a mustang roll on her, but other than that she looks great. :)

I love buzz words, it makes some people a lot of money;).

Here is a direct quote from Doug Butler's The Principles of Horseshoeing II. This is the main text used at most farrier schools, we amusingly used to call it the horseshoeing bible. Taken from page 170 under "Trimming to go Barefoot"

"If the horse is to go barefoot, the outer edge of the wall should be rounded to prevent chipping and cracking. The wall should be well rounded to one-half of its thickness all the way around. On feet with thick walls, this operation can be speeded up by holding the hoof nippers at a 45 degree angle to the ground surface and clipping off the sharp edge of the hoof. It is then a simple matter to round the hoof with the fine side of the rasp."

Told you we were all on the same page:cowboy:

[vicklynn]

Im no good at this stuff. I like her feet though.
I like that Cyn has a heal, that excites me...lol.
Im a dork, let it go at that.

Mysts backs are bare, she gets those hooves rolled.
I like the mustang roll.

[palomino]

Shane- As a barefoot trimmer, I started out buying in to all the hoopla surrounding the 'barefoot movement' including the 'mustang roll'. I have since formed my own opinions about trimming (I still am an advocate for bare, but dont get all worked up over shod horses, some need it). I think yes, rolling the toe is neccessary for barefoot on most horses, some do fine with no rolled toe, most chip. etc. BUT I havent EVER trimmed to fit the mold- I figured all hooves are different, and require different trimming. There is no one way to trim a hoof. Some horses do NOT do well with the mustang model, particularly horses who are stalled and/or standing in dampness all day (Im sure you see this a TON, like me in Eugene-cant get much wetter than washington state LOL). I do barefoot trimming though- dont get me wrong, I love them bare!!
I worry way more about the pathologies I see in the feet in this area than fitting the trim to the model. I get way too much thrush, WLD, and the like!
FYI- I totally respect farriers, and the knowledge that comes with you guys/gals- I would never belittle what you do because it isnt what I do.

[WashingtonBay]

I firmly believe now that thrush is caused by diet and poor trimming, not wetness. Bay wore shoes and full pads for years on his fronts all winter and never had thrush. None of my Washington horses have ever had thrush.

The ONLY time I've had any kind of bungus issues it was on Bay.... and/but it was in the white line under the shoe (not the frog) when he was in NB shoes which were not working well, i.e. he was sore in them, and he was getting some sweet feed. I removed both. He gets a little black surface gunk under the shoes and in the old nail holes now, but not to a harmful degree, I'm told.

[palomino]

Usually the cases I see are stalled, not alot of circulation. I guess I should have been more clear on the wet MUCKY environment LOL. Most of the time their diet is NOT ideal. People have a hard time listening to their farrier about feed alot of the time. Some do, but not often enough!! I think that people are just starting to realize how big a factor diet is in hoof health.

[WashingtonBay]

Well, OK.... standing in muck isn't good for anyone. I'll definitely concede that. Stalled horses too, often also seem to be in places that go as minimal as they can on the bedding, so they soil it easily.

In order to do any good, there has to be enough bedding to absorb all the muck and still remain dry. Not just a thin layer that gets saturated quickly and stays wet.

Mine come and go from their shelter at will, but the wetter it is outside, the deeper and drier I try to keep the shavings where they stand when they are in. Shavings will help pull the moisture out of waterlogged feet, but it needs to be clean and dry to do that.

[Remali]

Her feet look good! I like to keep horses barefoot too, I've only had shoes on my horses once, and that was when Kara foundered back in 1999 and she needed heartbar shoes for a few months. Unless there is a reason for needing shoes, I think horses just do a lot better without 'em. I like rounding the edge of the hoof wall too, with Kara it always helped to prevent her hooves from chipping.

[WashingtonBay]

Actually, barefoot for it's own sake isn't a goal on our part, she's just barefoot because for her it works. If she wasn't doing well she'd have shoes without any hesitation. I'd rather shoe than mess with boots and extra measures to help make her that way if she wasn't.

I think in this environment it's only the extraordinary horse that does well barefoot, on trail, all the time, and I think we're lucky to have her. It's her credit, not ours. We're lazy, even skeptical, barefooters. :)