Hoof Care background

Historical Hoof Care

Introduction

The Fischer equine lameness foundation arose in response to an unsolved problem and unmet need within the horse community. We reference the high incidence of lameness and resulting premature loss of use, or demise among horses of all breeds and disciplines. This is not just a personal observation. “Out of the 120 million horses in the world, about 10% are sound” (American Farrier’s Journal). According to Equine Barehoof Care, “In Germany, 83% of teenage performance horses are retired due to problems in the movement apparatus.”

As will be described, problems of lameness related health problems have not been resolved adequately by either public (academic institutions) or private practitioner resources. Both of these disciplines seem to rely on either a progressively complex medical management of the problem (with expensive confinement of the hoof, or radical surgical procedures) or simply treating the symptoms and allowing the lameness causing problem to progress (until the horse is euthanized).

These "traditional methods" will be contrasted to a more natural approach which is used at the Fischer Equine Lameness Foundation.

In our foundation, the issues of horse lameness and related health problems are addressed through a specific management technique for the horses’ hooves combined with horse keeping practices designed to replicate the natural habitat.

The goal, as funding develops, is to provide care to more horses, as well as greater educational support to both academic centers (veterinary), and the general public. This goal will be accomplished through research and public publications as well as public and academic presentations and web site development.

Historical Horse Care
Overview of the domestication of Equines:

The horse was first domesticated in 5000 B.C. and was then used as a beast of burden, draft animal and then riding animal. Because of our long history with the horse, we could assume their needs have been known and met, causing the horse to have a longer, more comfortable, healthier life than horses living in the wild.

Today’s traditional style of horse-keeping has proven to have the opposite effect. The horses of the Ice Age, present-day wild, and the high-performance breeds of today are anatomically, physiologically, and psychologically alike. While horses today still have the same basic biological requirements for survival, the domesticated horse now has an average lifespan of 8 years. This is a fraction of the 30-40 year average lifespan still found in today’s wild horse herds all over the world. This decrease in lifespan of the horse contrasts to the increase in lifespan for humans.

The most common problems causing this dramatic reduction in lifespan are problems of the locomotor organs, the hooves.

The Origins of Horse Shoeing

Horses had been working for humans for several thousands of years without hoof protection. This is proven in ancient writings and other historical documentation. The oldest descriptions about hoof care are found in works of Xenophon, a 4 th century Greek cavalry commander. He wrote “Naturally sound hooves get spoiled in moist stalls”. Valentin Horn describes in his book, “The Horses in the Ancient Orient”, the training of horses over 75km per day without hoof protection.

Historians tell us that the nailed-on shoe first appeared sporadically in Europe at a time when nobility and their horses began to live in castles. Horses for the first time were kept in small, enclosed spaces, stalls. When the horses were stabled, their hooves were exposed to the harmful effects of ammonia created from their excrement. Horses also experienced a dramatic reduction in the amount of movement they were allowed. This lack of movement caused prolonged periods of reduced circulation to the hooves causing decreased hoof quality and growth. The resultant inferior hooves caused the horses discomfort so they were no longer able to perform, which led to the need for horseshoes.

Development of Current Horse Keeping Practices

To appreciate the pathogenesis of lameness, and related systemic problems ultimately resulting in the reduced life expectancy of domestic horses, one needs to understand the environment for which the horses naturally adapted. The health and lameness problems of domesticated horses in general do not exist in the horse’s natural environment.

The horse’s natural environment includes herd life, open spaces and continuous movement 24 hours per day. Horses have become adapted and specialized to these conditions over millions of years of evolution. As one can imagine, with dramatic changes in an ecosystem, there are likely to be consequences. In this case, the major consequence to an animal which was originally adapted for traveling long distances, and then significantly restricted in travel, are significant lameness and other related health issues of the musculoskeletal support structures.

While today's domesticated horses are no longer expected to live in castles, they still live in stalls. One of the major factors influencing horse-keeping practices is the comfort and convenience of their owners. Many horse owners consider box stalls and horseshoes normal, even necessary. The devastating effects that these horse-keeping practices have on the horse’s health is not widely appreciated. The fact that the domesticated horse is often affected by health and lameness problems, and falls short of its natural lifespan, is proof that its basic needs for optimum health are often not met by their domesticated environment.

The effects of immobilization and lack of exercise are not just felt by the musculoskeletal system. A horse’s heart weighs .5% of its body weight. This heart weight over body mass ratio represents the smallest percentage by weight per body mass of any mammal on earth.

The healthy hoof compensates for the small heart of the horse. The hooves of the horse are auxiliary hearts pumping blood back up the leg to assist the relatively small heart. When the horse takes a step on the hoof, the hoof expands and fills with blood. When the horse finishes the stride the weight is taken off of the leg, the hoof constricts and blood is ejected out of the hoof capsule and returned up the leg. This process is called "hoof mechanism".

