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Your Kaimanawa has been given the perfect opportunity to have excellent feet for life.
Horses born in the wild have a huge advantage over most domestic horses.
What sets the Kaimanawa apart from domestic horses? Movement.
When it comes to the horse movement is a vital ingredient to its well-being.
With lots of movement comes greater health, freedom of expression, balance, grace and continual, gradual wearing of the hooves.
When a horse is able to wear its feet as fast as they grow they have the potential for the most athletic of movement.
This is simply because with a well worn, low heeled, short toed hoof, the coffin bone, encapsulated and protected by the hoof sits in the correct position in relation to the ground. All the bones above the coffin bone or, P3, are in perfect alignment. Because of this all the muscles, tendons, ligaments and cartilage function smoothly with the full range of motion nature intended.
Circulation is not impaired by hoof imbalance and supports the heart instead of stressing it.
Each hoof absorbs shock perfectly through the frog to the digital cushion in a heel first landing.
The horse knows exactly where its feet are and can feel the ground through the proprioceptors in the rear of the hoof.
All this and more goes into the making of an exceptional equine completely in touch with its own body and well aware of how to use it.
Good hooves are developed the moment the foal first stands. In the wild when a foal is born instinct causes the mare to walk the foal away from the birth area and potential predators. This has the effect of gently wearing the soft newborn hooves correctly and sets the youngster up for having well balanced hooves for life.
Natural hoof advocates suggest leading newly foaled mares quietly for an hour to mimic the way mares behave in the wild.
Too many domestic foals are born onto soft bedding, often confined in stables for the early days of their lives. These foals miss out on the all-important stimulation and wear needed to create a healthy hoof, beginning the cycle of hoof degradation and lameness that is common in domestic horses.
So moving from the vast expanses that the Kaimanawa is born on and into a domestic situation can affect these little horses in many different ways.
What a lot of people don’t realise is that with a little help Kaimanawas have the potential for such great feet that they can be ridden anywhere on their ‘Natural’ hooves without the need for shoes.
What is involved?
First you need to know a little about excess hoof horn and the damage it can cause.
The first thing you could look at is excess and/or uneven heel growth.
When the heels get to high, unbalanced or long and underslung it causes changes to the internal structures of the hoof. Blood supply can become constricted, sensitive tissues can become crushed, and bones, tendons, ligaments and cartilage change from their correct position to an unnatural, stressful misalignment.
Pain begins.
Your horse will not look lame but compensations made throughout the rest of the body for the discomfort that is felt in the hoof or hooves can cause muscular pain in the neck, shoulder, back or hindquarters.
The horse being the amazing generous creature that it is, usually doesn’t complain.
Occasionally though you could get a horse that will say enough is enough and begin to buck or not want to be caught, nap or become ‘lazy’.
All those ‘vices’ we are so familiar with.
Is the horse just being naughty?
Not Likely.
Does it have pain?
Very likely.
So you ask, ‘If my horse has pain, why isn’t it lame?’
Damage to the sensitive structures within the hoof can culminate over many years. For internal hoof damage to manifest as lameness the damage has to have reached a certain point in severity. This is also where individual pain thresholds come in. What cripples one horse another horse may seem to cope with.
You can have bruising to your own foot or leg and it doesn’t necessarily make you limp as you walk but it still hurts and the damage is there. Would you want to run or jump with a badly bruised foot?
So what can cause damage and pain to a horse?
High, unbalanced or low underlsung heels as already mentioned.
Bars that are overgrown and excessively weight bearing will cause pain and damage. This is a cause of Navicular syndrome. When the bars get too long they can push back up inside the hoof capsule damaging sensitive structures in the Navicular area.
Hoof wall that is allowed to get too long can split and/or put unnatural lever forces on the laminae causing a shearing away of the coffinbone-hoof wall connection.
Long toes can also pull the heels under the horse causing the underslung heels, which are very common in New Zealand.
The point or apex of the frog, if it is left to grow too high can be one reason for a horse not being comfortable on gravel. The horse can get bruising in this area.
So you want your horse to have healthy pain free feet, what do you do?
Start with a physiologically correct trim.
This type of trim varies from a standard farrier trim, though there are some farriers that trim with the ‘natural’ hoof in mind.
Overseas, decades of study by leading experts in hoof anatomy and function have culminated in the realisation that the way a wild horse wears its hooves, with the continual movement, develops healthy hooves that are rarely seen in domestic horses.
This is not genetics but movement that is the overriding factor.
A growth rate that equals the rate of wear keeping each hoof in a state of perfect balance.
Trimming your Kaimanawas feet to mimic how they wear in the wild is of supreme importance but is only part of the picture.
Movement is essential.
Some of that movement should be on abrasive surfaces.
Putting down a hard rock pad in the area of the paddock where the horses like to rest or are feed is an excellent idea that will help keep hooves conditioned and gives the horses a firm dry area to stand on during the wet winter months.
Environment is a key factor for healthy hooves.
The equine hoof has the remarkable ability to adapt to its environment.
The Mustangs in Nevada have rock hard, tidy hooves capable of carrying them 20-30ks daily over very harsh dry rocky terrain.
While horses living in wet marshy areas have splayed hooves that break off in big chunks providing them with traction in the softer areas where they roam.
Shoeing is expensive and research over the past 2 decades has proven it can have detrimental physical and mental effects on the horse.
Trimming along Natural Hoof Care lines is cheaper, has wide-ranging positive health benefits for the horse and is relatively easy to learn. If there is no one in your area able do to a ‘natural’ trim on your horse you may have to learn how to do it yourself.
New Zealand now has a number of different Clinicians visiting each year. Anyone wanting to learn to trim needs to research the different ‘trim styles’ that are being taught so that they can decide which type of trim they are the most comfortable with.
If your horse is in less than optimal living conditions it may need trimming more regularly, usually on a monthly basis.
The effect healthy hooves has on a horse is truly profound.
Even lame horses can return to soundness and resume a full and healthy life with natural hoof care.
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