RE: Re: Cruel Shoes?

["Maryanne Stroud Gabbani" <maryanne@ratbusters.net>]

I really don't think that generalisations can be made as easily as they seem
to often be. I have 5 horses in an area that would seem to be ideal for
barefoot. Most of them are barefoot. I have packed soil to ride on in the
agricultural areas with very few rocks and I have the Sahara desert, lots of
rocks that sink into sand. One of my mares wasn't shod until she was about
5, and frankly probably didn't need it then (9 yrs ago) but I didn't know.
She later had a tie-up induced laminitis that left her with bleeding front
feet for 2 months and the vet advice I got stunk. So I talked to Dory, the
mare, and we decided that she wasn't ready to pack it in so I stripped her
shoes the first day of the laminitis and left her in a sand paddock and when
indoors in a VERY deeply bedded shavings filled box with her best
friend....For a year. A year later, you had to be a good vet to know that
anything had ever happened to her although she almost died.

After that we had a sesamoid problem and eggbar shoes were prescribed which
helped her uncontract heels and straighten a genetic outside flare. Did I
mention that we have no decent farriers? This was a visiting American who
helped here. After some time we decided to try barefoot again and she's been
barefoot almost a year, but is currently recovering from an abcess in the
toe just behind the white line...Nothing serious but enough to make me think
that it's back to eggbars in front and nothing in back. I can probably say
that this is a horse that does fine barefoot in back but not in front.

You do what works best.

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
Cairo, Egypt
maryanne@ratbusters.net
www.ratbusters.net

> Cruel Shoes... Hey, wasn't that a Steve Martin skit from way back?! <snip>
.  From the digests I've read recently
> (and some not-so-recently), I can't for the life of me find any posts
> where someone came out and said that.  Maybe someone did and I
> completely missed it, and if that's the case, please copy, paste and


The references to shoeing being cruel were in some rather exuberant private
posts to me.  Obviously, it wouldn't be netiquette to post them publicly.

Susan G


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