Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, and are progressing into a merry Christmas Season!
2014 marks the 20th anniversary of Millwater Publishing's dictionary of farriery publications. It started with just a humble, saddle-stitched glossary with pen and ink diagrams and daisy-wheel generated master copies...
Since then, there have been many updates, expansions, and upgrades in production. Now it's a perfect-bound trade paperback or glossy hardcover with photographic illustrations. The content has evolved into more encyclopedic form, with extended articles and lots of cross-referencing for efficiency. Covering ground from basic horsemanship to advanced farriery, with a focus on practical application.
It makes me a little embarrassed to look back at some of the early editions. But they do serve as interesting markers to the eras in which each edition was published.
The current edition is designed to be a handy reference for horseowners, students, farriers, and other equestrian professionals.
I usually post promotional discount codes for the hardcover version on the Millwater Publishing FaceBook Page and Twitter feed. (I don't make those up. I just report 'em!)
And, to celebrate 20 years of the lexicon project, I'm going to do them one better for Black Friday through Cyber Monday with 50% off the trade paperback when you ORDER DIRECT and use check-out code RXYKQG6P
Scuttlebutt over on the Facebook is that a horse magazine article has the whole Barefoot Horse cult back in the spotlight. Of course, we'be been around this track a whole lot of laps over the years, so I'll just give us a quick round-up...
A refutation of the BAU-definition of the "traditional farrier trim" and the whole notion that the "barefoot experts" can accomplish some magic via horn removal that farriers are somehow to ignorant to comprehend.
How all the claims of special trimming techniques (complete with endless diagrams and critiqued photos online) on horses left barefoot are inherently silly given the fundamental limitations of unshod hooves.
Leading farrier educator, internationally credentialled author of the foremost textbook of farriery (Principles of Horseshoeing 1974, expanded editions 1985 & 2004) gives his take on the whole barefoot movement.
"The
beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms."
-Socrates.
Many
years ago, when I was stumbling up the path from being a 'guy
who shoes horses' to becoming an actual farrier, I started
taking the trade journals, attending clinics, and doing the best I
could to expand my understanding of art and science. Problem was
that writers and speakers often threw around references and
expressions, assuming that everyone was already familiar with them.
...Some of us weren't!
I
wire-brushed the devil out of the bottoms of a lot of hooves trying
to get them clean enough so that I could see the "dot" that
Duckett fellow had discovered, which some magazines mentioned, but
didn't explain.
Then
there were the articles and lectures from veterinarians and academic
researchers. They like to use a lot of ten dollar words just to
show-off. But, when you think about shoeing horses, even simple
terms like "up", "down", "right",
"left", "front", and "back" can be
confusing due to the fact that we look at things from so many
different points of view. Sometimes the fancy terminology really was more
precise.
Even
'plain old' horseshoeing language caused confusion. I recall an
early contest where there was a rather heated argument between the
judge and a contestant over "heel calks", "corks",
and "blocked heels"... Then there was a clinic where I
found myself exchanging confused shrugs with a few other tarheel
farriers as the lecturer explained that "Over eighty percent
of the pleasure horses in the show ring speedy-cut at the passing
gait."
By
the early 1990s, it had gradually dawned on me that there ought to be
a glossary of farriery. I'd successfully written for several major
equestrian magazines by then, so I decided to give it a go. In 1994
I published The Pocket Dictionary of Farrier Terms and
Technical Language. It sold-out pretty quickly, even as
better authoring tools became available to me, and a lot of new terms
that needed to be included became apparent. So, the following year,
The New Dictionary of Farrier Terms and Technical Language
was published.
There
wound-up being eight editions of the New Dictionary
between 1995 and 2010. Each featuring new terms, refined and
expanded definitions, more and better illustrations.
Initially,
the focus was on the sort of scientific and specialized jargon you
can't look-up in Webster's. But, over the years, I realized that
there were a lot of horseshoers with impressive technical knowledge
and skills who had somehow managed to skip over some fundamental
basics. I also discovered that many of my readers were other
equestrian professionals and horseowners. So I began expanding the
scope of the Dictionary to include the "foundation"
terms needed to support the advanced material.
Terms
evolved into topics. Definitions into articles. With the tenth
print version of the lexicon, it has grown into something new. An
encyclopedic dictionary. A cross-referenced collection of
interlocking entries designed to allow readers to come in at any
level from prospective student or interested horseowner to
established professional, and go up, down, or sideways as their
reference needs dictate.
It
was on the advice of two veterans of farrier publishing that I added
my name to the title of the tenth lexicon. I was a little reluctant. Even my hubris has limits... But it ultimately made sense. The
transition to an encyclopedic format, centered on articles rather
than mere definitions, meant that the book would reflect my own
experience and approaches more than the previous works had. This
will probably elicit some criticism, as I do tend to develop some
unusual techniques...
As
I was finishing-up with shoeing a rather tricky therapeutic case, I
mentioned to my wife that I was going to have to work on finding a
way to explain a "trick" I'd used for an article.
She
said "You can't tell other people how to do that!"
"Why
not? You know it works."
"Yes,"
she allowed. "But nobody but you can make it work right."
I'm
pretty sure she's mistaken on that point. But she made me put-in a
disclaimer anyway.
