An Amputee Donkey in Egypt Walks Again--on a Recycled Artificial Human Leg

Donkeys figure quite prominently in the original Christmas story, so why not have one star on the Hoof Blog on Christmas Eve? Hector the Egyptian donkey is making news around the world this Christmas, and bringing smiles to faces wherever his story is told or read.

Hooves@War: Did the Paths of This Vet and Farrier Cross in World War I?

It was called simply "Mons". The war was supposed to be a quick route for the British troops. They left in summer and boasted that they'd be home in time for Christmas. Except it didn't quite work out that way. It turned into a "world war". The war to end all wars.

The Hoof Blog found two names--one a vet and one a farrier--who had their hands on the horses at that first faceoff at Mons. Today's story tells what happened to them there.

A Farrier's Christmas Tale, World Champion Style, in Video and Poem

There are many tales about Christmas in the forge, but Santa Claus knows exactly where to go when he needs help. He seeks out three World Champions: Grant Moon (Wales), David Varini (Scotland), and Paul Robinson (Ireland) who just happen to be working late on Christmas Eve. But have your read the poem?

Thanksgiving: Shoes for Turkeys? The Trot to Market Was Hard on Their Feet

Shoeing the Goose misericord carving photographed by Giles C. Watson

This blog post is an update on one of the most popular posts ever published on this blog. First published for Thanksgiving 2008, people from all over the world have remarked on this unusual bit of history, which is little known but can always fill in the gaps of a slow conversation with the relatives on a holiday afternoon.

Be thankful for many things this Thanksgiving. Among them: be thankful you don't have to shoe turkeys or help them with their lameness problems. Turkey feet were a major concern up until 100 years or so ago, when the railroads took over transporting livestock to market. Up until then, turkeys took to the highway on foot to be sold in the big cities. Unfortunately, turkey feet weren't made for trotting.

If the conversation lags around the dinner table during your Thanksgiving feast, pick up a drumstick and speculate straight-faced to some young relative, "Ever notice that no one ever eats turkey feet?"

Chances are, it never occurred to a child to question why the drumstick is an amputee.

Then answer your own question nonchalantly: "They used to shoe turkeys, you know."

Then wait. It's coming.

All eyes will turn to you. In-laws will raise eyebrows. Children will hold you in high esteem. Any dogs lying in wait will wag their tails.

And the medallion above, from a medieval church, proves it, even though that is a goose carved into a misericord, a sort of jump-seat ledge in church pews. (I highly recommend following the link to Giles Watson's site.) The goose appears to be stabilized in a stock and the farrier is hammering on its webbed foot.

Before railroads, the only way for turkeys and geese to get to market was to herd them along country roads. Drovers would purchase or consign them from multiple farmers and move great flocks toward the cities so they could be sold for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners.

How far do you think this turkey would be able to trot? Would he look the same when he arrived at the market? (Mark Robinson photo)

You would hear the poultry flocks, and see the dust clouds, long before they passed through your town. The poultry could eat among the stubble of harvested fields as they went. The drover didn't hurry them too much, since fatter birds meant higher prices for him.

Historically, New England writers like Hawthorne and Emerson wrote complaining comments about the huge flocks of turkeys clogging up the roads and impeding the post or the stagecoach.

Click here to listen to a Vermont Public Radio lecture about the great turkey droves to Boston for Thanksgiving.  

The problem was that the birds' feet and claws weren't cut out to march a few hundred miles. Turkeys were famous for just refusing to move, or they would roost up in trees for the night and not come down in the morning, perhaps because their feet were sore. Geese apparently were even more lame than turkeys because of their webbed feet.

Cattle, too, had a hard time marching to market, and were often shod along the way. In fact, farriers were in great demand to accompany drovers so that the cattle could be shod or attended to as needed along the route. Even pigs and sheep and goats had to be shod occasionally, although the old animal husbandry books tell us that pigs preferred woolen socks with a leather sole to shoes.

Buying the Thanksgiving turkey, circa 1910; double-click to enlarge and see detail. Library of Congress image

The drover's wagon followed slowly behind the drover, who was often on foot, with his dogs. The wagon picked up strays, or sick or lame birds. They stopped at drovers' inns, and pastured stock in rented or loaned fields (and trees) overnight.

I don't know how the geese were shod in Europe, but I have read that is was some crafty New Englanders who figured out a simpler way to do it. They developed a series of pits along the drovers' routes. In the first pit was warm tar; the turkeys and geese were herded into the pen and left for a bit, then moved to the second pen, which was sand. The sand, of course, stuck to the tar and made a gritty set of galoshes for the birds. About the time the tar wore off, they would arrive at the next set of pits.

It gives a new twist to the expression, "tarred and feathered", not to mention a "turkey trot".

