Even horses need new shoes.

[Boing]

Would you be comfortable having metal nailed to your foot as a shoe?. I don't think so and about time someone is trying to do something about it.

[h=1]Rubber shoes for horses’ health[/h]


For over a thousand years, horses have been shod in iron shoes. But today some are walking around in rubber shoes, thanks to Lone Pedersen.
[h=2]Fewer injuries[/h]Lone Pedersen wanted to give horses the possibility to walk on a material with better shock absorption properties. Traditionally, a horseshoe is made out of steel and is fitted to the hooves of horses to offset wear. The steel shoes can wear out both the horses’ joints and the surfaces they walk on. Lone Pedersen hoped that it would be more comfortable for horses with the new shoes and that they would suffer from fewer injuries.


[h=2]Horseshoe made out of tractor tyres[/h]She tested this on her own by cutting horseshoes out of old tractor tyres. In 1993, Lone Pedersen applied for a patent for her invention. According to the patent, the horseshoe should be made out of steel covered in plastic or rubber.
[h=2]Prague’s horseback police[/h]In order to develop the idea further, Lone Pedersen contacted Halmstad’s Rubber Factory (Halmstads Gummifabrik). After a few years, she sold the patent to the company which further improved the idea. The horseshoe is still sold, among others to Prague’s horseback police who appreciate less wear, both to the horses and to the old cobblestones.
[h=3]Patent applications[/h]

 

[Prick]

How was this idea missed?

Horses would look funny riding like this.

 

[Robintheboywonder]

What horsie?.

 

[cristycurves]

Nailing things onto their hooves does hurt them and will eventually destroy their hooves, and no they don't need shoes, they're put on so they can do things they weren't meant to do, human greed needs them to have shoes, the horses natural activities don't require them.


5 Myths About Horse Shoes Or 5 Reasons Why Barefoot Is Better


Here are five things that we have all probably been told about horse shoes.

Horses need shoes for traction.
Horses need shoes when being worked on rough ground or they will be tender.
Horse shoes help the hoof and cushion it.
Driving nails into the hoof wall doesn’t “hurt” the horse.
Domestic horses have genetically bad hooves and nothing but better breeding can help.
Now let me explain why these five “facts” about shoes are wrong.

Horses don’t need shoes for traction. Mustangs and other wild horses get along just fine without shoes. In fact, wild horses are noted for their surefootedness. Shoes work by numbing the hoof so the horse can’t feel the pain from his mis-trimmed hooves working improperly.

When you first take the shoes off your horses, they will be tender on gravel, but that is because all the feeling has suddenly come back into their hooves, but as time goes on and with proper trimming the hooves will toughen up and become, what is known in the barefoot community, as rock crunchers. Is this cruel asking them to toughen up? The mustangs go over all types of ground quite happily without shoes, and while your horse may be tender for a short period of time, the long term pain relief is worth it for you and your horse.

Horseshoes lift the horse’s hoof off the ground, and I suppose that is a cushioning effect. But this is not needed as the whole hoof has a very efficient cushioning system of its own that works much better, and the shoes have other negative side effects that make shoes much more damaging than helpful. I.e. the weight of the shoes puts unncessary strain on the muscles and ligaments and the shoes vibrate at 800 hz, compared to the natural — hz, damaging the hoof. Since the hoof no longer has to work, the quality of the hoof deteriorates causing a multitude of problems like founder and navicular disease. And the lifting effect that “cushions” the hoof, actually cuts off the circulation by preventing the hoof from expanding and contracting, pushing and pulling the blood up and down the leg. This is what causes that numbing effect.

The idea that the hoof wall is just like our fingernail and driving a nail into it won’t hurt the horse is ridiculous. No, it probably doesn’t immediately hurt the horse, but the nails do do damage. Think about it in their own terms. If you drive a nail through just your finger nail, which I don’t recommend, after you take the nail out, you are still left with the hole. You will notice that that hole has weakend the whole finger nail. This is what the nails do to the hoof wall, causing the crumbly walls that domestic horses are famous for. Which brings us to the last point…

While there are a wide variety of hoof types–thin walls, thick walls, round hoofs, oval hoofs– most horses can be rock crunchers with proper hoof trimming. If the hoof is not being damaged by nails, restricted by shoes and is getting proper wear, nutrition and moisture, it can put all the energy that it was putting into trying to cope with those problems into growing better quality hoof material. Granted, some horses do have a harder time growing good quality hoof than others, but that is no reason to put shoes on them, making the problem worse. They just need a bit more help developing and maintaning good hooves than the horses with genetically better hooves.

Now just pulling shoes won’t magically create good hooves. To get a rock cruncher you have to follow one of the several types of barefoot trims that imitate the mustangs’ hooves, who as I pointed out earlier do just fine without shoes. Mustangs wear their hooves down naturally into the perfect shape, that shape being naturally fitted and altered to suit each horse. Natural hoof trimmers try to copy this shape when they trim, imitating the wear patterns found on wild horses and adapting their trimming styles to accommodate each horse’s individual needs.

https://www.seahorsecorral.org/WhyShoeingBadIdea.html

 

[oldguyzer]

New Balance or Nike should bring out horse shoes.