Well, we're now in Thanksgiving week, so the holiday season is fully upon us. So how about I get a little generous with this entry and post a sample that the equestrian set might find useful... Especially when they're getting ready for a nice Autumn ride and find ol' Dobbin has done a mischief to one of his shoes!
This sample from MILLWATER'S FARRIERY: The Illustrated Dictionary of Horseshoeing and Hoofcare is patched-together from several of the books encyclopedic entries, and gives an overview of how to fix that thrown, loose, or bent horseshoe for horseowners.
Of course, the book is designed for cross-referencing, so you don't quite get the full effect here. And the illustrations are much higher resolution in print (downgraded to keep the online file smaller).
For starters, here's the "tool kit" all horseowners should have handy for hoof maintenance between farrier calls...
And here are the sample pages on horseshoe fixing from the book. (.PDF file.)
Hard to believe the holidays are almost upon us again. Impending Mayan Apocalypse Doom notwithstanding, it's been a pretty good year. Our home dairy project has worked-out, and the raw milk has me healthier than I've been in many years. We're getting ready for the big draft horse sale. (Always more exciting when you're actually looking to buy one.) And MILLWATER'S FARRIERY has done nicely in it's first year.
Not the first year for the Dictionary in general, of course.
Just for the new, encyclopedic version.
It's kinda' funny in this era of modern distribution to see royalties coming in Euros and Pounds instead of just plain old Dollars. I reckon it really is a global economy now.
I'd like to thank all the readers on both sides of the Big Pond who've made the book a success. I hope you have found it useful.
I'll be posting the discount codes for the holiday sales here and on FaceBook as they become available. But those of you who want the hardcover version can get a deal on the promotional copies that are usually available on eBay. Even the holiday e-coupons probably won't match the price there. Come to think of it, the trade paperback is also there at a discount...
Finally, although I've been seriously distracted and busy in meatspace lately, if anyone out there has a farriery topic they'd like to have addressed or revisited on this blog, just let me know!
Happened to have PBS on the other night, and the late, great
Victor Borge was on talking about the history of the piano... In
particular, how it was a horribly boring and monotonous instrument
until somebody came-along and invented the cracks (between the
keys).
That reminds me of an aspect of the equine hoof. Specifically,
the frog. There are so many theories and myths about the frog. How
it acts as an extra heart. (Nonsense, directly anyway. It hasn't
got a lot of blood capacity.) How it must bear weight for healthy
hoof function. (Tell that to the countless 'desert-footed' horses
who go rock-solid decades without frog loading from beneath.) Etc.,
etc...
One question folks don't seem to ask is why does the hoof have a
frog in the first place? Why didn't Nature just make the whole hoof
a continuous case of hard material like the wall? Why make part of
the hoof out of relatively soft and vulnerable material?
The answer I see is that the hoof didn't so much need the frog,
as it needed the hole the frog covers. That 'missing' pie slice out
of the hoof is like the cracks in the piano keyboard. If the hoof
wall was an unbroken circle, it could scarcely flex at all. It
would have to either withstand all the stresses in full sharpness of
impact, or suffer structural failure. In fact, I have too often
observed that, when the rear of the hoof is immobilized through
improper shoeing, the wall tends to crack right down the toe.
Something's gotta give, so Nature installed a flex-joint by
taking-out that wedge of horn at the back of the foot. But she
couldn't leave the 'guts' of the foot wide-open, so she put on that
leathery cover... The frog. While she was at it, she made the
skeleton in the posterior of the hoof out of cartilage, to allow
that flex-joint to be used to good effect.
Of course, just because design allowance has been made for
flexing under stress, that doesn't mean more flexing is always
better. The springs on a car are supposed to cushion the ride, but
you don't want every bump in the road to cause the vehicle to bounce
like a pogo stick. And, while bridges are designed to yield a bit
to the wind, sometimes the concept can go a little too far.
Likewise, a healthy hoof doesn't (and shouldn't need to) distort
a whole lot under normal conditions. Many of the things people do
to 'encourage' hoof flexing, like soaking and dressing, just cause
structural weakness. Think of the hoof as spring steel, not
silly-putty.
The notion that having the frog on the ground in necessary for
'expansion' and proper hoof function doesn't really hold water
either. Heavy draft horses almost always have big, loading frogs.
But many of the soundest light horses have fast exfoliating horny
frogs that never load against firm ground. Trimming such a horse's
heels down to the bulbs to try and get the frog on the ground will
only create a broken-back axis and ultimately lameness.
The frog can be recruited to bear considerable load when needed.
In fact, when we get hooves that have OVER-expanded (which is to say
collapsed and pancaked-out), pushing the middle of the foot back up
via frog pressure from a heartbar shoe is an effective way to
intentionally contract the foot back into shape. Precisely the
opposite of the "frog pressure creates expansion" assertion.
As a general rule, farriers attach horseshoes to the anterior
hoof wall, which is in-turn attached to the rigid coffin bone,
leaving the posterior, cartilage-supported, part of the hoof to flex
as needed.
The first thing a horseshoer in this day and age might ask is "Why would I even want to fabricate bar shoes when there are godzillion prefab bar shoes to choose from?"
Well, it wasn't that long ago that we didn't have
such a great selection. And, the way things have been going lately, you
never know how many of your favorite shoe manufacturers might go the
way of the dodo, or at least be driven to streamline their offerings in
times to come.
