My Natural Trimming Philosophy
The basic idea of “Natural Trimming” or “Barefoot Trimming” derived from studying horses in the wild. Farriers like Gene Ovnicek and Jaime Jackson played a big part in bringing this methodology of hoof care to light. The philosophy of Natural trimming is simple we want to as closely as we can emulate with are domestic horses the same wear that a horse in the wild would have by moving many miles a day in search of the resources they would need for survival (food, water, mineral, ect.). This may sound very simple, but there is a big problem trimming alone will not give domestic horses healthy feet. In order to truly give your horse healthy feet you have to make the entire horse healthy. Wild horses don’t have healthy feet just because the walk miles a day, they have healthy feet because they live lifestyle that is conducive to their design, actually it is more correct to say their design is conducive to their lifestyle. Many domestic horses do not live the type of lifestyle their bodies were designed for. We have changed their diets and confined them to small areas. Now let’s face it small acreage horse keeping is not going to go away so what can we do
to help are horses be healthier. Start by looking at your horse’s diet I recommend spending time looking at Katy Watts’ website
www.safergrass.org there you will find lots of great information on how to provide a proper diet to your horse. Then I would recommend a book called “Paddock Paradise” by Jaime Jackson this book will show you how to turn your small boring paddock into a more interesting habitat for your horse that in turn will encourage movement and more natural behavior. Keep in mind without a healthy horse you can forget about having healthy feet I don’t care how good your natural trimmer
or farrier is. Some horses do stand up better to domestic living than others there are horses out there that you won’t need to change anything in order to go barefoot, but if you have a horse with constant flaring and rings on the hoof walls then you better bet that you will need to look into the information above and make some changes.
There are two big misconceptions when it comes to going barefoot one is you will save money since you won’t have to put shoes on anymore and the other is you have to ride your horse around with sore feet until his or her feet get tough. There is no guarantee that you will save money in fact it may even cost a bit more in the beginning you may need boots or your farrier or natural trimmer may need to make more frequent visits in order to keep the feet from over growing. Remember you are trying to emulate natural wear and wild horses don’t have a quarter inch or more of hoof wall knocked off every 8 weeks. Your horse may need to be trimmed every 4 to 6 weeks and in some cases even less. A lot of times your farrier or natural trimmer can show you how to do some maintenance work between appointments.
You may need to spend about two hundred dollars on a good set of front boots and in
rare cases you may need back boots which will cost you another two hundred which brings me to my second point do not ride horse around sore footed. If your horse’s feet are not transitioned to ride in the type environment you want to ride in put boots on. There is no law when it comes to natural hoof care that says you have to ride your horse
without hoof protection. Depending on your horses situation there are times that hoof protection is necessary, metal shoes were invented for a reason. Natural hoof care does not mean we don’t protect the feet if they need it; we are just trying to get away from using destructive force of metal and nails. Look if your horse lives in wet pasture and you want to go on 10 mile trail ride in the mountains put the boots on and have great ride.
In conclusion I want people to understand the natural trimming is not just changing how you have your horses feet trimmed it a complete change in modern day horse husbandry.