Re: MtMan-List: Horse Hooves

Wynn,

I've had the barefoot triming done on Bug twice this spring. He sure does seem happier and he is walking better. I haven't bought the boots yet since I figure they aren't period correct and riding in on an AMM ride I'd get laughed at. Bug has fairly tough feet anyway since he's an Appy, but being in the corral over the winter instead of the pasture all summer, I can tell how what you talk about occurs. Bottom line for me is that if you're going to be a horse owner you ought to so some studying on how to take care of the ol' pard who carries your arse and gear for you.

Later,

Mike

AMM #1769 Poison River Party Rocks!! "Aux Aliment Du Pays"



> From: wheels@???
> To: mdrougas@???; wheels@???; blackhorse53@???; neotoma_mexicana@???
> Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:32:33 -0600
> CC: hist_text@???
> Subject: MtMan-List: Horse Hooves
>
> I will admit that part of the appeal of the barefoot
> stuff for me is the education that has come with it. I had
> a farrier literally dig all the sole out of my horses feet
> just before putting the shoe on. They all came up lame. Now
> I know that the sole is a huge part of what keeps the bones
> and the hoof wall together. He was digging the bones out of
> their protective shell.
> I took a class on shoeing from a well respected farrier and
> he talked about angles with no concern for the fact that
> forcing those angles could cause founder. No one told me
> that flairs are places that the horses hoof wall is not
> attached to the bones anymore. I went out and looked at my
> horses and realised their hooves were barely attached
> anywhere. Their feet look dramatically different than they
> did four years ago. The frog fills the hoof, the toe calous
> is right out by the hoof wall, the internal cartlidge in the
> back of the hoof is big and weight bearing. They reach way
> out in front when they walk so they land on the back of the
> hoof.
> Sorry for boring you non horse types with mumbo jumbo that
> is to technical and you have no idea what all those proper
> nouns refer to. One of the guys I work with wants to go
> catch a frog and glue it to a horses hoof so he can see
> what a horses frog look like.
> So IMO why did they start needing shoes so long ago?
> As soon as you take away the horses natural hoof
> maintanance system you mess it up. So either you put him in
> an enclosure where he doesn't get movement to wear the
> growing hoof wall down, or you put him on a pack train to
> the Rockies and have him walk a lot more miles, under more
> weight than he usually deals with. In the former case, man
> had to either let that growth start breaking off and
> ripping the bones and hoof apart and causing lameness, or he
> started cutting off the growth by trimming. The trimming
> was likely done wrong even when it was done so the hooves
> often did not develop correctly. IE lameness.
> With the hoof messed up its real easy to cover the problem
> and make the horse rideable, even on harsh terrain, by
> covering the painful spot with a bandaid. Iron. I doubt you
> will get any barefoot guy to say that shoes don't work. If
> we talk about long run development of the hoof or fixing
> unhealthy hooves that is a different story, but if you told
> them they needed to get 1000 horses in all kinds of
> condition fighting ready and up on the battle line. Throw
> shoes on them and go. Its quick and it works but there is a
> price and I don't mean dollars.
> Like you said some farriers have been shoeing with a lot of
> the 'barefoot' ideas for a long time. Others take an
> unattached hoof and cut the toe off to make it stand up at
> the correct angle. Then wonder why the bone falls through
> the spot they just cut all the density out of.
> Now this time of year with the warm coming on I have to
> trim often. Sometimes every couple weeks. Mid winter it
> drops back to maybe 8 weeks or so. There was a loooong
> period where I wondered if it was going to work. I should
> have bought into the hoofboots idea sooner to help out
> there. It was during that period that the horse had to
> develop all that internal structure, attachment, etc.
> So did the mountain men shoe and remove? I dunno. The
> number of shoes would not cover the number of horses. In
> addition a lot of their stock probably had better
> structures to start with.
> Wynn
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: mdrougas@???
> To: wheels@???, blackhorse53@???,
> neotoma_mexicana@???
> Cc: hist_text@???
> Subject: Re: MtMan-List: Longrifle
> Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:52:39 -0400
>
> Hi Wynn,
>
> I read your article last night ( along with several
> others, GREAT issue ). Very well done ( I'd say great but
> I already said that about the issue ). All these idea's
> seem to come around every now and then. Some get improved
> on and some don't. There was someone in the Yakima area
> that was certified to do the Strasser trim for awhile then
> they were going. I think the Ramey trim will be around
> awhile though just from all the feed back I get. I looked
> it over and put things in my "mental tool box " you never
> know when you might need it. I agree with what you said
> about trim the Ramey way even for shoeing. I've been doing
> that before Ramey came on the scene due to the rocky/lava
> terrain here in Yakima County. More sole doesn't hurt. I
> went to an Ovnicek clinic back the early 90's and he was
> talking more sole density/ sole depth then. A lot of this
> stuff just gets repackaged. But, as has already been said,
> If it works do it. Some think I'm worry about loosing
> dollars but if you follow the Ramey trim you're a
>
> ctually trimming every 4 or 5 weeks. I'm I right on that??
> Heck no shoes no forge,propane,nails......maybe I'll give
> this trim a go. I'm 55 years young and easy is fine by
> me.
>
>
>
> I just always get leery of new things that come along and
> start asking questions. The question being. why did
> so many early civilizations start putting horse
> sandals on, then later about 2000 years ago the Chinese
> started using actual horseshoes that they nailed on.This
> info I got out of my "The Principles of Horseshoeing " by
> Dr. Doug Butler. In chapter 3 of that book Dr. Butler has
> much more on the history of shoeing.
>
> That's the
> question that really stumps me though. Wrought Iron wasn't
