Barefoot: how to make the transition
Imagine yourself by the sea, walking barefoot across rough shingle.
Awkward, isn’t it, and slow? Hurts your feet. Quite hard to keep your balance.
But after the first few steps your confidence grows. You adjust. You move faster. Your feet get used to the pain. If you did it every day you’d find it easier and easier.
You want a thick, calloused sole that can handle the surface changes of day-to-day riding.
Not surprisingly, patience is the first thing you need.
After removing the shoes your horse may appear uncomfortable. It might walk awkwardly (particularly on hard ground). But that’s only because it felt nothing when it wore shoes.
A horse’s first barefoot days are always spent finding its feet. This can take days, months, perhaps even a year depending on how long it has been weakened by shoes. But every day will be easier. Blood will start pumping to its feet, carrying vital nutrients to the starved hooves. To speed up the process you can…
- Trim the hooves, little and often. You want to go easy on your horse’s hooves, allowing them to harden. Rounding off the edges is also important for avoiding splits. Doing this weekly (if necessary), makes it easier to keep on top of the increase in hoof growth.
- Adopt the “White Line Strategy”. This rehabilitation trim strengthens the hoof’s crucial White Line, which holds the hoof wall to the coffin bone.
- Use hoof boots. When walking your horse on harder ground, you don’t want its hooves to wear faster than they grow. When it’s necessary, offer a little protection.
- Know what to look out for in a barefoot trimmer. Over trimming is one of the most common mistakes. But many, who should know better are responsible for doing this. If you lack the know-how, you should always recruit the help of a qualified barefoot trimmer. But make sure you’re clued up on knowing when to grab your horse and run.
- Master barefoot trimming yourself. Not having shoes will soon have you saving a fortune in farrier and vet bills. But you’ll save even more by learning to barefoot trim. By slowly mastering the craft yourself you greatly improve your horse’s well being. You get a feel for your horse’s hooves, making you the best person for the job.
Again, you must be patient. It takes time before a horse can be ridden barefoot – time that many owners aren’t prepared to lose. It’s up to us to spend the necessary time repairing them.
Remember to always get help from someone who is experienced before going down this route – your horse will thank you.
Jump on here for some more great tips
Best
Al & Claire
Hello..
I would like to know whether or not you can get a book about trimming your horse’s hoof?
I’m rather new to the whole horse life and i just started looking for places that can help me learn more about horse’s and there well being.
I hope you can help.
Thank you.
Lelanie
The best book I can recommend is by Lisa Hunn, I believe the name of the book is “Make the Connection”
Hi, can you tell me if there is a barefoot trimming course I can attend in the uk and on average how much that will cost ? 😀
there is a book that talks about the Mustang roll take some time but works great my farrier in TN does mine 15 years never had a shoe, Rode mountains(east and west),rocks sand swamps. Here is the but Modern horses do not have great feet as a whole. What you feed them go’s right to their feet and breeding has not had the feet in the modern horse in mind. it is not for all but it is worth a try
@ anyone looking for a book about bare foot trimming.
Al, the site owner, sells a great ebook that you can read on your computor
😛 Barefoot is the way to go to save on the pocket book. I owne 12 horses farriers are 30.00 a trim. I took a weeks course with Kate who is well known in the area for barefoot trims. now I know what I am looking for in my horses feed. Old saying from the ground up.
i have 5 horses that i decided to let go barefoot after the farrier nailed the last horse bad shoeing has let me make the decision to do the best thing for my horses it took eight months to see the full improvement but it has been worth it . too many bad farriers out there claiming they are doing the right thing for your horse . do your homework before choosing a farrier and be sure to get rid of them if they make one too many mistakes
I recently bought 2 ex race thoroughbred mares, 7yrs and 4yrs of age. The previous owner used them for show jumping. I was told they are very wobbly without their shoes on. But if they would be better horses without shoes, I would like to make this transition. Would it be possible as I was told that thoroughbreds have to be shoed, because they have soft feet.
Hi Nick,
yes you can! I have a senior OT-TB without steel shoes. Leave them time lots for it. Check that they stand correctly with your vet or farrier, if not only a small chance. No under-run heels or major cracks etc.
Take hind shoes off first, minimal trim, leave them 1-3 weeks in a grass field with daily checks on them, see how it goes and when they are sort of comfortable take off front shoes as well.
Now you can wait, check daily that they are not too sore and feed well, alfalfa and a biotin supplement.This might take you 1-12 months.
Riding, yes when they are comfortable wearing boots, I would not consider it advisable riding TB without boots.