But, even while there are prefab bar shoes available, there are some
advantages to making your own. One is simple inventory. If you keep a
supply of several different bar shoes in five or six sizes each, it adds
up to a load of shoes pretty quick. More stuff to haul around in your
rig or to eat up space in your shop.
Another advantage to making your own bar shoes is nailing. Most
horseshoers have a favorite keg shoe they use more of than anything
else, and nailing this shoe becomes fast and accurate second nature.
Switching to another make of shoe, especially on a horse who may be sore
(which is why he needs the bar shoes, right?) will make precise shoe
placement and expedient application that much harder on the squirming,
unhappy critter. If the bar shoe were based on your favorite keg shoe,
it'd be easier.
Fitting prefabricated bar shoes can also be somewhat difficult,
especially with heartbars, which are hardest to shape well with the
tongue plate in the way, and tend to be needed in cases where a precise
fit is even more essential than usual.
Like a lot of horseshoers, I first started making bar shoes by
selecting a keg shoe a couple sizes larger than the horse would normally
wear, then turning the heels in to forge-weld them together. This
approach had some serious shortcomings. Keg shoe stock gets thicker and
wider as sizes go up, so the resulting bar shoes would be excessively
heavy. The nail holes would also be shifted too far back, and set too
coarse. And, if the horse already took the biggest size of keg shoe in
the box, there were no bigger ones to make bar shoes out of.
For a number of years, I got into the habit of forging all of my bar
shoes from bar-stock. This was quite an improvement over using an
over-sized keg shoe. But it could be a bit of work, especially in the
busy season.
One Summer evening, while I was catching up on some forge work in the
shop, the wife came out and said we'd had a call from a customer whose
mare was in eggbars, one of which had been lost out in the pasture, and
needed us to swing-by and fix her up a few days ahead of schedule.
Knowing we'd be pushed for time the next day, and being ready to come in
from the shop that evening, I decided to try a short-cut. I grabbed
two pair of my favorite keg shoes (St. Croix Rim Lites), used my
V-hardie to cut off one pair right behind the toe-nails, and riveted the
cut-out toes across the heels of the whole shoes to form the "O"
shape. One welding heat to just lightly tap the first joint together
without buggering-up the other side. Second welding heat to fully weld
and shape the other side. A third heat to finish-up the first side. In
no time, I had a pair of eggbars ready to go.
When I applied them, I discovered that these
eggbars were easier to make final cold-fitting adjustments on than my
handmades, and were all-around quicker and easier to get on the horse.
And, once the horse had polished them up a few days, the horseowner
thought they were prettier than my hand-forged irons. (Kinda' hut my feelings, that!)
It wasn't a great leap to figure out that, by inserting the cut-out
toe across the heels of the whole shoe, but facing the other way, I
could whip-up straightbars just as easily for performance horses who
needed a bit of extra support and stability, but would likely step-off
eggbars.
(Worn shoe.)
Of course, this left me with a bunch of partial shoe branches lying
around. Then it occurred to me that, if I crossed 'em, welded them
together, hooked out the "heels" a bit, and punched rivet holes, these
would make great frog plates for heartbars. This is particularly handy,
as horses in need of heartbars are often in no shape to stand around
having their feet messed with for very long. This way, I can just
cold-fit a pair of keg shoes in a jiffy and let the horse go rest while I
forge-weld in the pre-made frog plates. When we go back to the horse,
all I have to do is fine-tune the plate pressure and nail-on.
They may not be as impressive as contest-winning handmades, but the
horse is just going to grind the things into the mud and manure anyway.
When it comes to getting the job done, these humble bar shoes are as
good as any.
As with the old Chinese curse, we are living in interesting times.
Between rising prices, and the proliferation of grossly unhealthy additives, substitutions, and GMO Frankenfoods in grocery store "food" products, a lot of folks are looking towards some level of self-sufficiency.
Fuel and equipment upkeep costs are motivating some small farmers to revisit really old-school approaches...
Our latest distraction here has been getting old-fashioned production of real, unadulterated milk flowing. (Once you discover fresh, creamy, raw milk from a grass-fed Jersey, you'll want to punch the grocer right in the nose for passing-off that bleached and boiled, watered-down sewage in plastic jugs...)
Around here, THIS is a milk "by-product".
Draft horses seem to be gaining in popularity in recent years. This may have started-out with folks wanting to breed them to performance stock to develop American sport horses. But more and more, folks appear to be gaining an appreciation of draft horses for what they are... Which means even veteran horsemen have to learn a whole new world of things, like collar fitting, harness types, and so forth. And, of course, farriers have to become conversant in these new things as well. Farriers have always been expected to know a good bit more about horses than how to mount them on iron.
This is why some fundamental draft horse and harness information worked its way into Millwater's Farriery: The Illustrated Dictionary of Horseshoeing and Hoofcare. The big critters are part of the scene on our farm too, and doing what they were bred for.
The blurb from the review is "An excellent reference for shoers,
owners and farrier students..."
He also observed that the dictionary had evolved into a
"mini-textbook" of farriery. Something I realized myself as I was
putting it together.
This actually gave me pause at the time... After all, we are
blessed with some really great, full-on farrier textbooks in this
day and age. It was certainly beyond the intended scope of the
lexicon project to 'compete' with them.
But the massive textbooks from Butler and Gregory are designed
for dedicated students going through training at the better farrier
schools on the way to careers as professional farriers, and retail
for several times the list price of my book... I know a lot of
people interested in farriery aren't starting-out at that level.