> just bought from the corner store, was needed for weapons
> to protect the Kings villages and all. why not just
> leave them barefoot??? The feeds of the day were totally
> natural. No additives. No sugars.
>
>
>
> I looked back thru my copy of Supply & Demand
> buy Oliver and Doc and it'll show horseshoes but how
> many??? Then it'll have 20 pair or 11 pair. I wonder if
> the mountaineers could have removed the shoes when not
> needed as you suggest some of your friend do???? Remove
> the shoes for winter and so on. I did notice on one list
> from S&D that they brought out 20 pair of shoes and 8
> pounds of nails. A lot of nails left over there. A
> lot of re-sets??? How about getting extra shoes BEFORE
> leaving the settlements??? Of course this is just
> supposition but............anyway. Very good article,
> Wynn and thought provoking. Thanks for replying to me.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: Wynn
>
> To: mdrougas@???; wheels@???;
> blackhorse53@???; neotoma_mexicana@???
>
> Cc: hist_text@???
>
> Sent: Wed, 10 Jun
> 2009 8:41 am
>
> Subject: Re: MtMan-List: Longrifle
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Wynn's Comments (WC)
>
>
>
> I am tickled to be able to talk about this. This may
> come out like a barefoot vs shoes and argumentative but
> that is to make points.
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi All,
>
> The German Vet you're talking about is a woman,
> Dr.
>
> Strasser. She was certifing shoers to her trim.
> There are
>
> several other people who have there own take
> on the
>
> barefoot trim as well going back to Jamie
> Jackson back in
>
> the 80's.
>
>
>
>
>
> WC
>
>
>
> Don't think that my article will change your mind
> about shoeing. It isn't meant to be that persausive but
> more of an introduction to the idea. You probably know
> more about it than the article presents.
>
>
>
>
>
> I've been shoeing full time for 24 years
>
> now and I've seen this come around. I just got my T
> &LR
>
> today and saw Wynn's article, but haven't read
> it yet. I'd
>
> have to say if it works do it.
> However........Wynn, would
>
> you say that the
> Mountaineers had enough horses that if
>
> one was a
> little sore footed that they'd ride another for
>
> awhile???
>
>
>
> WC
>
>
>
> I think that horses were almost always in short
> supply for the mountaineers and for the most part the
> Indians. Sure they dropped off lame horses when the need
> arose and lost some to just wondering off and even ate
> some, they were not made of gold but horses were rarely
> considered abundant. Refer to Lewis and Clark who had
> trouble trading with Indains with thousands of horses but
> no extras. Each family had so many horses and each had a
> specific job and some were lent to friends who needed
> another. Do you stop the whole tribe if a horse pulls up
> lame? No you dump it and move on and it might even catch
> up since it misses its friends.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The absents of "store bought shoes" from the
>
> states doesn't necessarily mean that barefooting was a
>
> preferred means, just that the expense and weight was
>
> maybe more of an issue.
>
>
>
> WC
>
>
>
> Agreed. They might have had shod horses if they had a
> choice. If that reduced the chances of having to stop and
> repack a horse when on a trek to rondy or on the way back
> from lifting a cache they would have done it, given the
> chance. Even some of my barefoot friends will put shoes on
> when they head out for a month long ride.
>
>
>
> On the other hand I took my ponies up to a camp in
> Idaho a few weeks back and we switched riders so everyone
> could go out and enjoy some time a horseback. A couple of
> the hoodlum younsters (that would be my boys) even like to
> run them. The horses were just fine after a weekend of
> rocky trails and they havn't seen a lot of miles this
> winter. A bare hoof is pretty effective once its setup
> right.
>
>
>
> One of my hunting friends had to cut the miles on his
> horses on a hunting trip. We assumed the lack of shoes. He
> chuckled at us and explained that the horses had been beat
> up but their feet were fine. He claimed that once he had
> tried barefoot he realized that some of the behaviors he
> saw in shod horses were caused by being sore footed and he
> just had not realized it. We are talking about things like
> refusing to walk in the trail and wanting to brush riders
> off on the trees.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Please don't get me wrong here, it's
>
> just that the barefoot is not for every horse and as
> Wynn
>
> said in his article, the different feed, the
> confinement of a few acres
>
> plus the fact that Indians
> and Mountaineers had more
>
> horses to chose from for
> riding suggest that you should
>
> really check to see
> that this for your horse.
>
>
>
> WC
>
>
>
> I will go the opposite way. The lessons that the
> barefoot guys are showing about proper feed and exercise
> should be the standard for ALL horses. Getting the frog
> down close to the ground and never cutting into the live
> sole should be on ALL horses. Even if you don't go 100%
> barefoot on your horses, you should learn from what these
> guys are teaching. A lot of it is only indirectly related
> to the barefoot stuff. It is instead the research of
> Universities around the world who are studying horses. I
> am starting to see things like reduced sugar and carb
> diets, and constantly available feed being written
> about outside barefoot circles. Maybe instead of asking if
> barefoot is right, you should be encouraging the horse
> people to start changing the way they throw that high cal
> suppliment and stall their horses 24 hours a day.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Ramey talks
>
> about a "transition period" and boots or maybe green
>
> buffalo hide.
>
>
>
> WC
>
>
>
> Yes that is a part of the reasoning for the article.
> I will carry hoofboots on rides and use them if I need to.
> Same way with bug repellant.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I can't wait to start reading this T&LR
>
> and hats off to a great mag. I've been getting it
> since
>
> 1996 and really enjoy reading them over and
> over. (Sorry
>
> this was so long) Mike Drougas
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Hist_text mailing list
> Hist_text@???
> http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hist_text