RE: Barefootin'

["Anna Larson" <hobo14@earthlink.net>]

Why would donkeys and mules be any different? Does anyone have proof that a
donkey or a mule hoof is different from a horse (other than the anatomy)?

may be some ponies, donkeys or mules that can...I have no
experience with them).


My barefooted mustang mare has feet so hard that even after several 12-20
mile rides along and on the pavement outside my house, the mare still needed
to be trimmed about 1/4 inch of hoof wall.  Her pasture is a mixture of
caliche clay, sandstone, shale, some sand and a little lava rock. We also
ride along the pavement with the pea gravel or else on the forest service
land behind the house which contains the same type of terrain as the
pasture. Granted she is not doing 50 milers yet (to young) But she has
successfully completed a few two day CTR's (40 miles or so in two days) and
still needed a trim after.

The idea that any endurance horse that is being kept
in an even marginally good sized paddock and is being
ridden enough to be conditioned as an endurance horse would
ever grow enough foot to actually need to have any of it
trimmed off is bizarre to me.   Barefoot horses don't need to have their
feet
trimmed.  They "self-trim."

I am willing to concede the possibility that other people
are having to trim their barefoot horses because those
horses live and travel on a different kind of ground than
mine do (rather than that their horses just aren't getting
enough exercise to wear off their feet without a trim).