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However, there is a growing movement to eliminate shoes on working horses. Advocates of barefooting point out many benefits to keeping horses barefoot and present studies showing that improper shoeing can cause or exacerbate certain hoof ailments in the horse. A hoof boot may help protect the horse's hooves during the transition period.
Adjustments in trimming or shoeing can be made to help support the hoof, allowing pressure to be distributed over healthy tissue in order reduce the force over damaged or diseased tissue. Application of various types of therapeutic shoes, pads, and wedges, can be used to help alter stress placed on structures within the foot or the lower limb.
The clean, picked hoof allows for better inspection for injury. Hoof care is especially important when caring for the horse. Although many horses are quite healthy without daily brushing, lack of hoof care can result in various problems, which if unattended, can result in short or long-term soundness issues for the horse.
A horse can live with laminitis for many years, and although a single episode of laminitis predisposes to further episodes, with good management and prompt treatment it is by no means the catastrophe sometimes supposed: most horses suffering an acute episode without pedal bone displacement make a complete functional recovery. Some ...
Thrush and white line disease, common bacterial infections, can become serious if left untreated. Quittor, an infection of collateral cartilages in the lower leg is also sometimes seen, although most commonly in draft horses. Hoof wall separation disease is a genetic hoof disease.
Poor hoof balance, due to conformational flaws or poor trimming, can cause lameness from musculoskeletal injury, [20] and poor hoof balance has been associated with increased risk of catastrophic injury in racehorses. [21] Side-to-side (mediolateral) imbalance can cause sheared heals and hoof cracks. [22]
A farrier is a specialist in equine hoof care, including the trimming and balancing of horses' hooves and the placing of shoes on their hooves, if necessary. A farrier combines some blacksmith 's skills (fabricating, adapting, and adjusting metal shoes) with some veterinarian 's skills (knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the lower limb ...
Lameness in horses is movement at an abnormal gait due to pain in any part of the body. It is most commonly caused by pain to the legs or feet. Lameness can also be caused by abnormalities in the nervous system. While horses with poor conformation and congenital conditions are more likely to develop lameness, trauma, infection and acquired ...