You have a horse and the horse keeps pulling off the same shoe over and over again. Usually the first thing people do is blame their farrier. Ok, you change your farrier and the next farrier has the same problem.  Although farriers do sometimes make mistakes most of the time it is your horse not the farrier or your farrier is trying to give the horse maximum support which takes time to figure out. Every horse is different.

    The first thing to look at is the hoof it’s self. Horses are creatures of habit and some habits are bad. If your horse takes its one hoof and puts that one hoof in the mud and muck then, that one hoof could be drying out. A dry hoof wouldn’t hold a shoe. The hoof loses strength as it dries and will decay. The shoe will just fall off. If you do have dry hooves, hoof oil is your best bet to help fix the hooves. Supplements won’t work. Dry hooves are an environmental issue. Nothing you put in your horse’s mouth will fix the environment the horse is in.  Change the horse’s environment will also work. Nice clean, dry, pasture and/or stalls.

    Once there was a guy with a horse who would not keep front shoes at all. The guy went through a lot of farriers looking for the one who could keep shoes on. My old farrier, when I was a kid, figured it out. Why the horse was losing shoes that is. He shod the horse then the horse was turned out in a round pen.  After a hour or so the horse began to stretch and itch the bulbs of its feet.  Itch, itch, itch, ping! There goes one shoe then itch, itch ping. There goes the other shoe. The horse was taking its shoes off itching its bulbs.  

    If the horse wants the shoe off it is coming off. There is not a farrier alive that can keep a shoe on a horse that wants it off.  If you try you will either have a horse that’s lame or worse you will have a horse that ripped off its hoof. From my experience it is better just to lose a shoe. Some people disagree. I think if you care more about a shoe staying on then the health of your horse, you’re going to be held up more with lameness then lost shoes.

    Other reasons for pulling of a shoe can be pawing, limb deviations and rider. I will get into more details on both of these subjects later on in blogs. Pawing, if a horse is pawing with one foot over and over again the horse will pull the shoe off. In this situation to fix the problem stop the pawing and I will tell you that pawing is a mental thing not a physical thing so you are not going to physically stop it. You have to get into the horses head.

    Limb deviation and/or lameness, limb deviations are differences in the limbs of the horse. If you have one leg doing something different then other legs, you are ruining the rhythm of the horse. So if you think about it, the horse is tripping around and off balance, the horse is going to clip a shoe eventually.  It can be a stiff knee; it can be one leg has a long cannon bone. Most of the time you will have a hind limb coming up and clipping a front shoe. Some farriers try to take the hind leg and redirect. That may be the only option but sometimes you can fix the direct problem. Just keep your mind open when it comes to losing that one shoe.

    I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog. Please fill free to comment, tweet, facebook, etc. This information is for all. I only ask that you make sure that the author me Gene Fletcher is put on all the copies. Thank you and if you have suggestions on topics please fill free to contact me.