I had the opportunity to take photos of different hooves that we will be posting on our blogs. I’m no hoof professional but even to me the difference between both hooves became very clear immediately.

The photo below is showing the sound hoof of an Australian Brumby. A horse living similar like the American mustang. You can see a very nice sole.

Let’s have a look at the next shot. Here we see the hoof of a horse that had been shoed with iron shoes. (Thanks to Christoph of Vettec for letting me take this shot)


(the white stuff is silicone that shall protect the hoof)

The main problem possibly haven’t been the iron shoes alone but a very bad trim combined with iron shoes. What we see is an extremely thin sole.

The first horse definitely died by a shot from a guy sitting in a helicopter.

I don’t know why the 2nd horse died but I have an idea ….

This is a good but sad example to explain why I like Natural Hoof Care and protecting hooves with hoof boots.
I believe the 2nd photo is giving even amateurs an idea which problems will probably occur with the different bones inside the hoof if the sole is as thin as shown on that image.

We began using hoof boots 15 years ago when our horse started suffering from laminitis and I was very happy that one of my friends just started as a hoof trimmer (I had no clue what a trimmer was at that time). He pulled off the iron shoes and helped us to get her sound again with good barefoot trim and hoof boots. Now “Suse” is a 24 years old sound barefoot horse and we’re still riding her 3-4 times a week.

Bernd