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Articles: What is Natural Hoof Trimming? How To Feed The Feet Right Off Of Your Horse Tools You Will Need to Perform a Maintenance Trim Looking for Custom Made Farrier Chaps?
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The Case Against Horseshoes History The first scientifically recognized wild horses appeared in fossil records approximately 55 million years ago. As the eons passed these horse-like animals continued to evolve into larger and faster animals and slowly developed into the horse we know today, Man entered the scene with horses somewhere around 30,000 BC as a hunter in search of food. Fossils and artifacts found in Europe show drawings and carvings of these animals, and several ancient sites have been located in Europe with large collections of horse bones, suggesting the horse started out as a long term food source for early man. It isn't until approximately 4000 BC that we see the relationship of horse and rider begin. As humans found more uses for horses we saw man increasingly using tools to harness, control, and train the animals for specific purposes...mainly agriculture and war. As man continued to consolidate his hold on land and property, wars for territory became more common and the horse became the primary vehicle of conquest. There is some confusion among historians about when the first horseshoes actually came into use...dates as far back as 3500 BC have been suggested by some, but there is no physical evidence or written records to support the theories. Several other historians place the date in the 5th or 6th century BC, but metallurgy was still in its infancy and iron was relatively scarce and difficult to work...therefore it seems unlikely that there was a widespread movement toward horseshoes at that time. Fast forward to the 8th century AD and we have some folklore beginning to suggest that horses were being shod, but still no physical or written evidence of the fact. It isn't until about 900 AD that we finally find the first written record of iron horseshoes being used on cavalry horses. This seems far more likely, as feudalism and the Crusades finally made shoeing important for long distance conquest. Instead of horses being kept in loose herds or large paddocks, they were now being kept inside castle walls in damp stalls and confined spaces.This was the Age of Iron and man was putting iron into and onto just about everything from men to horses. One notable reason for putting shoes on horses feet at the time had to do with the conditions horses were being kept in. Being kept in an excessively wet environment and consequently being fed what 'humans' thought was good horse food, their mounts began having trouble keeping good feet. Since humans have a tendency to try to make nature 'better', the shoe became the fix for ailing hooves. Instead of addressing the cause of problem feet, a piece of iron was nailed through living tissue and the hoof was artificially held together, as well as covering up the 'problems' so that they were no longer visible. Short term, the horse did move better with the shoe, but shoeing can and does cause long term changes and damage to the horses hoof. Thus the horseshoe was developed as one answer to an unhealthy environment for the horse, as well as for a tool of war and conquest. As one resource puts it, "Would you rather be run over by a barefoot horse or one with iron shoes? Would you rather be kicked barefoot, or with an iron shoe? What a sight to see an armored horse and rider charge you with sparks flying from their feet!" "What has changed about the horse in the last thousand years that makes them require shoeing?" If the horse has been running around barefoot for 55 million years, (obviously a very successful species which had the ability to adapt to numerous and varied environments...until man took hold of them), then what, if anything, makes their hooves so weak that they require an iron support device? Simply put....MAN.
Slightly over 1000 years ago man decided that he knew more than nature and began to make "improvements" to the horses feet by driving chunks of iron through the sensitive living tissues of the foot and attaching iron plates to the bottom of the hoof. Over the centuries the practice of shoeing lead to the "belief" that horses "need" shoes in order to stay healthy and be rideable by humans. Certainly man recognized that their horses were having problems with their feet, but as man often does, he starts by treating the symptoms rather than identifying and addressing the underlying causes.
Present Ultimately, the underlying causes for most problems with hooves boils down to....MAN. We have taken the horse from a natural environment and placed them in an artificially small one...where they don't get enough natural movement. We have taken away the horses natural food sources and substituted it with food MAN thought was good for them...without ever trying to find out what they eat naturally in the wild. In general today, our horses are being fed the human dietary equivalent of chocolate eclairs. We have also bred horses for specific traits, and then in-bred them some more to create specialized breeds, which also tended to magnify existing genetic weaknesses that have since been passed down through generations. In many cases very large breeds of horses were bred whose feet are still fundamentally designed for medium sized horses. In these cases a shoe becomes merely a crutch for poor breeding practices.