Especially in times like these, I figured there was a place for an
entry-level primer rooted in the fundamentals. Something to get the
prospective hoofcare provider (or horseowner who has to resort to doing their own) started so they can find out if it's
really for them, then they can move-on to the more advanced training
and texts appropriate to their chosen career paths.
Smith did bust my chops on the "selected resources" appendix of
the book... And not without justification.
I included Crudoir on the "periodicals" page. At the time the
review was written, all there was of the magazine was a webpage
announcing the upcoming launch... Since then, that has been
replaced with an announcement that they've given-up on the plan for
a new magazine as-such, and are going "another direction".
Well, that's the peril of reference book publication. Even in
this modern age of fast publishing tech (and believe me, it's like
greased lightning compared to the 'good old days'), I still had to
put the content to bed and shift to formatting and set-up long
before the actual release. I'd been in-touch with the intended
publisher of Crudoir, and she was in-earnest about making the
magazine a reality... I didn't have the option of waiting to
see if it caught-on, so I included it. Actually, I figured that
even if it didn't fly, it'd be an interesting footnote in the
future. Henry Heymering's bibliographic history tome On The Horse's
Foot cites a number of publications that are only known due to their
being mentioned in old reference books.
Then there was the fact that, with the folding of so many other
farrier periodicals, the American Farrier's Journal is effectively
the Last Man Standing. Frankly, I had to stretch a little bit just
to keep AFJ from being completely alone on the page!
As to the weakness of the "Internet resources" page, he's got a
point there. In truth, that section is almost vestigial. Left-over
from earlier dictionaries before Google was built right into all our
browsers, when you actually needed to know a URL to get to a
resource.
I certainly didn't intend to snub the AFJ website in this
section. Since a URL was included on the "periodicals" section,
where AFJ was at the top of a far less crowded page, I figured
putting it in the "Internet" section was kind of redundant.
With the ever shifting sands of the Internet, I'm also a little
reluctant to reference new Internet documents, as they have a nasty
tendency to get moved or gone as websites get 'updated' and
redesigned. My personal favorites/bookmarks lists attest to this
with tons of now '404' links.
On a side-note, I included contact information with the Press
Release which was really intended in-case the folks at AFJ needed to
touch base with me. (Sort of traditional PR format.) Unfortunately,
I apparently didn't make that clear, as my farm land line and snail
mail address got published with the review... I rarely use the
land-line, and can barely hear incoming messages due to interference
from the electric fences... And all orders are ultimately processed
over the Internet anyway. (I do not have a warehouse of books and
mail packaging like the not-so-good old days.)
If someone really hates to order over the Internet, they can ask
at a brick and mortar book store. They're not likely to have
Millwater's Farriery in stock (as it's a specialty kind of book),
but it is available through regular distribution channels, so they
can order it.
I can dig it. Just worked on one I've been doing for many years. They can be quite frustrating.
The problem is that the malady isn't really in the hooves. Heck, I
can fix the hooves. And have fixed them time and again. Pushed the
bone column back up off the ground. Built-up a solid, thick sole. Got
the dorsal surface of the wall parallel to the front of the coffin
bone. Better feet by all measurements than many 'sound' horses are
wearing... Back to regular shoes or barefoot, and all is well for a
while.
Then "kersplat!"... Sole goes flat. Abscesses all over. Hoof capsule warping all out of shape...
So I fix him again. And again... In time it becomes apparent that
he's still stilt-legged, even when his feet are in good shape. And he's
starting to look like a skinny wooly mammoth in the Summertime.
There's the rub. The source of the problem is ultimately in the
endocrine system, and the flexor muscles and tendons. Put perfect feet
on the legs of a horse whose flexor muscles are drawing up into balls,
and with a pituitary sending out haywire signals to have the horse
essentially poison himself, and the feet won't stay perfect long.
But people get a little upset if you try to take the nippers to these bits.
Brain surgery to get rid of a pituitary tumor isn't really plausible
with most horses. Various drug, supplement, diets, and hormone
treatments are tried, but they only work 'sometimes', as the nature of
the condition is constantly changing.
Deep flexor tenotomy can help... But vets are often reluctant to try it.
I covered this once before, but the recent passing of J. Scott Simpson prompted me to bring
it back. In this day and age of endless argument over relatively
academic aspects and vague philosophies of hoofcare, I really
appreciate solid, practical solutions to the challenges of better
shoeing, and few are more useful than the Eagle Eye system developed
by Simpson. This is why the system and each of the five patterns
have had individual listings in the Millwater lexicon since the
first version in '94, with attribution to Simpson, of course.
In other news, Amazon is running a sale on the paperback
version of Millwater's Farriery. At $16.20 (eligible for free
shipping if included in an order over $25), they even beating the best I can do on eBay. But that's fine with me. The eBay listings are honestly just there
to point the web-bots to the Amazon and MillwaterPublishing pages.
I'm better off having copies sell through Amazon.
The current Amazon deal actually makes the encyclopedic Millwater's Farriery less expensive than its predecessor, The New Dictionary of Farrier Terms and Technical Language in its final (2010) edition... Which is still available out there, so make sure you get the one you intended.
I've been a bit scarce on the Internet lately. Trying to get everything caught-up and a bit ahead in preparation for being laid-up after another danged surgery. And the weather hasn't been helping.
