Feet Update

It's now exactly eight weeks since the shoes came off and two and a half weeks since the horses arrived here in Cereste.  The difference in their feet due to the dryness here is incredible - not surprising, really when you consider that they've gone from these conditions :

Kingsland, Dec 13th

to these :

Cereste, Dec 21st

Hoof wall quality seems to have improved and Flurry is wearing his into what seems like a nice mustang roll, to our uneducated eyes anyway.

That's a rounded edge, right?

We had a day of rain yesterday, which has possibly caused their frogs to look a bit yucky again.  It's time to dig out the silvetrasol spray (some day I'll learn how to spell that!) and start using it on their frogs, especially their hinds.
Two of Flurry's frogs:

GiGi's hind frogs (fronts are under wraps!)

GiGi's sandcracks have finally moved down a bit from the coronet.  We have both been looking at these cracks for the last seven years and this is the first time we can see a clear improvement.  It's hard to know if this is due to the PHW wraps or the different conditions, but who cares!

Right Front :

Day 32

Day 55

Left Front :

Day 32

Day 55

The Boring Feet pictures:

FLURRY

Left Front :

 Left Hind :

Right Hind :

Right Front :

GiGi.
Left Hind :

Right Hind :

Barefoot - Week 1

We're coming up to the end of the first week now, so a Barefoot progress report is warranted.

Best of the three horses is Flurry.  He's walking fine on level concrete and soft ground, he's just a bit tender on rough or stony ground.  I rode him today for the first time, he was pretty good.  His usual stiffness to the left and perhaps just a tiny bit tentative in trot.  I gave him a brief canter on each rein, too (couldn't resist!), he felt fairly normal.

GiGi initially looked good and then worried Anne quite a bit on day three by looking rather sore in trot. Anne backed off immediately and then just walked her the next day, and by day 5 she looked a bit better.  Lazy to lead but walked and trotted on well on the lunge!

Aero is the one I expect to benefit from "barefoot"the most, but he's the one who is suffering the most at the moment.  Within two days of his trim he was looking very sorry for himself and was quite reluctant to move around the field, let alone walk onto the hard standing area.  I moved him into a drier area where there is a good pick of grass for him, and thankfully within a day he had perked up a bit.  He has had some heat and slight swelling in his left hind fetlock, probably due to the sudden change in the angle of his joints when he had the trim last week.

He has been quite sore while doing his daily walk work in the arena, but by day 5 we were beginning to see an improvement - he's walking carefully and not striding out like he normally does, but he is looking less sore than before.

He's now asking to be let back into the very muddy paddock with his buddies again, by standing at the gate looking hopeful!  We'll keep him where he is for another few days, though, it's done him good.

In case anyone is wondering, my arena is not covered in gravel!  That's rubber chip, made from old tyres and with the metal bits removed.

More preparations, horsey ones this time

Today was B-Day : Barefoot Day.  Martine and I have arrived at this point together, but from different routes, so we've decided to co-write this post.

Martine:

I’ve always know, somewhere at the back of my mind, that shoes are not really good for horses feet.  I can’t remember where I first heard the phrase “take the shoes off to give the feet a break”, but I’ve usually done it, once a year for my own horses, for two – three months at a time.  I’ve never done anything more permanent, though, because horses need shoes, right?

Over the last few years, I’ve been thinking more and more that my daughter's horse in particular didn’t need shoes –  80% of his work was in the arena, with the odd road, field or beach hack thrown in to vary his routine – but I never followed through on it.  Anyone I discussed it with had the attitude “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it”, so I left well enough alone.

Then I read Joe Camp’s book Soul of a Horse.  He does verge on being the crystal-swinging, incense-burning, tree-hugging-hippy horse keeper from time to time, but he makes a lot of very sensible points about why horses were shod in the first place, and how is it that wild horses somehow survive without shoes, in many cases in the most extreme rough terrains.

I know a lady locally who started on the barefoot path two years ago, and hasn’t looked back since – I’ve chatted with her on and off about the barefoot idea, but was never brave enough to do it.

I did some more research on the internet, both scientific and anecdotal, and followed the story of two Irish women who were transitioning their horses – poniesathome and twohorses.  Theirs is not a story of an easy transition and plain sailing, but it showed me beyond doubt that it can be done, given time, knowledge and willingness to invest in hoof boots.

I resolved that on our return from France, I would finally take the plunge and Flurry would “lose the shoes” and I mentioned this to Anne.