What a horseshoe does to the hoof is similar to putting it in a straight jacket and suspending it in midair. The anatomy of the hoof essentially makes it a passive pump in the horses circulatory system. When the hoof is on the ground, the weight of the horse causes the hoof wall to expand outward and also compresses the contents of the hoof capsule downward, forcing the blood out of the hoof capsule and back into the bloodstream. When the hoof is picked up, the outer hoof wall contracts again and the release of weight allows the spongy tissue inside the hoof capsule to absorb fresh blood like a sponge.
Therefore, the more a horse walks, the more fresh blood is circulated through the foot, resulting in a healthier hoof. In addition, both the sole of the hoof and the frog make passive contact with the ground and act as shock absorbers aiding in the pumping action previously mentioned and preventing injury to the joints. When a hoof is suspended in shoes the frog is taken off of the ground and no longer provides support to the internal structures of the hoof. In addition, the shock absorption and traction on smoother surfaces that the frog provides are eliminated. As a result, the frog may atrophy and shrink over time...see the photos at the bottom of this page for an example.
Now, let's put a horseshoe on and see what happens. First the foot is lifted off of the ground...so the hoof wall is in a contracted state. Next a steel, aluminum, plastic, or similar metal shoe is then nailed, or sometimes glued onto the contracted hoof. There is now a piece of relatively inflexible metal attached to the hoof, essentially preventing the hoof from expanding when weight is placed on it. In many cases clips are also added to the shoe to prevent the shoe from moving around on the bottom of the hoof. These clips further restrict expansion of the hoof wall, as well as weakening it since the clip is actually cut into the hoof wall and filed flush. Add to this, the fact that the shoe itself is lifting the hoof completely off of the ground, preventing necessary ground contact with the sole and frog. The foot is no longer pumping blood the way it used to and is unable to efficiently rid itself of the old blood, nor pickup up as much oxygen rich fresh blood when the horse walks. It is likely that the horse begins to lose sensation in the hoof over time, due to lack of proper blood flow, and as a result becomes more prone to serious injury since it can't feel it's feet as well as it once did. This is just the beginning... The horseshoe also prevents any possibility of normal hoof wear. Therefore the hoof will grow out more rapidly within the confined restrictions of the horseshoe. We see under-run heels, excessive wall growth, contracted heels, atrophied frogs, quarter cracks in the hoof wall, abscesses, softening of the callus on the sole, thrush from mud and debris getting packed into the sole and held in by the shoe. Now we have a weakened hoof just waiting for some opportunistic fungus/bacteria or a minor injury to set off a cascade of health issues leading to lameness. If young and growing horses are shod, we see shoes affect the growth pattern of the hoof. It typically shows up as contracted heels, narrow frogs and unusually long hoof capsules. Since this growth was altered by shoes, the coffin bone as well as the supporting skeletal structure will all have grown around the shoe, making the deformation permanent for the life of the horse. It won't necessarily cause lameness and many shod horses make fantastic transitions to barefoot performance.
Note the difference in the shapes of these hooves. The unshod hoof is rounder and wider with a huge healthy frog and heel bulbs, providing lots of shock absorption and support. By comparison the shod hoof is long, narrow, and oval with an atrophied frog and contracted heels with virtually useless heel bulbs. These parts of the hoof rarely touched the ground while in shoes and the result was atrophy and a misshapen hoof. Unfortunately there is not much we can do to turn the lifetime shod hoof into the unshod hoof. We will trim the shod hoof as best we can and hope that over time the atrophied parts of the hoof will reawaken. The hoof may improve slightly with time, but to a large degree the damage has already been done.
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