? When was the first time? Putting a period at the end of a sentence doesn’t mean I’m upset. I understand that you can’t trim or shoe your way out of poor hoof quality. Me being new on this forum isn’t an indication of my understanding of that. I wasn’t asking about hoof quality or nutrition, I was asking the singular question of what age is appropriate to start shoeing a horse
ttps://thehorse.com/128739/at-what-age-to-shoe/ If you can’t access it, you can sign up for a free account. The answer is it depends on the horse, the environment, the diet, the amount of free movement and exercise, the training and competition and the skill of your farrier and type of shoe you want to use. There is no one correct answer. The longer you can put off putting on shoes while the hooves are still growing the better the inside structure will develop.
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We have had no issues with shoes on young horses affecting hoof growth or final adult size hooves. Young horses have been foals, yearlings, 2-3-4years old. Shoes on for various reasons, most therapeutic or sale babies needing a neat hoof look. Some were short time, others for several sessions. Husband is a Farrier, shoes had short clinches that would open easily to come off if shoe got hung up, without removing hoof wall. Baby shoes are usually only 4-nailed in the toe area, to allow the hoof quarters to flex easily across the shoe.
A good trim before shoeing is important, preventing hoof issues like heel contraction. Trimming for bare hoof use is not the same trim needed to put shoes on. Both sides of hoof should be the same length. Have to watch out for “right-handed horseshoer’s disease” from one-sided shoers who do not work ambidextrously. No corrective trimming after foal is six months old, it won’t “fix” anything. Corrective trimming WILL mess up leg bone alignment, cause wear in wrong places of bone. Many visible young horse leg issues will self-correct with time and body development as horse ages.
The composite shoes offer no hoof support, will often cause hoof to splay out, because they flex so much. Doesn’t matter the brand, they do not offer the support of a metal shoe. Watching slow-motion video, metal shoes also flex as horses land on them, just not as much.
I am not a hoof boot user, want regular metal shoes on my horses going down the road, over hard ground, bless the added traction to keep her hooves grippy. Trail riding lets us see the hoof boots, all brands, that have come off between camps. We used to stop and pick them up to haul into camp. Now there are WAY too many lost boots, picking them up eats too much time climbing on and off, trying to juggle the numerous boots collected. Takes all the fun out of enjoying the ride!
OP, a good Farrier should be able to shoe your young horse IF you feel she needs shoes to be used comfortably. Full pads under the shoe can cause problems. Perhaps using a sole hardener with shoes, will toughen the sole so full pads are not needed. X-rays will tell you if she has a naturally thin sole that needs help. Some horses are made that way, no amount of transition time will get her comfortable barefoot, despite what the bare foot advocates say!
If horse is still ouchy after one period of barefoot use, she needs shoes or a form of hoof protection. Our horses generally have excellent hooves, thick soles and hoof walls. The breeding is noted for it. The young Partbred mare seems more sensitive, needs shoes now and again, especially in mud, wet weather. They go from shod to bare to shod again, without ANY transition time. No limping or waiting time AFTER shoeing, can go right to work after Farrier puts the last hoof down. Some have worn shoes year around for years, because they are being used regularly, need traction, wear protection. No contracted heeks, other issues. Same shoe from 5 years ago, still fits exactly the same as shoe they wear now. Same size, same width, clips placed properly.
It all starts with using a good, skilled Farrier.
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This is simply incorrect, and it is exhausting that it continues to be thrown around as fact largely by folks dedicated to traditional horseshoeing. That may be your husband’s experience (will address this momentarily if so), but in truth I have seen this be more of a myth than anything–someone heard from someone else or maybe saw a picture shared by someone, so the story goes around, and gets repeated as fact. Or they are basing their opinion on all composite shoes based on what was available 25 years ago and haven’t taken the time to research the latest options.
If a composite shoe is causing a foot to “splay out” it is due to poor application, poor fit, poor trim, or a combination of the above. Sure, if you just slap on a plain narrow rim shoe composite, you might have some issues. But many composite shoe options are now available with a spring steel core for nailing; there are also many wonderful glue on options. Especially as we now understand how critical it is to provide adequate caudal support for the foot, products like Duplo horseshoes, the EasyCare Versa, EC Flexes, the new Speed they have coming out, etc provide substantially MORE support for the foot than a typical rim shoe.
