Taking your horses barefoot involves more than just pulling shoes. The best of the new breed of natural hoof care practitioners have studied and rely completely on what they call the wild horse model, which replicates the trim that horses give to themselves in the wild through natural wear. The more the domesticated horse is out and about, moving constantly, the less trimming he or she will need. The more stall-bound the horse, the more trimming will be needed in order to keep the hooves healthy and in shape. Every horse is a candidate to live as nature intended. The object is to maintain their hooves as if they were in the wild, and that requires some study. Not a lot, but definitely some. I now consider myself capable of keeping my horses’ hooves in shape over a short period of time. I don’t do their regular trim, but I do perform interim touch-ups. I prefer to have someone who sees hundreds of horses’ hooves every week. The myth that domesticated horses must wear shoes has been proven to be pure hogwash. The fact that shoes degenerate the health of the hoof and the entire horse has not only been proven, but is also recognized even by many of those who nail shoes on horses. Successful high performance barefootedness with the wild horse trim can be accomplished for virtually every horse on the planet, and the process has even been proven to be a healing procedure for horses with laminitis, founder, navicular, etc. On this subject, I beg you not to wait. Dive into the material below and give your horse a longer, healthier, happier life.
About Barefoot – Articles
Why Barefoot?
https://thesoulofahorse.com/why-barefoot/
Five Undeniable Truths About Horses
https://thesoulofahorse.com/blog/why-the-wild-horse-model/five-undeniable-truths-about-horses/
The Houston Mounted Police Patrol
All Barefoot
https://thesoulofahorse.com/city-of-houston-police-horses-all-barefoot/
Meet Happier Healthier Horses Around the World
https://thesoulofahorse.com/blog/powerful-stories-from-happier-healthier-horses/
About Barefoot – Books
Horses & Stress – Eliminating the Root Cause of Most Health, Hoof & Behavior Problems
https://thesoulofahorse.com/blog/the-books-of-joe-camp/horses-stress/
Why Our Horses Are Barefoot
Everything We’ve Learned About the Health
and Happiness of the Hoof
The Soul of a Horse
Life Lessons from the Herd
About Barefoot – Videos
Why Are Our Horses Barefoot?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2ZofRxB1bU&list=PL5ED6DAE86CFD04FE&index=10
Our Paddock Paradise: What We Did,
How We Did It, and Why
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTI4afF3JA8&list=TL8Kjcd0Y83Nw
Why Our Horses Eat from the Ground
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Gxkpr1hPo&list=PL5ED6DAE86CFD04FE
The next two videos at the are very short slow-motion videos of a horse’s hoof hitting the ground. One is a shod hoof, one is barefoot. Watch the vibrations roll up the leg from the shod hoof… then imagine that happening every time any shod hoof hits the ground. Go to:
Trotting Shod Hoof
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fql-xsofeg0&list=PL5ED6DAE86CFD04FE
Trotting Barefoot Hoof
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6yLEdr2EOM&list=PL5ED6DAE86CFD04FE&index=20
About Barefoot – Websites
This is Pete Ramey’s website. If you read only one book on this entire subject, read Pete’s Making Natural Hoof Care Work for You. Or better yet, get his DVD series Under the Horse, which is fourteen-plus hours of terrific research, trimming, and information. If you’ve ever doubted the fact that horses do not need metal shoes and are in fact better off without them, please go to Pete’s website. He will convince you otherwise. Then use his teachings to guide your horses’ venture into barefootedness. He is never afraid or embarrassed to change his opinion on something as he learns more from his experiences. Pete’s writings have also appeared in Horse & Rider and are on his website. He has taken all of Clinton Anderson’s horses barefoot.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Drabek-Natural-Hoof-Care/152654268160182
This is the Facebook site of Eddie Drabek, (Drabek Natural Hoof Care) another one of my heroes. Eddie is a wonderful trimmer in Houston, Texas, and an articulate and inspirational educator and spokesman for getting metal shoes off horses. Read everything he or Tiffany have written, including the pieces on all the horses whose lives he has saved by taking them barefoot.
This website and magazine of Yvonne and James Welz is devoted entirely to barefoot horses around the world and is surely the single largest resource for owners, trimmers, case histories, and virtually everything you would ever want to know about barefoot horses. With years and years of barefoot experience, Yvonne is an amazing resource. She can compare intelligently this method vs that and help you to understand all there is to know. And James is a super barefoot trimmer.
http://www.natural-hoof.com/index.html
Our current hoof specialist in Tennessee is Mark Taylor who works in Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi. He’s fantastic!! 662-224-4158 or barefoot2003
Find a recommended trimmer in your area at one of these links:
http://www.liberatedhorsemanship.com/Liberated_Horsemanship_Home.html
http://www.americanhoofassociation.org/
http://www.pacifichoofcare.org/
The entire story of our journey with horses (at least through early 2014) is told in the two books that follow: the national best seller The Soul of a Horse – Life Lessons from the Herd and its sequel Born Wild – The Soul of a Horse.
And what a story it is as two novices without a clue stumble and bumble their way through the learning process so that hopefully you won’t have to. If you haven’t read both of these books already please do because with that reading, I believe, will come not just the knowledge of discovery but the passion and the excitement to cause you to commit to your journey with horses, to do for the horse without waiver so that your relationship and experience will be with loving, happy and healthy horses who are willing partners and who never stop trying for you. Horses like ours.
The highly acclaimed bestselling sequel to the National Bestseller
The Soul of a Horse – Life Lessons from the Herd
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Read More About Born Wild
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Watch The Soul of a Horse Trailer
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But first read the National Bestseller that started it all
Now in it’s 17th printing: