Friday 28 May 2010

The Importance of The Wild Horse Trim

The wild horse trim is what most methods of barefoot trimming are based upon. A wild horse will live and wear their hoof as nature intended. Consider the image of the wild horse's hoof below. There are also some wild horse hooves that you can view on the Tribe Equus website at www.tribeequus.com. Wild hooves are quite different from what we are used to seeing in a domestic horse, so it is worth spending some time looking at them to educate your eye. Most farriers will perform a pasture trim if asked to remove a horse shoes, and the client will be told the horse only needs trimming every 8-12 weeks. Unfortunately, this is not how nature intended a hoof capsule to function, so any horse without shoes should be trimmed and maintained with a barefoot trim at an interval of 2-4 weeks on average. A good farrier will understand the subtle difference between the trims and be more than qualified to maintain the barefoot horses hooves. A qualified barefoot practitioner is also invaluable to trim and give advice about the health and maintenance of the barefoot horse.
With a barefoot trim, the hooves of domestic horses, are trimmed to imitate the shape of wild horse hooves, with two qualifications:

1) Hooves that go 10 to 20 miles (15 to 30 km) daily as wild horses do, on hard ground will look better and be shorter (higher position of the coffin bone inside the hoof capsule), than hooves that don't go so far, or that work mostly on soft footing.

2) Wild hooves living on flat prarie would look different from the wild hooves that lived on dry, rocky mountainsides.

Natural Hoof Care and using Protective horse boots such as the ones offered by EasyCare will increase the long healthy lives of our Equine Friends. In our wetter climate and varied terrain in the UK, booting is often necessary to help the horse cope with sudden changes in ground conditions at events or pleasure rides. Learn all about our Hoof Care Products and hoof boots by visiting www.trelawneequine.co.uk


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