RE: Darolyn and Barefootin' (extremely long)

[guest@endurance.net]

Karen Standefer hrschk@yahoo.com
REFERENCED POST:
Please, I am still trying to comprehend how these horses are being
"damaged" by wearing shoes to protect them from the rocks.  Pain is the
body's response to damage, if the nerves are intact and not altered by
drugs. These horses are NOT in pain!  In fact, it seems to me to be the
other way around--we put shoes on our horses precisely so that they do NOT
become
damaged, and hence are NOT in pain.  At least, that's why I do it...

Heidi<<

Here is a very brief article on the damaging effects of shoeing.  The
research was done by many different people and a synopsis compiled below,
written by Dr. Strasser along with more detailed explantions of her
opinions of the research.  An individual who wished to prove this for
themselves could go by any rendering plant, pick up several shod and
unshod cadaver hooves and disect them to look at the damages done.
Unfortunately, in most rendering plants, it is difficult to find a healthy
hoof.  However, the coffin bones on those hooves tell a very detailed
story of what has happened through the years of shoeing.

Endurance horses have the least damaging effects of shoeing because of the
shear number of miles they travel which in iself means more circulation.
However, there is still gross damage done.  They just don't have the onset
of inflammation like shod horses from other disciplines or the frequency
of becoming unusable at the younger ages of other disciplines.

Karen

HARMFUL EFFECTS OF SHOEING (Abridged by Sabine Kells)
by Dr. Hiltrud Strasser

Motivation:

A barefoot horse is capable of performing all the tasks that could be
expected of a horse, without requiring any kind of protection of the hoof,
PROVIDED that the hoof has not been weakened or deformed by the actions of
man through unnatural treatment and living conditions.

When looking at literature dealing with hooves, the one constant reference
is the damaging effect of shoes. For about 200 years, the ill effects of
shoeing have been increasingly documented.

The textbook written by I.C. Gross, teacher of shoeing at the Royal
Veterinary School of Stuttgart, clearly states in the preface that "the
question of whether shoeing is the means by which to keep hooves sound, is
to answered in the negative."

The fact that two of the main causes of the reduced life expectancy of
domestic horses (in Europe, about 1/3 of the natural lifespan) are hoof
and leg problems is disturbing and should be cause for research.

Scientific Publications:

That hooves are as hard and resistant to wear as the ground to which they
become accustomed is ancient knowledge, already put into writing 2400
years ago by Xenophon, military leader of the Greek cavalry. The argument
that "our trails are so rocky, the hooves wear down too much" is thus made
invalid, since it is not the hoof, but the living conditions of the horse
that cause the problem. Xenophon's observations have been proved many
thousands of times over; in more recent times (1986), Alexander and Colles
once again reminded the riding and veterinary community of this truth with
their article "Shoeing--an unnecessary evil" in the American Equine
Veterinary Journal.

Bracy Clark, scientist at the London Veterinary College around 1800, found
out that every shoe, no matter how correctly applied, inevitably forces
the hoof to contract from year to year. He moreover lamented the fact that
the books on equine anatomy portrayed these deformed, contracted hooves as
sound hooves, since his veterinary colleagues obviously studied only the
(sick) hooves of their patients, not sound hooves. This problem,
unfortunately, is still largely present today: there is rarely a hoof
shown in veterinary or farrier textbooks which is not a contracted hoof,
yet described as a normal, sound foot.

DVM Zierold, under Professor Lungwitz in 1910, examined and compared the
corium of shod and never shod horses, and found significant differences in
structure, in that the corium of a shod horse is of a quality which makes
the connection to the hoof capsule less stable (a factor in laminitis, for
example).

Luca Bein, in his 1983 dissertation in Zurich, measured the shock
absorption of barefoot, shod, and alternately shod horses. He concluded
that a conventionally shod horse shows an absence of 60-80% of the hoof's
natural shock absorption. He demonstrated that "a shod foot on asphalt at
a walk receives THREE TIMES the impact force as an unshod horse on asphalt
at the trot." Bein also found that a shoe vibrates at about 800 Hz,
damaging living tissue.

Dr. C.C. Pollit, at the University of Queensland, Australia, showed in his
1993 study of circulation in the hoof that a shod hoof is not supplied
with blood in the normal fashion, but through an alternate route.

Professor Smedegards' publications make clear that shoeing prevents the
hoof mechanism from working, if for no other reason that the horse is
forced to walk unnaturally (the whole hoof impacts the ground at the same
time, and the horse cannot break over naturally). A normal hoof contacts
the ground first at the rear and side, then breaks over.
So from various sources throughout history, we can see it is known that;

1. shoeing causes the foot to become contracted (Clark)

2. shoeing causes a deviance of the normal laminae structure (Zierold)

3. the impact forces with each shod step are much greater, and the
vibration of the shoe is damaging (Bein)

4. circulation is decreased through shoeing (Pollitt)


5. the side walls, at the widest part of the hoof, have to be able to move
outward (Smedegard)

All these are veterinary professionals, though there are many other
scientists who have added interesting dissertations to this topic.
Personal Observations:

"Hoof mechanism" is the term given to the movement of the hoof capsule. It
has long been known and measured that, when weightbearing, the downward
force of the skeleton on the front wall of the hoof capsule forces the
coronet band, at its highest point, to sink downward and inward. This
illustration is well known and accepted.

However, the downward-inward movement of the coronet band is possible only
if the neighboring side walls can move outwards, or can sink into soft
ground. This movement is coupled with the flattening of the concave sole,
which makes room for the descending coffin bone.

This way, the solar corium is not bruised but rather is relaxed, and the
capillaries in the sole and wall fill with blood. It is also known, and
clearly illustratable (through infrared photography) that shod feet are
cool, whereas unshod feet are warm.