Check out Garrett Ford’s FB page for many, many videos and pictures of horses doing fabulously in composites long term. Or Daisy Bicking’s page. Or Curtis Burns’ work. The head farrier at UC Davis uses many, many composite shoes with great success. I have horses in my paddock with beautiful feet who live in composites year round, applied on a six week schedule, with absolutely no splaying issues and substantially more comfortable, with better feet, than they EVER were in rim shoes. I can also get multiple resets out of them, which I never got out of steels on my rocky ground. There is so much information out there now and I truly implore folks to seek it out rather than rely on outright dismissal.
Absolutely no problem if someone chooses to pursue more traditional shoeing options, especially as they can be more economical or easier to find–but to dismiss composites as useless and inferior is quite simply wrong.
As to the OP’s question, I prefer to wait as long as I can to shoe, particularly if nailing on metal shoes, but many horses are shod well before the age of 5 and if the farrier is competent they suffer no deleterious effects. I would be much more concerned with finding the best, most competent, and most up-to-date in terms of continuing education hoofcare practitioner available to you, and then working with them to determine what is best for your horse. That may be metal shoes, may be boots, may be barefoot until spring, etc.
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OP, horses of all ages can need shoes for one (or more) of these reasons: protection, correction, and traction.
Foals can require corrective shoeing, so while it is ideal to keep a horse barefoot, it is often impossible to do so. Be willing to reevaluate regularly.
The key is having an excellent farrier and vet who work together as a team, especially when the first set of shoes goes on.
Shoes will NOT fix a poor trim.
Get the best professionals and have the vet on hand to do rads to make sure those angles really are what they look like.
Good luck!
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Composites don’t flex any more than the foot does. Metal shoes flex less. There are enough edurance horses doing all their training and rides in composites to know the shoes aren’t the problem.
Composites can’t cause the foot to splay any more than the trim allows or causes.
A given foot may need more non-flexion support than composites allow. That doesn’t make metal shoes better or composites worse
Until you know the situation, you can’t blame the boots. Way too many people don’t know how to choose the best boots, and again, quite a lot of endurance riders train and/or do rides in boots
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Yup. Boots will pop off if the underlying trim is wrong, too long, asymmetric.
Every once in a while I pop a boot right when we are starting to pull up from a gallop and maresy needs a trim But I see it go flying. I can’t imagine who all these riders are who don’t notice they have just dropped a $100+ bill on the ground and don’t turn around to find it. If the boot flies off into the swamp, you can’t find it but if it’s lying on the trail, it’s easy to retrieve.
By and large, if they are that inattentive to losing boots, they may possibly be missing other aspects of hoof care
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What happens as the foot grows ( gets longer and /or wider) as a bare foot will do? There are also issues with rubbing in some horses?
No matter as I said just my preference.
I don’t have these issues thankfully.
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Trim a bit more often.
It’s also not just what a bare foot will do. It’s what feet do. The bare foot has the advantage of wearing to some degree on most surface, most of the time, unless you’ve got a horse not moving around and living on a soft surface (in which case you don’t likely need boots).
Yes, probably all boots rub some horses. Lots, and lots of them don’t. Many of them have socks/gators to help with that.
Basically, all the negatives about boots in this thread seem to be things held over from when boots were pretty new, not many brands out there, and not much was known yet about material, fit, all of the things that exist in dozens and dozens of types of boots now,
I mean Easy Boot used to be about the only one from Easy Care. Now look at their inventory, and that’s just 1 company.
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Not a problem for me as I trim my own. This year I tweaked how I was trimming and my horse’s heels expanded, which was a good thing, but it did mean that her boots no longer fit after three years in the same boots. $200 for a three year run was pretty good though compared to thousands I could have spent on shoeing over that time - sold the horse and will probably be able to sell the boots for $50 as they have a lot of life left in them. It would still be cheaper to stay on a 4-week trim cycle and use boots than shoe every 6 weeks or whatever.
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Absolutely. A set of 2 steels with leather pads and equipak (honestly pretty close to the effect of boots + pads) is $200+ here. A pair of boots are about the same price, last longer, and sometimes go on sale!
