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Hi All,
I'm a new barefoot convert from Western Montana...
We're living above Florence, in the Bitterroot Valley... the top end of our horse pasture is at 4,100 feet above sea level...
Brandy, our Arabian mare... just got her first tentative barefoot trim.
We bought, her just about two months ago, from a family of farriers and horse trainers.
They'd rescued her from a life of sharing barely enough feed for her.. with a couple of Llamas, goats and other livestock... She'd been slowly starving until they took her home a year or so back and fed her what she needed.
Now she's a well fed beauty, with a great personality and, come to think of it... she's sassier now than when she was shod... or at lest sassy for a horse that comes to her name and lets a klutz like me saddle her with complete patience<g>
We had to board her out while we traveled across country to pack and ship back our stored household goods and when we came back her shoes were off (all four) and her hooves were in sad shape...
The horseshoe nails had splintered out the sides despite having been just checked before we left... her hoofs ended up too torn up to even consider re-shoeing her right now...
The neighbors who kept her have been horse folks for years, but they didn't catch the problem until the shoes were spotted laying in the pasture... which got me looking for a solution to keep it from happening again...
That's when I found out about barefoot horses, and it clicked... it just makes too much sense to ignore!
I've cleaned up and trimmed shod hooves since I was a kid... but never tried to emulate a wild horse's hoof on an unshod horse before...
After waiting nearly two weeks for her to get some more hoof grown out, I got out the rasp today and touched up a long heel on the worst hoof, smoothed and rounded the others... and gained a new respect for anyone who does that for a living... My legs are still sore from squatting down to get to the work.
Next time I'll have my low mechanics seat with me and some extra padding on the jack stand I was using for a support.
Meanwhile I'm looking for a FINE toothed rasp... hopefully one of the local supplies will have one in stock...
I had picked up the least aggressive rasp the local Feed & Farm had, and it was a coarse rasp/fine file combo... much too aggressive cutting to take the worst of the badly splintered hoof and ease the edges... but it did a quick job on the parts that were intact...
She's walking smoothly though and seems to have enjoyed the experience all in all...<g>
Next step will be getting the toe angles right, but that just gives me another excuse to spend time tending Brandy... not a problem at all!!!
I'll be getting up with the local barefoot specialist in Missoula soon, but it really doesn't seem all that difficult to get her trimmed and comfortable... it just makes sense...
Ted
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