If anyone has any topics they'd like to see addressed on the blog, or Encyclopedia sample entries they'd like to request, please feel free to let me know.
Meanwhile, a 20% discount is available on the Millwater's Farriery HARDCOVER through 2/23/12... Just enter "SWEET" as your discount code.
I don't get to travel to these things like I used to. Used to be a frequent flier to the Bluegrass Laminitis Symposium, AFA, GPF, and even BWFA national conventions, and various other clinics and events. I do miss it sometimes. Learning from some of the great minds in the profession, both in the formal settings and, perhaps even more beneficial, in the many informal discussions between and after the lectures and presentations.
Spending days soaking-up wisdom and techniques from Burney Chapman, Grant Moon, Edward Martin, Simon Curtis, Gene Ovnicek, and so many other farriers... Learning about the cutting-edge research and theories from Doc Redden, Jaime Jackson, and many other vets and horsemen... Always had me coming home with a new enthusiasm for the profession, albeit perhaps a little too eager to try the latest thing on horses in my own practice. Fortunately, I eventually learned to temper that impulse. (Which in itself is something I try to convey to folks who get carried-away with the study, technique, or guru du jour.)
Of course, it was always hard to get away for cross-country trips. Seems like horses have a psychic ability to know when their farrier is out-of-state so they can throw shoes. It's frustrating for horseowners to call and be told their shoer is thousands of miles away when they need him NOW. But their patience is rewarded with a real farrier who knows more about horseshoeing than how to lop-off a bit of foot and mount the horse on iron.
bute: Phenylbutazone. A non-steroid, anti-inflammatory drug and painkiller usually administered in oral form to horses. Although legally restricted to veterinary prescription, this drug is widely available and often improperly used to mask lameness which could be corrected at the source through appropriate farriery.
Bute has been around in the horse world for a very long time. Despite being a prescription drug, almost everyone has a jar or few tubes of the stuff handy.
Sometimes I'm convinced the introduction of bute was one of the worst things to happen to horse care in America... No need to deal with the actual cause of pain when you can just give the critter a bit of the wonder drug and make everything all better...
Except that it doesn't.
Pain is Nature's way of telling Dobbin something is messed-up, and he shouldn't go stomping-around until it's better. This is especially true in laminitis, where the mechanical stress of walking around can rip the compromised laminae and cause the progression into outright founder...
It's hard to see our animals in-pain... But that's what makes them lay down and keep still, which is just exactly what they need to do until the initial laminitis attack runs its course.
Not only is masking the pain a bad idea, but bute itself may make the laminitis worse. Laminitis isn't just a foot thing. It's systemic. And bute stresses a number of organs, and may enhance the autointoxication aspect of the laminitis attack.
Then there are abscesses. Encapsulated infections that sometimes cause intense pain until they are drained or rupture... But using an anti-inflammatory like bute tends to slow the infection coming to a "head" and prolong the agony. Bute can turn what would have been a rough couple of days into a chronic problem.
Navicular and other arthritic/bursitis problems are one place where bute can be a help or a detriment depending on how its used. Giving a sore horse bute to keep him going as he is will facilitate further damage... But, once all mechanical adjustments possible have been made to prevent further injury, bute can be used to enable the horse to engage in restorative exercise. (Especially useful if lack of mild daily activity was a causative factor in the lameness to begin with.)
It's a bit troubling to me how many horseowners think bute is some sort of first aid... Bute does not fix anything! It's like giving a kid with a broken leg some whiskey and telling him to "walk it off".
Worse yet are vets who prescribe it so freely... I suppose you can't blame 'em. Horse is in pain or limping, and the client wants Doc to DO SOMETHING. But temporarily feeling better isn't always conducive to actually getting better.
Hey! Hope everyone has had a great holiday season, and good start to this New Year...
Now back to business. ;)
There was a time, not all that long ago, when
horseshoeing in many parts meant pulling a plain shoe out of the
keg, opening or closing it a bit, hooking the heels in, nailing the
sucker on, and lopping-off whatever hung over the edge... If you
wanted to get fancy about it, you could stick a sheet of leather or
plastic between the shoe and hoof before nailing-on, or maybe even
put the shoe on backwards for a 'bar shoe'...
Yes... The 'good old days' kinda' sucked.
The last quarter century has brought us to the opposite extreme.
Some farriers pride themselves in turning out hand-forged horseshoes
that are gorgeous works of art. Others love to use the latest
modern products to assemble high-tech horseshoe packages worthy of
Star Trek. A lot of guys do a bit of both.
Horseshoe fabrication skill is a wonderful thing. And many of
the newer products and materials can be very useful in some
situations. But I do think we sometimes have too much of a good
thing. Especially in times like these, it may not be wise to go
with fancy (and often expensive) alternatives just because we can.
Especially when simpler approaches may work as well or better.
I was using glue-on shoes back when that meant riveting a rim pad
jig-sawed out of a polyurethane sheet to an aluminum or steel shoe,
then using a paint-stripper heat gun to weld tabs around the
perimeter to be affixed to the sanded hoof with glorified
crazy-glue.
Fortunately, both the shoes and adhesive applications have
improved since then. They can be quite useful in some cases... But
they are expensive and time-consuming to apply. They also have
functional drawbacks, either being prone to easy pasture loss
(especially in muddy conditions), or encapsulating/sealing far too
much of the hoof wall, preventing it from "breathing".