Anne :
When we first started talking about "the Trek" I was concerned about Gigi's inability to go down hill at a decent pace. She really minds herself, and still has the odd slip and slide. Whereas Flurry marches happily off, albeit doing enormous slips and slides, but how were Gigi and I going to keep up with Martine and Flurry. Then I read "Riding the Milky Way", the story of a trek from the centre of France to Santiago de Compestela in Spain. Their reasons for going barefoot seemed so logical, and they found that the horses had much better grip without the shoes, obvious when you think about it. They used "hoof boots" some of the time, and managed the journey without resorting to shoes, although they did have problems with loosing boots.

Had we left it too late ? Could we transition our horses in time ? Well surely it was worth a try. Would I be able to convince Martine ? Well I did manage to convince Martine and we got the contact details for the "barefoot lady" from our mutual friend Frances.... as to the rest, we shall see!

Martine:
So Anja Koch, Equine Podiatrist, arrived into the yard at mid-morning on November 10th.
She started on Aero, Tansy's horse.  First thing to note was his very flaky, brittle feet, which my farrier had also pointed out recently.  Once his shoes were off, I could see much more clearly what she was talking about.  His front feet were ok, and should grow into a good barefoot shape quite easily.

Left one done, right one to do

His back feet, though, were extremely long - years of wearing shoes and being trimmed into a shape suitable for shoes has forced the hoof capsule to grow forward, giving him a breakover point which is too far forward and causing him to flick his toes off the ground as he trots.

Very long - in fairness it's just over six weeks since his last shoeing

Much better - the deviation is even improved

That bulge at the front shouldn't be there

Same foot post trim

Anja pointing to where the toe should be

Pointing at the same spot post trim - toes are MUCH shorter

GiGis turn

More brittle feet - pre trim

Post trim - shorter and more rounded toe

Flurry's big round front foot

Flurry' front post trim

Flurry's hind foot - just looks a bit long in the toe from this angle

But take a shot from the side and you can see how high the frog is
The heels will come down and the frog will recede

Anja advised us to walk the horses in-hand in the arena for a couple of days - twenty minutes of marching around will be more beneficial than a whole day mooching around the field, as it should really get the circulation going.
She left a rasp with us, with instructions to even off any chips or rough edges that appear over the next few weeks and she’ll come back to us just before the horses leave to do another trim and tidy-up job.

We’ve made contact with an Equine Podiatrist (Beatrice  Vuillaume) about an hour from Cereste who will help the horses continue to make the transition when we get there. 

Both she and Anja have been very helpful and also realistic – we all agree that it will be tight to have the two horses fully transitioned within 5 months, but that it is possible.  Worst case, we get them shod before we start the big trek – their feet should be good and healthy at that stage, so three to four weeks of wearing shoes won’t hurt.  Best case, they manage the whole lot barefoot, and somewhere in between is the scenario where they wear hoof boots part of the time.

It will be worth so much to us if we can achieve it, in terms of safety and security while travelling over varied terrain, and in terms of not needing to worry about cast shoes and finding farriers in the middle of nowhere.

Gigi and Mick

Anne:
Gigi had the added pleasure of a visit from the equine dentist, as horses no longer live naturally, grazing the prairies all day long, they tend to grow spurs and sharp edges on their teeth, that need to be rasped off from time to time. Gigi seems to really enjoy the visits from Mick Dillon, who has endless patience with her, doing all the necessary work without the use of sedatives.

Gigi giving Mick a good look at her teeth

Paddock management for barefoot horses.

The first load spread

Standing around in muck and slush all day is not good for hoofs, so we’ve had two loads of mixed stone delivered to ensure that the horses have the option of a dry hard area to stand on.    There are big stones underneath, and then “blindings”, which is limestone chip and dust, spread on top.

All three horses were happily standing on it this morning, shoeless.  Strangely enough, yesterday morning, GiGi was reluctant to stand on it, even though she still had her shoes at that stage.

The end result - they seem quite happy to stand on it!

The horses have somewhere between six and eight weeks left living here – hopefully what they have in the paddock will be sufficient for their needs – a hard dryish area, a sandy area and a muddy area (which was grass once upon a time) plus regular work either in the arena or on the road as they adjust.

To Rug or not to Rug

Normal Cereste winters are ideal for horses – very cold at night-time (-8 C and colder) and quite warm in the daytime (low teens and higher).  Add very low amounts of precipitation into the equation, and it’s perfect weather for keeping a hairy cob out of doors with no rug.

