Ridecamp: Re: [RC] [RC] Trimming your own horse's feet

>Kat Swigert Wrote:
>You cannot evaluate soundness in a dead horse....and....get
>this....it is a serious mistake to think that it can be told how lame a

>horse is by looking at the condition of the bony column and tendons of
>its legs.

Not only do I have photographs proving the above statement to be wrong
but, I also carry the reassembled bones of that leg with me where ever I
go for demonstrative and educational purposes further proving the above
statement to be false.

>Kat Swigert Wrote:
>As an example, MY horse was sent to the El Monte rendering plant after
>he was put down from breaking his leg (his humerus, so THAT part of his

>leg wouldn't have been sent with his feet)

We didn't just get the foot, We got the whole leg. It's very possible,
more than likely probable, your horse didn't have any crippling changes
in the bony collumn of the leg. Lastly horses don't have feet, they walk
on their toe nails, we as humans refer to them as hooves! The cofin bone
is suspended from the hoofwall by the laminae. The sole of the hoof
doesn't bear, nor is it designed to bear weight, it meerly covers the
venus plexus surrounding the cofin bone on the underside of the hoof.

>Kat Swigert Wrote:
>There is no way that the El Monte rendering plant could have known
>anything about how my horse was shod during his life and there
certainly
>was no way that they could have known anything about the type of
>training that the horse's farrier had.

The rendering plant just allowed the people conducting the study to look
at the horses teeth to approximate the age of the animal, and then to
cut the legs off the animal. They didn't need to know how your horse was
shod. The type of training your farrier had wasn't the issue as most
farrier institutes teach pretty much along the same guidelines. Those
guidelines coincide with the testing parameters of the AFA (American
Farriers Association), The testing parameters of the AFA pretty much
follow the shoeing proceedures as outlined in the United States Cavalry
Horseshoeing Manual. (Written about 100 years ago) So it's probably safe
to assume that you have a pretty good idea of the level of training the
farrier recieved. The question at hand was the level of competancy the
farrier was operating at. Which can probably be associated with the
level of training he recieved but, not nesessarily always the case.

>Kat Swigert Wrote:
>You cannot evaluate soundness in a dead horse....and....get
>this....it is a serious mistake to think that it can be told how lame a

>horse is by looking at the condition of the bony column and tendons of
>its legs. As an example, MY horse was sent to the El Monte rendering
plant after
>he was put down from breaking his leg.

 Anybody with the ability needed to empty a glass of water could have
probably diagnosed the extent of lameness of your horse at the time it
was put down, as well as the cause of it being put down. Without any
anatomy related training or without even dissecting the leg. The cause
of the fracture especially that far up the leg would not have been
attributed to shoeing practices. The condition of the structures in the
lower leg would further prove that.

>Kat Swigert Wrote:
>And while the condition of the horse's legs and shoes MAY tell you
>something about the competency of the person (or people, since most
>horses will have many more than just one shoer in their lives)
providing
>the care, it will tell you absolutely nothing about if, how, or by whom

>they were trained.

This statement was never part of the study conducted. The study was to
try and determine how many horses died before the average usefull
lifespan of the horse due to poor horseshoeing practices. Whether they
were euthanised, or sent to slaughter, or even purchased by a
Killer/Dealer and then hauled to Texas where they were slaughtered for
human consumption and exported to Europe and Japan.



Rob

Rob Kalb
Rob's Equine Hoof Care
Phelan CA


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