Re: Re: Re: hoof soreness

["Maggie Mieske" <mmieske@netonecom.net>]

I appreciate Heidi's continued emphasis on CORRECT shoeing.  Incorrect
shoeing CAN cause big problems and impairment of circulation is one of them
and those horses will definitely SHOW evidence of pain and damage.  CORRECT
shoeing is an entirely different matter...so an experienced farrier IS worth
his weight in gold (I'll have to find the poem about farriers I wrote for
Nelson!).  We have had to correct a lot of bad shoeing jobs in our neck of
the woods...and almost always it's because the horse gets shod, is lame,
farrier comes back to "fix" it and makes it worse and when the owner finally
figures out that MAYBE the shoeing job is the problem, they seek out Nelson.
It does amaze me that he can take an essentially lame horse and make him
sound almost immediately with a proper shoe job (depending on the degree of
damage if any...sometimes we let them go barefoot and grow some hoof again
first) and how I can grumble and complain for two weeks before a ride and
then finally get MY horse shod the day before or day of the ride and he can
go out and do 50 miles on ANY terrain, we can come home, take them off and
he can trot off sound as a dollar.  Part of that is luck...Malik has awesome
feet.  But I bet one of those farriers whose work we have to fix could screw
him up in a hurry!!!
Maggie