This means that, at the widest part of the hoof (not only in the area of
the heel), a considerable expansion of the hoof capsule takes place upon
weightbearing. The wall expands NOT ONLY in the rearmost third of the
hoof, as shown in many textbooks. Elementary pythagorean geometry supports
this. For a normal warmblood, the concave sole must sink down about lcm,
which necessitates an expansion of the wall of about lmm to each side. At
higher speeds, the bulb of the heel contacts the ground first, which adds
to the widening of the foot. Repeatedly, expansion of up to 4mm to each
side have been found through live 'prints" at the trot and canter.
A shod hoof is unable to expand as necessary, the concave sole cannot draw
flat, and the solar corium is bruised as a result. When trimming such
hooves, these bruises become visible.

To get back to L. Bein's findings on shock absorption. The expansion of
the hoof capsule complete with the flattening of the sole absorb up to 80%
of the impact force. In terms of physics, this is conversion of of energy
through reversible deformation.

The consequences of the lack of up to 80% of shock absorption are widely
known as arthritis, tendonitis, etc. The damage done is all the greater
when the horse is young, and the still-developing coffm bone is
handicapped in its development to proper size through shoeing. Shoeing a
horse under 3 (or even 2) years results in crippled and deformed coffin
bones and steep, contracted hooves.

The negative effect of shoes on joints and tendons is increased through
stresses during motion, ie. the weight of the shoe stressing the joint and
tendon through centripedal force. The heavier the shoe, the greater this
force.

The contracting effect of shoes increases from day to day, since the hoof
grows continually, not straight down but in a conical shape. The hoof
grows in width, but the shoe does not; after a month, the hoof grew by 1
cm, in length and width; with a shoe, only in length, forcing a
constriction of the corium.

That a horse with such damage is still able to walk is due largely to the
fact that the nerves have mostly become nonfunctional. As soon as the
shoes are removed, circulation begins to return, and after a while the
nerves "come back to life." So the damage will be present for years before
the horse goes lame (due to inflammation, which brings circulation, and as
such nerve activity).

The lack of circulation grows more severe with lack of movement. A shod
horse which is worked all day tilling the field, for example, has better
circulation than a shod horse standing in a box stall and ridden an hour a
week.
With a reduction of circulation, metabolism at a cellular level is also
adversely effected. Excess protein is not used in the building of tissue
(ie. horn) but builds up in the organism (laminits, etc.)

The results of vibration have not yet been studied in horses. In human
medicine, comparable effects exist in people working with vibrating tools
such as saws, etc. Raynaud's Syndrome, a condition showing alteration in
blood vessels, is one of the problems associated with vibration. Laminitic
horses show comparable alterations in their blood vessels, so vibration of
shoes may be a factor in this.

Shoes change the way the horse's foot meets the ground. On soft ground,
into which they sink, they have a stronger than normal breaking action; on
rock, asphalt and ice, they slip unnaturally. These unnatural actions have
to be compensated for by muscles and ligaments, and can eventually lead to
shoulder and hip problems. Logic would tell us that it is nonsensical to
treat the symptoms without removing the cause.

A reduction of the damaging effects is found in horses whose hooves are
regularly exposed to water, so that the horn can at least retain its
elasticity. This explains to a great deal the seemingly problem-free, long
period in which a horse may be ridden while shod: highly active lifestyle
in a wet climate.

Today, many hooves are brittle and dried out to the point of having lost
their natural elasticity, which by itself can lead to shock absorption and
circulatory reduction.

There are no statistics about lasting damage from the kicks of shod
horses; certain is that many people would be alive if the horse's hoof
which caught them in the head had not been shod.

Orthopedic shoes are heavier, more tightly attached, and the already
damaging effects are magnified on an ill foot. Pressure on the frog or the
sole causes a steepening of the coffin bone through the horse's attempt to
evade the painful pressure. The result is that the angle between coffm
bone and middle phalanx decreases. The digital arteries are squeezed shut
just outside the coffin bone. This gives a good deal of relief from pain,
since the nerves are prevented from working, but healing is obviously not
a consequence of this situation. This is especially true of the wedge
pads.

A lesser, but still existent evil is the damaging effect of nails,
vibrating inside the horn capsule.

EFFECTS OF "PROPER" SHOEING:

1. CONTRACTED HOOVES - the hoof meets the ground in a different way, since
the horse is trying to evade the pain in the heel area, leads to muscle,
tendon, and joint problems

2. BRUISING OF CORIUM - leads to lack of circulation, changes in
metabolism leading to decreased horn formation and poor quality of horn,
problems in the laminae, lack of sensation in the sole leading to
tripping, etc., suspected problems in the metabolic rate of organs

3. INCREASED IMPACT FORCES - lead to bruising, tearing, strains with
morphological changes in the corium, the hoof cartilage and joints,
tendons, even hoof cancer

4. VIBRATION - leads to similar damages as in humans (vascular changes;
Raynaud's disease)

5. WEIGHT OF SHOES - puts strain on the joint capsules and leads to
periostosis, arthritis, and increased damage on injury

6. CHANGE IN IMPACT - unnatural mechanics lead to muscle and tendon damage

7. NAIL HOLES - destroy the horn wall and decrease elasticity

8. METABQLISM DISRUPTIONS - lead to organic damage
In every case, shoeing presents unnecessary harm to the
horse--unnecessary, if the horse's biological needs are met.

Copyright Dr. vet. med. H. Strasser
Blaihofstr. 42/1, 72074 Tuebingen, Germany
Tel/Fax: (011) 49-7071-87572
Ed. & Canadian contact: Sabine Naujoks
Box 44, Qualicum Beach, BC, V9K 1S7