Despite having the glue-on option in my arsenal, I've learned
over the years that it is possible to securely affix shoes to some
of the most disastrous looking hooves with good old-fashioned
nails. Maybe having glue-on shoes handy has kept some of the newer
guys from developing the particular skills it takes to hook solid
nails through 'wishful thinking' hoof wall. But a lot of the hooves
that prompt folks to say "there's no way you can nail a shoe to
that" wouldn't even be a challenge to some of us graybeards.
On a related note, we have modern hoof repair products like
Equilox and Equithane, which sure are an improvement over the auto
body and wood filler putties we used to resort to. These newer
adhesive/repair materials are often used to glue on shoes these
days. But again, they are expensive, and can be a bit of a hassle
to employ, especially in less than ideal field conditions. And
sometimes they work too well... Sealing-in bacteria that turn into
nasty infections. Deft nailing technique, and a willingness to let
the foot be a little rough-looking until a damaged bit grows-out,
often make hoof fillers unnecessary.
A cousin to the modern hoof repair materials is the pour-in pad
approach that is all the rage these days. Must admit that it is
kinda' nifty, and has practical application in a few cases. But I'm
not a huge fan of pads in general. When they are called-for,
conventional pads (Shock-Tamers are my favorite) with Sole Pack will
do the job beautifully with less fuss and expense... And you don't
have to worry about Dobbin' taking a foot away before the goo
sets-up!
Another "new" product that we were using many years ago is synthetic shoes, both polyurethane and rubber. These actually
worked just fine, and aren't outrageously expensive or troublesome
to apply. But, unless you plan to ride or drive on pavement a lot,
they don't offer significant advantage over conventional shoes. And
replacing a single lost shoe can be a problem, especially if the horse is
away from home at the time and the horseshoer who has to pinch-hit
doesn't stock unorthodox shoes.
That problem also applies to really exotic shoes like the Slypner
system, which I used quite a bit of when they first came out twenty
years ago... Composite stainless steel "base plate" horseshoes with
removable urethane wearing treads that could be changed by the
owner. (Flat, calked, and studded versions for different activities and
conditions.) They certainly look modern, and work okay. But are a
bit pricey and can be a real PITA to apply, especially if the horse
has off-pattern hoof shape or tricky walls. (You have to use the
provided nails, which can be hard to 'steer' through the wall.)
Most clients didn't find switching Slypner treads to be much easier
than switching threaded stud calks. Frankly, must jumpers and lower
level eventers do well in concave shoes with jumping-type welded jar
calks, which don't need to be removed for turnout or casual riding.
One thing I'm bound to catch a bit of flak for is my decision to
focus on 'down-and-dirty' practical horseshoeing techniques and
illustrations rather than high craftsmanship handmades in Millwater's Farriery... Trust me, it's not because I'm unable to
forge pretty specimen shoes.
Like a lot of guys at the time, when I first started making bar
shoes, I just used a keg shoe a couple sizes bigger than what the
horse normally wore, turned the heels in 'til they overlapped, and
forge-welded them together. Since keg shoe stock gets wider and
thicker as you go up in sizes, this made for excessively heavy bar
shoes. It also resulted in the nail holes being too coarse and too far
back.
These problems were solved when I started forging all my bar shoes from bar stock. Got
pretty good at it. Had a lot of horses going on my fullered,
hand-forged bar shoes there for a while...
Then, late one Summer evening when I was wrapping up a long
stretch of shop work, the wife came out to tell me that a mare I was
supposed to reset the next week had lost one of her eggbars in the
pasture where it was unlikely to be found. Since this mare would
trash her thin-walled hoof if left shoeless any length of time, I
knew I'd have to get to her the next day, despite the busy Summer
schedule. But I certainly wouldn't have time to forge her a new
pair of shoes in the field, and I was already worn-out for the day
and didn't feel up to turning the shoes from stock that evening. So
I just grabbed two pair of #1 St. Croix Rim Lites, cut the toes out
of one pair, then turned 'em around and jump-welded them across the
heels of another. Presto! Eggbars.
The horse certainly didn't care. She went as well as ever. In
fact, the conversion shoes were a little lighter than my handmades.
I wondered what the owners would think of my little "cheat", or if
they'd even notice... Turns out they did... And thought the new
shoes were prettier than the handmades I'd been using! (Bit
of a blow to the ego, it was.)
So, if the horse was happy, the owners were happy, and the job
was a bit easier on me, why in the heck would I go back to using
handmades? To impress other farriers? Heck, I don't work for them!
While all the fancy shoes and materials are great options to
have, and can be literal life-savers in some cases, the most
practical and effective shoeing solution for the widest array of corrective
and therapeutic problems is actually a correctly fit, conventional
horseshoe, properly applied to a well prepared hoof.
It's been another rough, and kinda' sad week here at Prophet's Thumb. Haven't had a lot of time or inclination to finish the next post on what makes a qualified farrier...
Fran reviews various hoofcare books available as holiday gifts, including Millwater's Farriery. (That bit starts about 21:30 minutes in, or 8:30 from the end.)
Okay. Following the various equestrian communities lately, I've
noticed some troubling notions about farriery that I'd like to
address...
SHOEING SHOULD NOT MAKE HORSES SORE. Okay, to err is human.