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OK, so you do have that covered. Of course we are going to bring up nutrition because need to rule out that IS in order. After a full year of such a good amount of the important stuff it IS interesting she’s still ouchy in gravel. She’s young but my next thought then is what is her insulin level? Just to rule that out? ` Would that be the next good idea?
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Don’t let this scare anyone away from boots.
We’ve been riding in ours for three years and have yet to lose one, even going through serious sucky mud. As long as you find the right size/shape/fit of boot for the hoof, they are solid. My endurance friends turned me onto them (they ride a LOT more miles than I do) and no issues.
My jokester DID think it was funny once to physically rip one of the scoot straps off in the middle of a water crossing while riding bareback😂. Thankfully I was able to fish it out and find a good log to climb back up on!
More frequent trimming. I trim myself and don’t like to go any longer than 3 weeks. I use a rasp only, so much longer than that turns into a lot more work for me. With that said. The boots seem to accommodate 4-6 week trim intervals pretty well from others I know.
As far as rubbing goes, I use the Scoot neoprene gators that attach to the boots by the heel bulb. We don’t do much more than 6-8 miles but haven’t had any rubbing issues. They also offer an endurance gator which offers even more coverage than the regular ones.
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I know but when the foot is shod or when you don’t use hoof boots there is no reason to worry about the boot not fitting anymore.
That can get costly for some of us and just adds more out of pocket so if the horse keeps shoes on well it would be more cost effective to shoe? How often do you replace boots?
Not paying for horseshoes is a significant consideration. I haven’t done the math myself because I’ve never paid for shoes, but that seems to be the general consensus even with trimming at shorter intervals.
Just realized I didn’t answer your replacement questions! I bought my first set mid 2020 and they lasted me two years. I would do several days a week at several miles a pop on trails so I’m not sure how many miles we put on them, but replacement is MUCH less than traditional horseshoes.
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I guess that depends on what someones farrier charges. 3 years is a long time and it sounds like the boots have improved. Good that horse owners have so many options.
I know I am fortunate that I have an excellent farrier and an inexpensive one at that , plus my horses do just fine on an 8 week schedule, shod or barefoot.
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Insert so much eye rolling here
The flex and the closer mimicking of the natural hoof function is one of the main reason the glue on composites work so well. There’s a reason that so many endurance riders choose boots and glue ons over traditional shoes. And boots stay on just fine when they are properly fitted. I have thousands of miles in boots (and have fitted them for other people at my farrier’s request). The only time I lose one is if I mess up
Edited to add: for me boots are more expensive because I do a lot of trotting on gravel and because when I get regular shoes my farrier only charges me for materials. But I still prefer to use them because I feel like the horses go better in them
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until your horse loses a shoe going down the trail, or out in the pasture.
It’s a GREAT option for horses who only need protection when they’re ridden, or when they go certain places they might not go to all that often. They can be bare when they’re happy, and booted when they’re not.
How much are you paying for shoes? How much for trims?
Let’s say you pay $150 every 6 weeks for shoes. That’s $1300/year. I know a lot of people pay more than that, and some get shoes every 5 weeks.
Let’s say you pay $75 for a trim every 4 weeks. That’s $975. You can’t tell me those are unrealistic. Heck, even if you’re paying $100 for trims every 4 weeks, that’s the same $1300
you do your own math
How long is a piece of string? What surface is the horse working on, how many hours a week? Lots, and, and lots of people replace boots every 2-3 years after they’re just flat worn out.
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Better yet, according to an article in the American Farrier’s Association site, the national average for $131.46 for shoes, and $43.13 for trims. It also mentions resets average around $125.52 but we had a thread here recently where the majority of people said their farrier charges the same for reset or new shoes, so if we split the difference:
$128.46 every 6 weeks = $1113.32
$43.13 every 4 weeks (which would be ideal for the bare foot that regularly wears boots) = $560.
Until your trims at 4 weeks are more than about 33% of the cost of shoes ever 6 weeks, it’s cheaper to trim more often. In this specific example, $1113.32 - $560 = $553, and that’s more than twice the cost of a good pair of boots, boots you won’t be replacing every 6 months unless you actually do lose them, or something destroys them.
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