In Hoofin' It - Part 1, I started out trying to learn how to determine when a horse can function normally without shoes. By normally, I mean being ridden under moderate circumstances without damage to the hooves. This was brought about by observing my 5-year-old gelding, Captain Morgan, who has never had a shoe or even a trim while being ridden over some rugged terrain. Somehow, Captain Morgan keeps his hooves in good trim through nature.
Maybe this is correct. The color of the hoof is usually an extension of the color of the hair on the leg immediately above the hoof. The hoof wall is actually compressed hair. The hoof inside the wall is much the same from one hoof to the next regardless of the color of the wall. Back in Hoofin' it - Part 3, I learned the horse should be walking on the white line and the sole plate rather than the hoof wall. The wall should be rounded off in a manner that it does not touch the ground
The conventional wisdom amongst horse people is that black hooves can go without shoes while white hooves need shoes. The guy who has been shoeing my horses agrees with that contention. Is there any truth to this? Incidentally, Captain Morgan, being a black horse has black hooves. My mule, Pete, has black hooves and his hooves do not need shoes. Maybe there is something to the conventional wisdom (maybe si maybe no).
The following information is quoted from athletic-animals.
"Biotin is a B vitamin. Like all B vitamins, Biotin is water soluble, and not stored in the body. It must be taken in on a daily basis. Biotin comes from the diet in varying amounts, and some is produced by natural bacteria in the large intestine of the horse. The large intestinal microbial population produces some biotin, but there is very little, if any, absorption of biotin from the large intestine, and, more importantly, if horses are on a high grain diet, the production of biotin may not even occur because of the high levels of acid in the gut from the grain diet."
I visited a website titled thelongridershorseguild. These people regularly ride distances of over 1000 miles. One such account chronicled a 1970 journey from South Africa to Austria (12,400 miles). The ride was done using barefoot horses purchased locally in South Africa. The riders figured that shoes and shoers wouldn't be available along the route so the horses would be better off if they were already accustomed to barefoot. The horses were given strap-on shoes for one day as they crossed a ridge of volcanic rock. At first, the hooves wore faster than they grew but as the journey progressed the hooves hardened until they were so hard when they reached Austria the new owner had to wait an entire year before the shoer could trim them with a rasp and nippers. The riders wanted horses with dark hooves but actually settled with one horse with "a white hoof" but that horse had hoof problems and was used only for carrying a light pack.
The first site I visited was ultimatehorsesite. This site refutes the conventional wisdom. A quote from the authors of this website puts forth their philosophy; "Personally, our three horses with the best feet have mixed hoof colors; One has four white hooves and tall white socks, the other has all four black hooves, and the third has two black hooves, two white hooves. Our two ponies, with extremely tough hooves, have mixed colors too, with one having all black, and the other having all white."
Well, there you have it. I haven't learned how to pick a horse that won't need shoes. Maybe none need them. For sure some don't. I think that some will always need them. But the search has been educational and entertaining to me and I hope to you as well. Thank you for reading this article.
Email Marketing Campaigns - Humans Armed with your knowledge of the bots' weakness for certain fodder, you can make sure your email marketing campaign contains no tempting words that would turn your campaign into a series of tasty bot snacks. So, you've done your research, you know the words to avoid and you have found a neat tool that will read your email and tell you if you have accidentally used a "bad" word in your email marketing campaign. The next thing to consider is getting the emails read by the recipients. Having gone to a lot of trouble to plan you email marketing campaign and robot-proof it, you want to give the emails the best possible chance of being read. With one eye on the banned word list, you need to think of the human beings who will receive your email and create subject lines that will make them want to read each email.
One day, several years ago, a trainer I was using for a young colt told me he could tell the temperament and trainability of a horse by looking at the whorl or cowlick on the horse's forehead. I looked at him incredulously and he laughed saying that was BS but it sure would make his work easier if it were true. Just as you can't judge a horse by its color or the cowlick on its forehead, you can't judge the hooves by their color. So much is involved, diet, heredity, terrain conditions, living conditions
Tips For Setting Up A Consignment Store_3693, exercise, and many other influences that you can't tell how a horse's hooves will wear by the color or any other easy method. Almost any horse can be nurtured into barefoot living given time and proper care and time to regenerate the hoof. If you're going to use your horse daily for long distances over paved roads (such as Amish), it will probably need shoes as the hooves will just not keep up with the wear.
A tall order but not impossible. There are things you should do and things to definitely avoid. Your email subject heading should (a) stand out
Oakley Sunglasses Clearance, (b) engage the recipient's interest, (c) relate closely to the body of the message and (d) not look like hype.To make your email marketing campaign stand out, you can indent the subject by using ">>>>>>>>" or "__________" or "********" but don't be tempted to use exclamation marks or all capital letters. These will catch the human eye but they will also attract the scrutiny of the filterbots who will most likely gulp the email down without even bothering to look further than the subject line. Don't be tempted to put L@@K in the subject heading of a business email, that sort of thing is fine if you are writing to a friend but it does not convey a professional image.
The next website I visited was barrelhorseworld. This site has several very recent entries discussing a type of shoe known as Natural Balance. (It appears this shoe would enhance breakover.) This shoe is steel with a flat looking front compared to the curved front on most other shoes. The original commenter discussed the hardness of her horses' hooves giving the shoer fits and attributed the hardness to their diet of 4 flakes of afalfa plus Omelene 200 and flax and minerals plus beet pulp. This exotic diet is definitely not available to wild horses. The shoer told her the horses didn't need shoes with hooves that hard.
Going to the internet to find information on hoof hardness I found several websites with information about this topic.
The next website I visited was athletic-animals. This site has a lot of truthful information. This site emphasizes the nutritional aspect of hoof care. Biotin is recommended as a supplement to enhance hoof growth. A case study of the Lipizanner stallions provides that the use of Biotin over a two year study resulted in greatly improved hoof health for the study group compared to the control group not receiving Biotin. Also emphasized is that because the hoof grows out of the corollary band at a rate of approximately 1 cm (0.4"+/-) per month with the hoof wall being replaced in 10 to 12 months. While nutrition is undoubtedly important and can have great influence on hoof growth, wild horses are not obtaining Biotin supplement to promote their hoof growth. As mentioned in previous articles, wild horse hooves are known to be good.