Natural Hoof Care
The subject of Natural Hoof Care (sometimes referred to as barefoot trimming or natural trimming) is popular now, mainly due to interest created by studies of the feet of certain types of wild horses and the advocates of methods of trimming to match the patterns observed in those feet. Also, since recent studies have shown the importance of the functions of parts of the hoof other than the hoof wall, various methods of trimming have been devised to purportedly allow for those functions. People tend to look for formulas for trimming, and there are lots of them out there. They range from general guidelines using various landmarks on the bottom of the hoof to more complicated methods which involve measuring angles and scribing lines and arcs on the hoof in order to trim to certain specifications.
I personally approach trimming very cautiously, because over the years I've learned the limitations of using formulas to trim hooves. More and more people are realizing that shoes can harm horses' feet, but few realize that simply trimming a horse's hooves can be a dangerous thing and has the potential to cause lasting harm. My opinion, developed after years of seeing and applying different trimming methods, is that most horses are overtrimmed, including barefoot horses who are regularly subjected to so-called natural trims.
The name "Natural Hoof Care" would lead one to believe that the hooves resulting from those barefoot trimming methods would be "natural." But...it's important to realize that although some methods of barefoot trimming were developed by studying the feet of certain groups of wild horses, that does not mean that the hooves resulting from barefoot trimming are necessarily "natural." There is a difference between "barefoot" and "natural." A natural hoof is one formed by the forces of Nature, not by nippers and a rasp. Any hoof formed by nippers and a rasp is UNnatural.
When I first started in the hoof care business, I was like everyone else and recommended regular trims at 4-, 6-, or 8-week intervals. Gradually, though, I began to understand that, for many horses, such frequent trimming was not only unnecessary but could actually be harmful. Why is that? Well, trying to force the hooves into a certain pattern prevents them from developing what the individual horse in its individual situation needs. And that's the difference between barefoot and natural---barefoot trimming methods often try to force the hooves to fit certain patterns, but natural means allowing the hooves to develop what each individual horse in its own individual situation needs.
As stated in the video Understanding the Hoof--From the Horse's Perspective , the horse is not a mannequin, it's a unique individual. No horse will have perfect conformation, and each individual horse will have its own unique deviations from textbook conformation. The hooves can't be viewed separately from the horse as a whole; they have to be viewed as a part of the whole horse, suited for the unique body build, muscle structure, and way of moving of that particular horse. In addition it is imperative to consider the hooves in light of the environment of the horse. The combination of the characteristics of each unqiue horse and the aspects of its environment is what determines what form the hooves must take in order to maximize hoof function.
When someone shoes a horse, more often than not they shoe the hoof wall, paying scant attention to any other part of the hoof. Sometimes attention is given to the heel area, most often to either make the heel bulbs even or raise the heels, but in general, horse shoeing is about shoeing the hoof wall. And why not? After all, the hoof wall is what is viewed by many people as being THE important part of the hoof. The shoes are nailed to the hoof wall, the horse owner wants to protect the hoof wall from chips and cracks, and on a shod horse, virtually all the forces and weight are transferred through the shoes to the hoof wall. The simple presence of the shoes all but assures that the functions of the other parts of the hoof are negated or at least made negligible. A shod horse has practically no hoof function at all--everything has been bypassed and transferred to the hoof wall.
So, along comes a "natural hoof" advocate who correctly points this out to the horse owner and wants to remove the shoes and trim the hooves in such a manner that will supposedly enable the functions of the parts of the hoof. Hooves which do not conform to whatever model the particular trimmer is influenced by will be said to exhibit "pathology," which basically means anything which deviates from the Mustang hoof model. They have an idea of what hooves should look like, and anything which deviates from that is labeled as "pathology." Since trimming in such a manner is aimed at enabling natural hoof function, such trims are sometimes referred to as "natural trims." Most likely this involves trimming according to formulas which replicate the appearance of Mustang hooves. Less often it would be done by trimming the hooves according to formulas which do not necessarily try to replicate Mustang hooves but were developed by studying the functions of the parts of the hooves themselves. In both cases, though, the end result is the same--while the goal may be to enable the natural functions of the parts of the hooves, the end result is that the hooves are made to conform to one formula or another. However...the fact that the hooves conform to a formula doesn't necessarily mean that natural function is maximized or that the hooves are free of "pathology."