What horses don’t like is persistently wet, windy weather – the Irish winter climate, in other words.  They have a built-in ability to fluff up their hairs, trapping a layer of air which helps to further insulate them from the cold, but when they are soaking wet they can't do this.

What horses don't like

I've been determined to keep Flurry unrugged this winter in preparation for the trip to France.  This means I absolutely won't clip him, as he'll need all his hair to keep him warm at night when he gets to Cereste.

Anne, on the other hand, had no intention whatsoever of keeping GiGi unrugged.  GiGi grows a very light winter coat and will undoubtedly need a rug to see her through the cold nights in Cereste, and Anne intends to take it off her during the warmer hours of daytime.

So I've been praying for a dry Autumn, and in fairness it hasn't been too bad down here in the South.  However, I'd forgotten just how much horses love to roll!  And Flurry sure does love to roll - he finds the muckiest spot he can find in the field and plasters every inch of himself in a thick coating of mud.  This means that I’m facing a horse shaped creature with armadillo-like armour made of dried mud every morning.  By the time I finish scraping it off to ride him, I’m exhausted, coughing and caked in dust.

Armadillo Horse

 a closer look at the "armour"

Anne, meanwhile, started rugging GiGi ten days ago, and has been laughing at Denis and I as we spend hours scraping muck off our horses every day.

I cracked a couple of days ago and put Flurry's rug on him.  Life is too short to spend half an hour every single day chipping a horse out from the clay cast he's wrapped around himself.

I still have to clean this bit even when he's rugged!

But I was still determined not to clip him.  

Last week, the weather was very mild and he was sweating a lot when I rode him, but the forecast was for temperatures to drop by 8 to 10 degrees (C) this week, so I figured he'd appreciate his extra hair once the cold air hit.  I started feeding him an electrolyte supplement to make up for the salts he's losing in perspiration, but otherwise there wasn't much I could do about it.

The cold weather duly arrived this week - not quite freezing, but it's the first real taste of winter.

Flurry and I have had a busy week so far.  

Working on canter at home

I had a lesson in Skevanish with visiting trainer Andy FitzPatrick on Monday.  We did some trot work, with transitions and leg-yielding, and a fair bit of work in canter.   I'm close to cracking it.  Andy's advice was to keep asking Flurry to push more with his hind legs "Think Medium canter," he kept saying, and both Flurry and I worked really hard for the 45 minute lesson.

We both sweated up a lot after that one.

On Tuesday, Anne, Denis and I took the horses down to Ballinhassig village and back -  a distance of nearly 9 kilometers, with a steep uphill section on the way back.  We did a lot of walking, but trotted up most of the hilly sections.

It was cold and breezy, but I was nice and toasty with my coat on.  Poor Flurry sweated up a lot again - behind his ears, down his neck and chest, under the saddle, on his flanks and between his hind legs.

On Wednesday, we were back in Skevanish for our regular lesson with Frank.  It was another cold day, 8C according to my jeep's thermometer.  Despite the cold, Flurry once again sweated up hugely, and finished the lesson soaked from his ears to his haunches.

Enough is enough.  I had to put his welfare in our current environment ahead of his welfare in a future environment.  The hair had got to go.

I've not only cracked, I've done a complete 180.

He's now modeling a very stylish bib clip and wearing his rug.

We'll cope with the Cereste climate when we get there.  Chances are, Flurry will have grown all his hair back by then anyway.

Nearly there - just the lower half of his head and behind
his ears to do

All done, and enjoying a day off today!

Friday Weather Watch

You can see those night-time temperatures starting to drop in Cereste.  Meanwhile, look at the roundy yellow thing on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday which is missing from the Cork forecast!

Despite the cloudy/rainy image for Friday in Cork, it's been quite a nice day here.

View from Dee's garden.

Anne and I loaded up the horses and went off for a more adventurous hack in the Boggeragh mountains with Dee and Ed and their horses Captain Jake Morgan and Wilson.

Dee and Captain Jake Morgan

It's brilliant riding country up there - we had to do about a mile on a very quiet road, then we went into a Coillte forestry plantation and did a circular ride on the forest trails.

Flurry whispering sweet nothings to GiGi!

We went through a lovely stream :

There's a video of this which I'll add later when Dee sends it to me.

It's great to know that we can load up GiGi and Flurry and that they'll travel well together, and then come out of the box calm and happy to work when we get to our destination.

Thank you GiGi & Flurry!  And Dee and Ed for inviting us - we'll be back for that picnic ride in a couple of weeks!