Using a hoof knife

[Glenn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXehODHcv58

 

[Charles R. Stevens]

As one can easily use the back edge of your hoof knife to clean the dirt out and avoid o pointy end sticking up I am not impressed with this design, and I have come to the considered oppinion that defoliating the sole and trimming the frog are best kept to a minimum. The dead sole provides protection (not unlike the sole of your shoe) for sensitive structures and the frog needs ground contact for hoof health and as a traction aid on hard serfaces. 

Many farriers are taught to defoliate till they expose the waxy live sole. This is ok, but many more are told they can trim down till the sole gives under your thumb. Nope, this is why horses are sore for a week after you leave. Further it is certainly more difficult to rasp the hoof flat and level working around the frog, bit the reduction in nerowing of the heals, sensitivity to the serface that the horse is standing on, hoof growth and improved traction is worth the effort. Certonly going from shod to bare foot one may heed to trim the frog level at the apex to 1/4” at the heals to prevent soreness (their is a nerve under the frog, that as the horse grows and bears weight develops a sheath of catilidge. This nerve senses the ground serface. Horses with aggressively trimmed frogs and shoes can become sore footed when you go bare foot because the catiledge softens. Further aggressively trimmed frogs combined with poor showing (close fit heals and nailing behind the widest part of the foot) can lead to contracted heals and ossification of the side catiledges. 

For the domestic horse who has been dread for everthing but good feet and who is not traveling 50 miles a day from good grazing to good water farriers can be a godsend, but we can also be a Bain, causing more harm than good.

knoledgible and compasionent farriers and horseman/women are a nesesity for the domestic horse. Certification isn’t the same as well educated as many of the harmful practesses are thought buy  farrier schools. 

I  know I am on my soap box now, but bear with me, a lot of good practical hormanship and farriery was lost buy the advent of the Ford truck. Profetinals moved in to other lines of work and left the field to the drunks and ignorant. The proffecianals to day struggle under the weight of this loss and the ignorance fostered on us for the last hundred years. Old farrier and blacksmith books plus’s military manuals are a boon from an age when the horse was valuable to the economy and warfare. New research is redescovering this and all to often verifying what a few of thousand years of imperial observation taught us. Be ware the guy peddling his snake oil, beware the peaple who resist change and wish to codify good hoof care with out good science to back it up. 

[jlpservicesinc]

Makes 2 of us..  That knife is an injury to me or the horse just waiting to happen..   

I also agree with your methods and with a well trimmed foot one is never to invade the live sole structure..  Better left alone  for it to correct through proper weight bearing, rather than through me taking what  " I " think should come out.  

The markers are there for exactly what should come out.. 

on the knife note..  These are what I use daily and the hoof pick on the back of the blade is the most efficient way of getting the results.. 

Charles I to used to only use the back of a standard hoof knife to clean out the commisures and found these designes to be far more effective.. 

At some point I will be making you one to have an use to give feedback on..  I've just been to busy to find the time to make it..   It will have a Hastings type handle on it as you mentioned that is the style you like..   

[JHCC]

I'm no farrier (nor am I ever likely to become one), but that spiky bit on the end of the handle looks like an impalement waiting to happen.

[jlpservicesinc]

it would be.. on a rear foot you can see in the video it's held to the side vs between the legs..   This would just add up with a horse pulling it's leg away..  SCARY..   

[JHCC]

Another reason I find farrier work so fascinating ... to watch!

[Charles R. Stevens]

Thank you dear lady. 

As you mention once one learnes to read the landmarks one can easaly get to with in 1/2 a degree of the “ideal” coffin bone (P3) angle. 

[jlpservicesinc]

You are so welcome..   Your comments are radiating with truths..

I don't mean to run on about this stuff, but every day with new customers I see this so consistently it makes me sick..  

Every horse and foot the primary concern is with soundness.. The way to get there is through balance as the hoof needs it.. Not what I see as it needing..  
here is the "Observational hoof trimming " FB photo album..    In my mind there is always room for improvement till there is not (this being the ideal hoof) in the mean time trimming for that natural function will lead to sounder horses...  https://www.facebook.com/pg/ObservationalHoofTrimming/photos/

  Why is it so many find it so hard to read a proper foot vs just the old fashioned, traditional methods of:  medial/lateral balance ( based on how it looks) and distal/palmer/dorsal angle based off a protractor or shoulder/fetlock joint angle with doesn't account for any distortion in the hoof capsule..   Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat..

I just got done watching a video on an Army guy putting shoes on a horse and the amount of bruising in the white line  tells me there is toe distortion..  Never mind the other obvious signs including the narrow heels, with the whole hoof mass pushed forwards..  

Maybe someday enough will be enough and more people will see the difference..     Keep up the mighty fine work..  It's people like yourself that will help the industry change for the better.. 

[Charles R. Stevens]

You and I have learned to trim the foot in front of us. Just like other parts of a horse hoof confermation is a thing. Pack man looking low healed feet come down from the europian forest horse, upright feet with stron heals from the light horse) and that odd longish foot from the steps poney. 

The problem is that even with the wild horse studies that led to “natural” hoof trimming is based on mustang hoof studies and every one came away with a “standard” hoof angle. Instead of looking at the landmarks (live sole in the quarters and seat of corn (heals). To creat a hoof level to the coffin bone, and a toe break over brought back to the white line in the toe (some horses are off kilter and another approach  to break over is nesisary) it’s hard to break away from what you were taught as a beginner. What made us such difficult students make us great farriers.   

We ask why and don’t exept answers with out evidence

[jlpservicesinc]

I always question everything I do..  If I can't see an improvement after a few anythings.. I will search out for the correct way..  I'm not tied to anything other than finding the best way to do something..  My idea, your idea.. I don't care.. If it's better than the current idea and can see merit..  Well, now its mine.. 
 

2 hours ago, Charles R. Stevens said:

it’s hard to break away from what you were taught as a beginner. What made us such difficult students make us great farriers. 

I was lucky.. I knew by the 2nd year of my apprenticeship that we as farriers were creating the problems..   Not a single person nor book could answer the questions I posed to the highest farrier ranks..  Until I worked with Gene Ovenick.. 

It all makes perfect sense now and its like reading a book that yells at me what to do.. 

 Dr Deb Bennett posted a video about farriers and hoof care in regards to Xrays..  I remember when portable machines were being sold to farriers as a way to offer correct angles.. 

Anyhow,  She said any farrier worth their salt knew exactly what was going on inside the hoof capsule without xrays..       Brilliant..  

 

[Charles R. Stevens]

Thanks to more than a few follow up xrays I know have confidence in my ability to do just that. Took me a year of 2-4 hour a day personal study and horses with sic feet to learn to see what was needed. I am still not perfect but I know I am getting them close enough that nature can take over.

[jlpservicesinc]

Way to go on all of it..  You  are in the minority of hoof understanding.  You are very lucky not to be tied to convention..  Well done..  Yup, very well done Sir..