RC: Barefoot/verses steel

["Tracey Ritter" <Tracey_Ritter@yahoo.com>]

Another perspective here:

From the 3-day clinic I attended and the books I've studied on topic so far,
it is my understanding that in having a hoof shod, it is inherent that in
protecting the wall from wear that they grow longer than they would in
nature.  I've also read somewhat seemingly contradictory information that
supports that a shod hoof does not grow as quickly as unshod hooves.  I
guess until I devote my life to pursuing these endless experiments (not in
this lifetime, anyway!), I might never know for sure unless I have someone
else's documented research to peruse.  Oh, well.

Karen, by the way, it might help those of us out here who are unfamiliar
with your experience with wild horses if you would provide us with your
documented findings of the percentage of the wild horses in the herd who
were "lame as all get out".  Was this a study you were participating in?
Who else was involved?  Was there anything published on this that you could
refer us to?  I'm just curious, as phrases such as "a lot of them" just
aren't as quantifiable as we need in a forum such as this, and can only be
considered as rhetoric unless something is given to substantiate it.  No
offence meant whatsoever.

The information I provided in the first paragraph was taken from Dr.
Strasser's book, "A Lifetime of Soundness; The Keys to Optimal Horse Health,
Lameness Rehabilitation and the High-Performance Barefoot Horse."  Third
Edition (Revised), January 2000.  I have taken the liberty of providing a
partial list of her Bibliography in a previous post, but will happily
provide it again upon request.  That way, those who are interested in
educating themselves further, can.  

Kindest Regards,

Tracey Ritter
Portland, OR

-----Original Message-----
From: Karen [mailto:karen@storallnv.com]
Sent: Friday, September 28, 2001 10:07 AM
To: Lynette Helgeson
Cc: ridecamp@endurance.net
Subject: RC: Fwd: RC: Barefoot/verses steel


At 07:08 AM 09/28/2001 -0500, Lynette Helgeson wrote:
>But in Kat's post she claims that her
>horses naturally travel 100 miles a day in her pasture.  So which is
>it? My self I would believe Kat, in that horses travel that far in a
>day, naturally, while they are grazing and going to water.

Only if that was a typo!  Wild horses go between 20 and 30 miles a day.  I 
can speak from experience when I say that the wild horses feet here look 
like hell.  They are broken, chipped, split and a lot of them are lame as 
all get out.  Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if the 
wild horses feet look like that, then what would my horses feet look like 
if I took their shoes off and rode them even longer distances over the same 
country?

Also, I have to agree with Maggie's post about horses hoof growth.  This 
summer my horses had to be reshod every 3 weeks due to tremendous hoof 
growth.  They are now on a 4 week schedule.  Their feet look pretty darn 
good too.

k





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