Anyone can misread a foot now and then. But it is not normal or
acceptable for previously sound horses to be sore after shoeing or
trimming. If someone tells you otherwise, they don't know what in
the hell they're doing. (Note that making major adjustments in
balance, such as trimming a severely overgrown hoof back to
some semblance of normal, can cause ligament soreness if the horse
isn't rested for a couple days afterward. That is a different
matter entirely.)
IF A HORSE CAN'T GO BAREFOOT ON MODERATE GROUND, HE IS NOT
SOUND. A freshly shod horse should be able to have his shoes pulled
and immediately go on normal ground without being tender-footed. If
he can't, the foot has been over-trimmed and the sole is too thin.
Shoes on sound horses are supposed to be an enhancement for heavy
use, severe terrain, or high performance, not a necessity for light
use on turf.
NO HORSE SHOULD ROUTINELY BE SORE AFTER EVERY TRIM. Some horses
have weak, sensitive feet and thin soles, and are easier to make
tender than others... But a competent farrier should recognize such
feet and trim accordingly, or, at the very least, realize that he
over-trimmed after the first time and preserve more horn mass
thereafter! If trimming results in soreness, too much was
taken-off. Period.
THE FARRIER NEEDS YOUR INPUT. You can tell the farrier about
the horse's history (especially laminitis issues), tendencies, past
problems, and the kind of use you intend to put the him to. This
information will help the farrier tailor the work to the animal's individual needs.
A FARRIER DOES NOT NEED TO BE TOLD HOW TO DO HIS JOB. If you
feel the need to give the farrier specific instruction on trimming
and/or shoe application, you need to either get a better farrier or
buy some tools and do it yourself, since you obviously know how
better than the professional expert you hired.
YOUR VET, TRAINER, RIDING INSTRUCTOR, AND STABLE MANAGER ARE NOT
EXPERTS IN APPLIED FARRIERY. Yes, vets have tons of formal
training, but almost none of it has anything to do with trimming and
shoeing the equine hoof. He has no more business giving shoeing
instructions than the farrier has dictating colic surgery
technique. Trainers are notorious for buying into fads... Wanting
to believe that their horses lost because the competition had magic
shoes rather than admitting the other guy had a higher quality horse
with better training who would have won even with cinder-blocks
strapped to his feet.
SHOEING JOBS THAT LAST 12 WEEKS ARE NOT A BRAGGING POINT! It is
actually not difficult to apply shoes in such a way that they will
stay on a long time. But doing so is usually not good for the
horse. Shoeing for long intervals encourages shoers to take away as
much horn as possible without spilling blood (to get a head start
against the extra weeks of growth before the next shoeing) which
weakens the sole arch and precipitates the collapse of the foot into
chronic "thin soles". Shoers will also fit the shoes short and
tight at the heels, usually with the heel nails placed behind the
widest part of the foot. This can result in corns as the heels
overgrow the shoe and the load starts to grind against the sole.
This fit exacerbates the tendency of the bearing surface to shift
forward as the hoof grows out, stressing the flexor/navicular
interface and the anterior laminae. Most horses need a 4-6 week shoeing cycle. And no, that's not just shoers trying to get more work.
NOT ALL HORSESHOERS ARE CREATED EQUAL! So many people complain
that they've used multiple "farriers" with poor results. But I know
how a lot of horseowners choose their shoers. Back when I was in
the Yellow Pages (before switching to referal-only), I'd come home
almost every day to find messages on my machine from people wanting
their horses shod. More often than not, when we returned the calls,
they'd already got someone else. Or they couldn't wait until we had
an opening. Or they developed a speech impediment when we told them
our rates... If you're selecting a horseshoer based on the fact
that he's got nothing better to do than answer the phone in the
middle of the day, and is in so little demand that he can come out
on short notice and is willing to shoe for beer money, you are not
likely to get a top-quality professional farrier. Being the handy
"barn shoer", looking good in jeans, and being buddies with the
vet/trainer/etc. are also less than impressive evidence of
competence under the horse.
LOOKS AREN'T EVERYTHING. Form follows function, so usually a
good shoeing job will be nice-looking. High, even, smooth
clinches. That sort of thing... But too often horseshoers get
carried-away trying to make the foot look "perfect", even to the
point of doing structural harm. "Cupping" the sole... Trimming away
horn to create apparent concavity... Actually weakens the solar arch
and promotes the devolution of thin, flat soles in the long run.
Everything taken from the bottom of the foot leaves that much less
protection. The goal is to keep the horse sound. Not to make the
bottom of the foot look like an idealized plastic model.
FARRIERS SHOULD BE UNSURPASSED AT HOOF TRIMMING. We tend to focus on forging skills because fire, sparks, heavy tools, smoke, and bending steel to our precise will are just plain awesome... It wasn't that long ago that the ability to turn a decent shoe was a rare thing, helping to separate the real farrier from the backyard shoe-horser... But trimming horses to go barefoot makes up a large portion of the typical farrier's trade. And, for all the emphasis on forging fancy therapeutic and corrective shoes, the majority of practical therapeutic and corrective shoeing is applying fairly ordinary shoes onto properly trimmed hooves. The bulk of farriery is about recognizing what the individual needs and balancing the hooves accordingly. A good barefoot trimming specialist may be able to do it as well, but nobody should be able to do it better than a fully competent professional farrier.
Not all horses need horseshoes all the time. In fact, some
horses can do everything their masters require of them perfectly
well barefoot, and may never need shoes at all.