The only thing that is "natural" about Natural Hoof Care is that the hooves no longer have shoes nailed to them. While that might represent a big step toward natural, it's still not natural. Natural does not result from human intervention, even when (and maybe especially when) the intention is to replicate natural. Only Nature can replicate natural. When you think about it, we can't put ourselves in the horse's place - in the horse's body - and feel what it feels like to the horse when it moves. We're limited by what we can see by looking at the wear patterns on the hooves and by what we can interpret by watching the horse move. People sometimes implant pressure sensors in the hoof or have the horse walk over a surface that records pressures over each tiny area, but even those seemingly advanced methods have serious limitations. Of course, sometimes it's easy to allow ourselves to become so in awe of the things technology can do that we lose our perspective. I knew a woman who was diagnosed with cancer and was wowed by the advanced technology that was used in her cancer treatments. She stood in absolute awe of modern medical technology and talked about it constantly--how wonderful this technology was. However, less than a year later, she died. The technology inspired tremendous awe in her, and she had absolute faith in it, but it couldn't save her.
No matter how advanced our science and technology may seem, we still need to realize the limits of human understanding. Technology cannot overcome the limits of human understanding. Over the years I've come to appreciate those limitations more and more and now realize how limited we actually are in determining what's best for each hoof on each horse. I've learned that I don't know what's best - that I can't know what's best.
Since I can't know what's best, I have to trust the horse and Nature. I have to trust that the hooves, in interaction with the environment, will develop on their own what they need to be like for that particular horse in that particular environment. I have to trust that the interplay of the forces coming down through the horse's body and the forces of the environment will shape the hooves so that they function for that particular horse.
I've seen thousands of hooves over the years ... I've trimmed many and watched them respond ... and I've never seen any two that were the same and that responded the same. Each hoof on each horse was unique. Each hoof seemed to have a certain look, a certain unique pattern that it gravitated toward. No matter how the hoof was trimmed, it would try to grow back to its own unique form. What I finally realized was that this was the unique hoof resulting from the unique combination of this particular horse living in this particular environment. At one point or another over the years I might have tried to force hooves to conform to certain appearance models or try to "optimize the breakover" using one method or another, but despite my efforts, each hoof just would not give up in its attempt to form itself into what Nature knew was best for that particular horse in that particular environment. I learned to respect each hoof and also respect that Nature knew better than I did about what form that hoof should take, even if it didn't conform to the patterns shown in the traditional farriery books or the "natural" trimming books. I learned to trust Nature instead of the opinions of other people. And...that's hard to do!
Let's look at an example. Some time ago, a customer bought a gelding that was about 13 years old. This gelding had apparently been shod most of his life according to what I call old school farriery -- which means with a low heel and long toe (I call it the "pancake hoof"), in contrast to the new school which would use high heels and dubbed toes. These pancake hooves look like the whole hoof has been shifted a couple of inches forward -- the heels slant inward, the frog is long and thin, and there's an extremely long toe laterally. (For an explanation about how long toes develop on horses shod in this manner, please consult the video Understanding the Hoof--From the Horse's Perspective .)
The first order of business was to remove the shoes and give the horse an initial cosmetic trim, which didn't amount to much except removing a little wall length and rasping off some of the flare--trying to remove the most obvious surface distortions the shoes had caused. Since the owners provided a fairly large area for their horses that's more or less natural (i.e. not just grass pasture), my recommendation was to forget about the hooves for a while, maybe a year or so. This took some convincing, as no one likes the look of chipped and broken hooves. (And, really, it takes "convincing" me, too, as I could have made money out of that horse had I stated it needed trimming every four weeks.) Well, about nine months later a big piece of hoof broke off the right front, all the way back into the sole area. The horse had finally naturally shed the long toe on one side -- it had finally gotten so long that it just broke off. The horse was also naturally shedding the dishing on the quarters. It too was just breaking off.
What was happening was that Nature herself was guiding the hooves into what they needed to be for that particular horse in that environment. The long toe and the dished quarters would have all broken out long ago had they not been prevented from doing so by the shoes. And...here's something many people don't think about...had I been regularly trimming this horse, even according to a so-called natural trim, my trims themselves would have stood in the way of Nature shaping that foot. One of the ways hooves shape themselves is by breaking off, and that breaking off process depends on the accumulation of excess length. If you remove excess length by trimming, you remove the natural process by which hooves adapt themselves to what is required for that particular horse in that particular environment. You may be creating a hoof that looks like some sort of model, but you are creating a deformed hoof, deformed in respect to what it needs to be like for that unique situation. For a horse which lives in something approaching a natural environment, we can let Nature take over and show us what kind of hooves the horse needs.
