Successful Natural Horsecare

Barefoot Trimming Frequency (Part. 1 of 2)

I am often asked, “How often do you trim?” It is an excellent question and one a number of years ago I would not have been able to answer adequately.

A Brief History

When we started keeping our horses barefoot, they were trimmed every 6-8 weeks, this being the advice then of our trimmer and before I was trimming.

More often they were trimmed every 8 weeks. Looking back now it is of no surprise that our horses were lame and were so slow in transitioning.

Your Goal With Trimming

Your goal with barefoot trimming is to try and replicate (copy) what would be happening to the hoof if the horse was traveling 20 miles plus a day. In other words the hoof would be being consistently stimulated, (wear equals growth,) and honed and sculptured from its daily wear.

So if you are trying to copy this natural type of trimming and wear and trim every 6-8 weeks it is not ever going to be satisfactory, or able to replicate or come even close to what would be happening naturally to the hoof – unless of course, you are riding your horse 10-20 miles a day – which in most cases is highly unlikely.

So How Often Do I Trim

I needed to find a balance – the balance being between, what I can do and manage, so my time and commitment being an obvious part of this and what the horse needed.

If the balance went in favour too much of me or the horses it would not work. I often look at life with this is mind – finding the balance, there always is one, but so often we do so much, but along the way do not look after ourselves, so the balance is what I searched for.
I found that if I trimmed the horses every 2 weeks this worked extremely well and the changes and improvement in their hooves since then has been huge.

N.B. I could have trimmed them every week but I found that the hooves were still fine with a fortnightly trim and I found fortnightly worked better for myself and the time I had available to spend on their hooves.

The Benefits and the Hoof Changes

The benefits or rather the changes in the hooves since I started trimming them every 2 weeks has been huge and warrant listing:-

1.) Firstly I have got better and better at trimming. When you do something regularly and if you give it 100% focus the results have to improve. So by getting better at trimming and reading the hoof, the hooves naturally improve.

2.) The walls have stayed tighter, so no stretched white line as the outer wall does not get long enough to start splaying away and stretching. Think of finger nails, if they get too long and you were to walk on them they would stretch away from your nail bed.

3.) The heels remain the correct height, so the frog and the back of the hoof gets the necessary pressure that is so desperately required. By the frog working and functioning to its full capacity the issues of thrush just go away, thrush has just become a thing of the past.

4.) The concavity of the hoof begins to develop and really come through. It took me quite a while to really appreciate and see this – but in essence what happens is the concavity starts showing around the tip of the frog or rather the frog/sole junction. The sole here begins to slough off and from this point the concavity of the hoof starts to emerge over the whole of the sole surface of the hoof.

5.) The bars begin to show themselves. I have found the bars were so buried in some of our hooves but with regular trimming the begin to emerge and appear so that they become visible as a line and then meet the frog 1/2 way down the side of the frog, just as they are supposed to.

6.) The excess sole starts going away and sloughing off.

7.) The expansion of the hoof which is so desperately needed starts to evolve – you see this as the base of the frog widens so the whole baseline of the hoof widens which then results in a wider hoof. The reason this is so important is that if the horse has been shod the expansion of the hoof would not have been possible as the hoof is shod when the hoof is not weight bearing, held in the air or on the farriers stand – ie the hoof is contracted when its shoe is put on, so it can never get the natural expansion and following contraction with every foot fall that it so desperately requires.

8.) The length of time of trimming – like everything if you keep on top of work and do little and often it becomes so much more efficient in many cases. So when I trim a horse now it takes me 15 minutes……..that in itself is like gold dust.

I am using power tools and they make a huge difference but if you are using a rasp and knives there would be even more reason to trim your horses hooves frequently.

Trimming Frequency (Part. 2 of 2)

Tomorrow I will be writing about:-

The Problems We Found When Trimming at 6 plus weekly intervals
Why Do Professionals Say You Can Trim Every 6-8 weeks?
What You Can Do
What Happens if Your Trimmer Does Not Agree With Frequent Trimming
The Results

Finally

If you or your horse have had any recent knocks, bumps or injuries and are looking for something to help relief pain, swelling and inflammation but do not want to use anti-inflammatories or drugs take a look at our Traumeel products – or if you need any further help and advice contact me (I have set up a dedicated contact form on this website, Traumeel Remedy.

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