Horse hoof

Your local tack store has shelves loaded with various horse hoof treatments. What are they used for and do they really work? What works best for periodic hoof care?

The hoof is broken into three different areas: the outside, underside and inside Read more to better understand the horse hoof structure and purposes.

Surely the commonest - and most misunderstood - reason given for horses "needing" shoes is the perceived "protection" that shoes provide. One of the flaws in last week's H&H article was a vet's assertion that "working on roads can wear away the hoof wall" which, according to the author, leads to pain and means that only horses who work on soft surfaces can cope unshod. The Worshipful Company of Farriers also cites this in support of shoes. When working an unshod horse, according to its…

Did your horse get the short end of the stick when it comes to hoof genetics? 👎️ Nutrition can make a huge difference. Learn which nutrients are essential for healthy hooves 👇️

By Kentucky Equine Research - The white line is the narrow, light-coloured band visible on the underside of a freshly trimmed hoof at the junction of the hoof wall and the sole. White line disease, an infection that causes separation of the wall, may be seen first at the white line but actually affects the zone of contact between the hard outer hoof wall and the middle layer of hoof tissue. It occurs most commonly in front feet but can occur in any foot.

Wouldn’t it make life so much easier if we had a hard-and-fast, always-and-never guide for trimming our horses’ hooves? Unfortunately the hoof can’t be simplified like that. The hoof is an amazing feat of natural engineering that offers an infinite combination of variations within “normal” ranges. To make it even more complicated, our horses can […]

A farrier shoeing a horse, bending down and fitting a new horseshoe to a horse’s hoof.

Horse hoofs

The topic of having horses go barefoot vs. shod has been discussed at several American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) Annual Conventions and always generates some very informative dialog while raising many important questions. I must say from the onset that I favour horses being maintained without shoes when possible, but it depends on multiple factors.

Visit the post for more.