And THAT'S a natural hoof. A natural hoof is what results when the hoof is left alone on a horse in a natural environment and allowed to develop and form itself unhindered by human intervention, whether that intervention be shoes or just trimming. A natural hoof is not what results from trimming to a certain model every 4 or 6 weeks, even if that model was developed from studying wild horse feet, because your horse is not living in the same environment that those wild horses live in, and your horse's lifestyle is completely different. Since the feet are a product of the environment and lifestyle, your horse's feet will be different.
There's a phrase in the paragraph above that needs a little explaining--"in a natural environment." When people think about barefoot horses, they may think of a natural environment as being hundreds of acres of desert or prairie, which is what the Mustangs had which were the inspiration of many barefoot models. But...hundreds of acres of desert or prairie are not required to have a natural environment for a horse. A relatively few acres will do, if managed properly. And remember, Mustangs are not the "be-all-and-end-all" of wild horses. All over the world there are wild horses who live in environments completely different from the Mustang environment with hooves completely different from the "barefoot model," yet those horses remain sound throughout their life spans. For more information on a natural horse environment, please refer to the video Understanding the Horse--From the Horse's Perspective and the manual Maintaining a Natural Horse.
Much has been made over the last years about how shoes deform horses' feet. And no doubt that's true. But the assumption has been that Natural Hoof Care and barefoot trimming allow for natural hoof function and don't cause hoof deformity. But...that assumption is false. What is currently being marketed as Natural Hoof Care can also get in the way of Nature's process of shaping each hoof on each horse in each environment so that it can function naturally. Any kind of trim is an intervention. A hoof formed by nippers and a rasp can be just as unnatural as a hoof with a horseshoe nailed to it.
I've seen over and over how people who have their barefoot horses trimmed regularly to match some sort of wild horse model end up with hooves that match the model but are completely unsuitable for the environment the horse lives on and is used on. We have to get over being so concerned with looks and concentrate on function. Just as Nature has always provided for her creatures, so Nature is able to provide for horses' hooves ... and Nature can provide much better than someone trying to force hooves to fit a certain pattern based on limited human understanding. This is true no matter how well-known the trimmer is, what size of ego he or she has, how many commercial endorsement contracts he or she has, how many groupies he or she has, or how many success stories he or she brags about.
None of this is meant to say that horses never need trimming or that trimming is always harmful. But it is meant to say that trimming must be done in a manner that respects what Nature is trying to do with that particular hoof on that particular horse in that particular environment, rather than in a manner that tries to force the hoof to conform to a pre-set model. In the example above, the horse had deformed feet from shoeing and improper trimming, so I basically left the feet alone in order to let Nature take over and eventually show me what kind of feet were suited to this particular horse. The only kind of trimming that is appropriate for any horse is trimming that takes that into account and tries to work with Nature.
Even if your horse was previously shod and has a considerable amount of hoof deformity, and even if your horse's hooves don't look anything like the hooves from the barefoot models, don't automatically assume that severe trimming is what your horse needs. Nature can and will work wonders with feet like that, if we stay out of the way.
Let's think some more about staying out of the way. After your horse is trimmed, the underside of the hoof, where ground contact is made, will be smooth, flat, and even. The edges may have been rounded a little, but overall, what is called the "ground surface" of the hoof will be flat and smooth. But have you ever seen the underside of the hoof on a horse who hasn't been trimmed in a long time? The appearance of the underside will of course vary according to the terrain the horse lives on, as the hoof adapted and formed itself to the environment, but in this part of the country, the southeast, you won't see a flat, smooth surface where ground contact is made, you'll see a convex surface. In the heel area, for example, you won't see a flat, smooth heel surface going back to the frog buttress, you'll see a curved (convex) surface with the "hump" somewhat in front of the frog buttress. In fact, on the horses who live on the terrain that comprises the vast majority of the United States (and Europe), that's what you'll most likely see on a horse who has reasonably healthy feet, isn't imprisioned in a stall, and whose feet are not trimmed. When we trim a horse, we make the ground surface flat and smooth, but when a horse is allowed to develop it's own feet, Nature makes the ground surface, where the wall contacts the ground, convex. There are reasons for that--one of them being that the convex surface can dig into the ground easier than a flat surface. Nature wants that wall surface to dig into the ground so that the weight will be transferred from the wall area to the sole area. But, when we make the wall area flat, and this is especially dangerous in the heel area, that wall will not be able to dig into the ground as easily, and the flat surface will change how the weight is born. Some who are familiar with the various barefoot trims might object here and say that you got rid of the wall above sole height anyway so that it's not an issue...but we really should reconsider the wisdom of automatically removing all or most of the wall above sole level. Remember, a trim is done when the hoof is not weight bearing. What you are looking at is not the same as what the hoof will be like when it is under the weight of the horse, and certainly not the same as it will be like under the stresses of a gallop. You can't trim a non weight bearing hoof to some sort of appearance standard based on how you think it should bear weight, because you really have no idea what is happening when you set that hoof down and it bears weight, with the resulting expansions and pressures involved. In other words, if you trim according to how you want it to look while weight bearing, you're making a big mistake, because you aren't seeing the hoof during weight bearing; you're seeing the hoof as it is while you hold it in your hand. This is one of many ways we can get in the way, albeit on a barefoot horse in the name of "natural hoof care," and thwart how Nature wants that hoof to function.