The economic reality of today is that there is a shortage of
truly competent farriers, especially when it comes to those
available to 'small time' horseowners.
These to factors create a niche for the hoof trimming
specialist. Competent trimmers to handle some of the horses who
don't need iron, freeing-up the farriers to focus primarily on those
that do. And saving the horseowners from having to rely on Cheap
John horseshoers for trim work.
So, just to be clear: I don't have a problem with some horses
going barefoot, or with competent trim-only services. (a.k.a.
Barefoot Trimmers.)
A bit over a decade ago, there was a wave of anti-horseshoeing
zealotry inspired by the much-vaunted Strasser barefoot trimming
approach. To their credit, barefoot enthusiasts appear to have
become somewhat less militant, and to have moved away from Strasser
in favor of much more sensible trimming models in recent years.
But there's still an anti-horseshoeing vibe out there. In
equestrian forums, people feel the need to be apologetic
about having their horses shod. Starting posts with "I'd really
prefer to have my horses barefoot, but..." And heaven forbid
anyone suggest shoes as a solution to any hoofcare problem, as
someone will usually feel obligated to jump-in and claim it's crazy
to expect shoes to fix problems they insist were created by using
shoes in the first place... Or to push their favorite barefoot
guru's protocol and/or shoeing alternative, despite it being an iffy
and cumbersome way to do what appropriate shoeing could accomplish
immediately.
One thing that really rubs me the wrong way is the implied claim
that Barefoot Trimmers have some sort special approach that is
dramatically better for shoeless horses than the "traditional
farrier trim"...
The supposition being that farriers trim all horses as if
we were going to fit them with shoes... Flat, and with relatively
low depth of foot.
I spent my formative years in the coastal lowcountry, where a
large percentage of horses go barefoot. The humidity and moisture
tended to keep hooves a little soft, and the ground was sand, black
sod, clay, and limestone. Abrasive, rather than rocky.
Early-on, I noticed that the barefoot horses with the best feet
coming in for trimming didn't have flat bearing surfaces. This was
especially noticeable when someone had worked the horse enough to
need shoes due to excessive wear. Even after trying to flatten the
foot to receive the shoe, I'd still wind-up with some daylight
between shoe and hoof through the quarters, and a bit
alligator-mouthed at the toe.
The non-flat, worn surfaces of bare hooves weren't too
mystifying. One problem a lot of rookie horseshoers have is
accidentally "gutting the quarters" when they're trying to rasp the
foot flat. The structure of the hoof makes it easy to grind-away
the quarters...
It's also obvious to even a greenhorn that horseshoes typically
wear thin at the toe first... So the fact that worn, bare hooves
had gutted quarters and beveled-up toes made perfect sense.
It also didn't take long to observe that the non-flat bottomed
hooves generally looked pretty good, even when due for a trim, while
hooves trimmed neat and flat quickly split and peeled. It's not
great for business to have hooves look way worse a week
after trimming than they did a week before you did them.
So, when trimming horses to be left barefoot, I developed the
approach of doing the main trim with three nipper passes, each done
with the reins swung slightly to the outside, making the cuts at a
bit of an angle. One pass, heel-to-toe bend on one side of the
hoof. Another on the opposite side, then the third across the toe.
After rounding everything up with the rasp, this left the horse
standing on four spots of the wall on each hoof. One on each side
of the toe, and one at each heel buttress.
In mechanical terms, this trim reduces breakover resistance both
when going forward and moving laterally (which is why I got less
chipping and peeling), while maintaining good overall depth of foot
thanks to the four loading spots holding the sole up off harder
ground, so the horses weren't sore-footed.
Fast-forward to the early 1990s, when I met Ric Redden and Gene
Ovnicek, and attended symposiums featuring their Four Point and
Natural Balance trimming approaches. Gene, like Jaime Jackson, had
taken an interest in mustangs, and had used his observations to
guide his trimming technique. The Four Point and Natural Balance
protocols corroborated what I'd been seeing and doing all along...
And expanded my understanding of why it worked.
Around that time, I was interacting with some of the elder
statesmen of farriery. (Somehow, I had a lot more elders back then.
Funny how that works.) Several of them told me the same thing.
They'd been doing bevel-based, three-pass, Four Point, Natural
Balance trims for barefoot horses for decades. It never
occurred to them that it was really a 'thing'. It's just the way
that worked for them.
Checking the leading farrier school textbook from over a quarter century ago, I find that extensive beveling, starting with using
the nippers at an angle, is instructed under "trimming to go
barefoot". Even my 1898 textbook emphasizes the need
to preserve extra horn and aggressively round-off the walls on
horses who will be going without shoes.
So, if the "traditional farrier trim" is flat and short, same as
if the horse was going to be shod, it must be a pretty darned new
tradition!
I know that there are some horseshoers out there who do every
foot the same way, whether shoes are going-on or not. A decent
Barefoot Trimmer would certainly be better for the horse than going
with such a shoer.
But the notion that Barefoot Trimmers have had some sort of
divine revelation that showed them how to trim horses better than
competent farriers is just an insult to generations of
professionals.
You see, when Barefoot Enthusiasts tell veteran farriers to go
read-up on the teaching from the latest guru, we roll our eyes not
because these approaches are wrong, but because you're trying to
teach grandma how to suck eggs!