The healthy, pumping hooves take 50% of the workload off the cardiac system of the horse. Circulation is gravely decreased and restricted when the hoof is shod and the horse is not able to move. This restricted circulation adversely affects the cardiac function and metabolic systems of the horse. This situation subjects the horse to systemic metabolic stress.

Despite this being the age of information, unlike most scholarly disciplines, horse hoof care is still heavily influenced by medieval concepts over modern scientific principles. Proof of this is the still widespread, accepted use of shoeing.

Horse shoes were not designed by biomedical engineers taking into account the physiology of the growing hoof, they were designed by medieval blacksmiths and still persist in their original form today.

The application of horse shoes contract the hoof over a short period of time, causing the hoof to become misshapen. The use of horse shoes forces a highly adapted, highly specialized organ, namely the horses hoof, to adapt itself to a rigid arbitrary shape and deprive the animal of sensation, as well as the physiologic vascular support activity described above.

The contracted, misshapen, rigid, hoof form caused by horseshoeing, is now considered normal by our veterinarians and farriers. This pathologic hoof form is a far cry from the physiologically correct shape still seen in wild horses or our natural living domestic horses. This incorrect hoof shape is the main cause for the common lameness problems seen in our domestic horses today.

It is essential that veterinarians, farriers, and horse owners become educated about the causes of lameness, how to remove them, and to prevent them. This begins with the ability to identify a healthy hoof, understand the negative consequences of horseshoes, and be able to correct pathologic hooves.

The damaging effects of horseshoeing have long been documented. Bracy Clark, a veterinarian and Ph.D. from the London Veterinary College, sums up decades of scientific study on horse hooves in his publication, “An Essay on the Knowledge of the Ancients respecting the Art of Shoeing the Horse, and of the probable period of the Commencement of this Art”.

On page 12, of Clark’s “Hippodonomia” he writes, “The present system of shoeing, and its consequences, ruin such multitudes of horses, that surely the discovery of its cause, beyond the power of denial, cannot but be of the highest importance in the affairs of mankind; as well also as on account of the sufferings of the animal; for not one in thirty of all that are raised live to see the half of their natural life expended!”

Veterinarian Wilhelm Blendinger published his book, “Healthcare and First Aid for the Horse” in 1980. He wrote, “The most common damages of use [of shoes] concern the spine and navicular region.”

Most horse owners today do not take an interest in their horses’ hooves. They blindly trust their misinformed, although well-meaning, farriers and veterinarians. Yet most veterinarians receive relatively little training in the treatment of lameness during their formal veterinary school training, and even "horse veterinarians" who may apprentice with more experienced specialized practitioners spend little time understanding and treating lameness. Often the treatment of hoof conditions is left to farriers who have very little formal education and usually no training in biology. Because of this lack of understanding of biology, farriers often treat the hoof as on an inert mechanical object, rather than a dynamic organ.

 Not only are the damaging effects (of shoeing) ignored almost universally, one could draw the impression that the horseshoe is part of the horse, as though the animal had been born with it! In “Atlas of Anatomy of the Horse, Textbook for Veterinarian Students” by Budras (1994) an illustration of hoof anatomy shows a hoof with a shoe already attached to it!

In addition to the harmful effects of shoeing, there are significant harmful effects of modern horse keeping practices.

We know in human medicine how crucial psychological health is. The psychological needs of the horse must also be met. Horses have been living in herds since their inception. Instinctually, the horse knows safety is in numbers, therefore separation from the herd provokes high anxiety.

Another instinct is to flee from predators, and horses need space to do this. Horses kept in a stall (solitary confinement) for part, or all, of a day are unable to see, touch, play, and interact with herd mates causing stress to their psychological health. Furthermore, they are not able to flee from perceived danger.

For the reasons listed above, as expected, the frequency of horse illness is higher in stables. The frequency of colic in boarding stables is far higher and more deadly than in a naturally living horse. Equine fertility is also disrupted by stress and unnatural living conditions. The conception rate is about half of what it is in a natural living situation or in the wild.

Other results of psychological imbalance are aggressive behavior, anxiety, and replacement actions such as pacing, weaving and chewing on nonfood items (including parts of the stall). These imbalances are comparable in humans to sweating when frightened, chewing fingernails when nervous, or the high incidence of heart disease in people under great amounts of stress.

In addition to the generic effects of confinement listed above, a horse stall can be a toxic place for the horse's body. Horses living in stalls have hygroscopic bedding to absorb urine. This bedding dries out hooves, so they are no longer supple and elastic, reducing the pumping ability to compensate for the smaller heart.

Air in the stall contains a large amount of ammonia. As little as .0003% per volume of ammonia gases are damaging causing destruction to protein. A horse requires 62 liters per minute of fresh air, producing 150 liters of CO2 per hour. This causes a build up of carbon dioxide, and with a simultaneous lack of oxygen in such an enclosed space, carbon dioxide is reduced to carbon monoxide. Horses quickly run out of “breathable” air.

Knowing these facts, we can conclude that the stall keeping of such a socially interactive animal for part or all of a day is dangerous to the general health of the equine on many different levels.