Bar has a beautiful head and (as Devon put it) "terrible" feet. The hoof walls are thin and shell-y and without shoes on, the poor horse would have nothing to stand on. I have heard the barefoot arguments, but I really don't think there is any way to toughen up his feet. At least not without staying off him and putting him in pain for awhile, neither of which I'm willing to do, even if I was convinced it would work.
Luckily, I have a fabulous farrier who is as stubborn as he is talented, so even though that back foot was torn up and very, very short, we have a shoe on it. That's good, because without it, I couldn't work Bar and that would be a very, very bad thing for all of us.
When Mike came last week to shoe Lena, he came prepared to deal with Bar's back feet. Mike had managed to get a shoe tacked on after we lost it on the trail a couple weeks ago, but the mud we got as a result of all the much-needed rain ended up pulling it off because there just wasn't enough hoof to hold the nails.
As it turned out, Bar had grown out enough that Mike ended up doing all four feet anyway and put clips on the back to help hold the shoe on--hopefully for at least 7 weeks until our next appointment! So far, so good. Both back shoes feel very attached.
Ta dah!
The clips look great! The lumps are mud I couldn't quite scrape off (need a wire brush) and the red is iodine to keep bacteria at bay.
No comments:
Post a Comment