Horses Chew - But On You?
Horses chew, we all know that, but if you’ve ever watched horses out in pasture they’ll perform types of grooming and bonding rituals with their teeth. Take a look sometimes and you’ll notice many times horses standing together while one is almost seemingly biting the flesh of the other. They’ll grab a little bunch of flesh and in a careful way kind of nip away with a little tug of the skin. This is very common and it’s a cooperative event where one horse allows the other. I’m quite sure I wouldn’t discourage such behavior amongst horses.
Race Horse Shoeing - The Potential Dangers And Disasters
Race horses are shod with the intent of creating speed. How this is accomplished is by leaving the toes longer than normally is accepted. Why? The extra length of toe creates a lever as the horse drives forward the foot stays on the ground just a fraction of time longer thereby generating more forward thrust resulting in more speed. When the length of the toe is increased it multiplies the leverage necessary to generate speed.
This practice of generating speed does not come without cost. The cost is a negative one- bowed tendons and lameness many times permanent lameness and the worst case scenario the destruction of the horse, “putting it down”.
Horseshoeing, How To Choose A Farrier
It took me a long time for this one to come to me. What are the criteria used to choose your Farrier? Interesting question isn’t it?
Over the 16 years of my career as a Farrier I have heard several times from people “My Farrier Specializes in Lame Horses”. For some reason I’ve always felt a bit inferior from hearing this, as if because I didn’t work with a lot of lame horses my abilities as a Farrier didn’t measure up. How wrong I was for thinking such a thing. Truth is I know how to work with lame horses and I understand lameness and I’m a good craftsman and trust the quality of my work.
Trusting Farriers Without Destroying Horses In The Process
If you have had much to do with horses, either as an owner, handler, or trainer chances are you’ve had to trust and recruit the services of a Farrier. Hopefully as you read this article you’ve had favorable results with your carefully placed trust. However if the trust you have placed in your Farriers expertise has let you down (and the Farriers work has been shoddy) you most likely have already suffered some serious consequences and your horse as well. Worse case scenario horses are put down due to chronic lameness rendering a great horse with years of training incapable of further use. Basically your worst nightmare.