I've read and heard many times over the years the claim that horse's feet are "in balance" immediately after the farrier or trimmer leaves, and that the growth that occurs afterward results in the hooves being "out of balance." The question is, though....by whose standard of "balance"? By Nature's standard of balance.....or by some limited human understanding of balance? By the horse's standard of balance.....or by the X-ray's standard of balance? Can you at least consider the possibility that there might be a difference? For a further discussion about balance, please read the article on Hoof Balance .
If you are currently trying barefoot and not really satisfied with the results, the best thing might be to just stop having the hooves trimmed for a while. The "natural trim" may be what is standing in the way of barefoot success. Don't panic over chipped and broken hooves, forget about how those desert horses' hooves look, forget about things like "balance,"...and just give Nature a chance. But ... that's hard to do, isn't it? It goes against what we've heard and believe. It also goes against what the marketing programs of the personality-promoting gurus tell us
The bottom line is that the real work of the hooves and the real function of the hooves takes place on the inside, where you can't see. You can draw some conclusions about what's going on inside based on what you see outside, but those conclusions are limited--they don't represent the complete picture. With this in mind, it's probably best not to put too much faith in what we can see from the outside. Although we can't understand all about what's going on inside the hoof, even with what we can see with our X-rays and MRI's, Nature can. It all boils down to whether we have enough faith in Nature to believe that Nature is able to provide the horse with feet that are adequate to the task at hand...and whether we are willing to get out of the way and let Nature do her work.
Many of you who read this are probably convinced that your horse has such poor feet that it would be impossible for it to survive without some kind of corrective hoof care, whether it be frequent "natural trims" or "corrective shoeing." Maybe you've been told something like, "Your horse has such poor feet that it would have been eaten by a mountain lion had it been a wild horse." If that's the case, please stop and consider something...if your horse has unhealthy or weak hooves, can you at least consider the possibly that it's not a problem with your horse, but rather the result of the unnatural living environment and hoof care your horse has received throughout its life? Is it possible that the condition of your horse's feet is a result of the detrimental influences the horse has been exposed to? In a recent article in a major horse magazine, it was stated that the problem of hoof cracks is most prevalent in certain breeds of horses. That may seem to indicate that those breeds are genetically predisposed to hoof cracks. But ... if you stop and think a minute, you will find another possibility: Those certain breeds of horses are most often raised and live in stalls or small paddocks--in other words, completely unnatural environments for horses--and the hoof care they receive negates any possibility of natural hoof function. Could it be that the hoof cracks are the result of those detrimental environments and hindrance of natural hoof function? And could it be that no type of shoe, no style of trimming, no kind of technology, no kind of hoof supplement, and no kind of topical preparation can negate those detrimental environments and unnatural hoof maintenance ... despite what the advertisements say? Could it be that those hoof cracks are trying to tell us something? It IS something to think about!
Just remember that natural hoof function can be hindered not only with shoes, stall imprisonment, and hoof care according to guidelines established by a show committee ... it can also be hindered by Natural Hoof Care. Remember, Natural Hoof Care has become a commercial enterprise...with its own establishment, personality-promoting gurus, and commercial endorsement contracts. "Natural Hoof Care" has become a money and ego game....and somewhere the horse and what's best for the horse got lost.
