Winterizing Your Hoof Care Program

Easycare Blog - Full Article

Wednesday, October 3, 2012 by Daisy Bicking

We’ve all heard that pulling our horse’s shoes for the winter can be a good idea. But we’ve also heard how many pitfalls there are when we pull them.

Here is a breakdown of how we at Daisy Haven Farm in the Northeastern USA, a fairly wet, humid environment, help our clients who want to pull shoes for the winter.

Some of the challenges to pulling shoes:

Chances are your foot may have minimal height once the shoe is pulled off. Some farriers advocate not trimming anything once the shoe is removed and instead prefer to allow the foot to grow. This has pros and cons.
Your horse may be more sensitive or even considered painful when walking without shoes.
You may have some foot infection to deal with around the white line or nail holes.
If you wait too long the ground may be frozen and make pulling shoes more difficult.
You may have to reduce the amount or kind of work your horse is doing until your feet are stronger barefoot again.

Fortunately we have many resources available to us to help minimize the challenges and set us up for success with this process.

First of all, work as a team with your farrier...

Read more here:
http://blog.easycareinc.com/blog/hoof-love-not-war/winterizing-your-hoof-care-program