It also explains why turkeys are rarely, if ever, sold with their feet still attached to their drumsticks.

Some cooks add these little paper "turkey feet" if serving the whole bird on a platter.  The tradition of roasting poultry without their feet may have a very practical origin. Photo courtesy of BenFrantzDale on Flickr.com

Giles introduced me to an ancient Reynard the Fox ditty:

"It’s easier to revive a corpse
Robbed from a hangman’s noose
Than to stoop with iron nails
And shoe your grandma’s goose.

Bend your back, you farrier,
The goose foot on your knee,
And watch the locals gather round
And chortle for to see.

It’s easier to make sure a tooth
That’s grey and hanging loose
Than to stoop with iron nails
And shoe your grandma’s goose.

And if the goose should give a honk
As you are a-nailing
You’ll never make a goose’s smith –
‘Tis a sign that you are failing.

You’ll tear your hair out, feathers fly,
It won’t be any use,
For I’d rather shoe my grandma
Than shoe my grandma’s goose."

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm very thankful for the people who read this blog and support Hoofcare Publishing and are my friends, even if we have never met. Thank you, most of all, for helping the horses.

 TO LEARN MORE

A history of drovers in America, including the race between geese and turkeys.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing; Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.  

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any direct compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned, other than Hoofcare Publishing. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Christmas Around Here...

25 December 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com

What's Christmas like in your part of the world? Here's a glimpse at our town, the famous fishing port of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Most people visit in the summer months when the harbor is full of sailboats and whale-watching cruises. As soon as summer fades, the harbor seems much bigger. The tourists may leave but the seals come.

Christmas is a very special time in this community and a foot of snow the week before only enhanced the spirit this year.



In this video of still images by local photographer Jay Albert, you can see the Christmas tree up the hill from the Hoofcare & Lameness office. It is believed to the largest construction of lobster traps into the form of a Christmas tree in the world, and uses 400 traps! The buoys were painted by local schoolchildren. The effect is magical, although I can't decide whether I like it better at night, when it is lit, or during the day, when I can see the construction.



The U.S. Coast Guard stations are very important anchors in the seaside communities up and down the coast. In this video, you can see the lighthouse crew from Brant Station on Nantucket working on one of their annual Christmas traditions, a wreath for a lighthouse at the harbor entrance. I think the cross pieces on the wreath may be representing harpoons; Nantucket was the world's foremost whaling port. Remember Moby Dick?

This year was the 80th anniversary of "Flying Santa". I've been around a few times over the years when a helicopter would land next door at the Coast Guard station and Santa Claus could hop out! A non-profit group flies Santa up and down the coast to visit the children of lighthouse keepers and Coast Guardsmen every year.

Merry Christmas...from Hoofcare's little corner of the world!

'Twas the Night Before Horseshoes and All Through Poughkeepsie...

Somewhere in this engraving of the Phoenix horseshoe mill in Poughkeepsie, New York is the little house where "The Night Before Christmas" is believed to have been written. Double-click on the image to see an enlarged view.

Do your holiday plans include reading or reciting "The Night Before Christmas", also known as "A Visit from St. Nick"? It may well be the best-known bit of poetry ever written in America. But did you know that there's a horseshoe connection to the poem?

The poem is believed to have been written by a Poughkeepsie, New York gentleman, Henry Livingston, who read it to his children. After his death, the poem was published in a Troy, New York newspaper and attributed to the poet Clement Clark Moore.

The Livingston family has been fighting for the poem to be credited properly to their ancestor, but it has been hard to prove. One tidbit from their family web site is that the reindeer names may actually have been the names of Henry Livingston’s horses.

After Henry's death, the Livingston family’s home became the headquarters office of the fledgling Phoenix Horseshoe Company, whose massive factories soon lined the shore of the Hudson River. Phoenix and the Troy-based Burden Horse Shoes, an hour further up the Hudson River, dominated the horseshoe manufacturing world up until the World War II era.

Isn't it odd that the two leading cities of horseshoe manufacturing would also be the two cities of the Christmas poem's controversy?

After the turn of the century, Phoenix tore Henry Livingston's house down, but horseshoe moguls obviously believed in Henry's authorship of the poem. Phoenix carefully removed and donated the mantle and hearth, such a vivid setting for St. Nicholas in the poem, to the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Poughkeepsie chapter. It is supposed to be in the Clinton museum there.

I'd say that if the business of Phoenix Horse Shoes was conducted before that hearth, it is doubly of interest and worth knowing its whereabouts!

Wait, there’s more. While there is no written history of Phoenix that I can find, there do seem to be ongoing ties between the Livingston family and the fledgling farrier industry of the 19th century. The Livingston Horse Nail Company, headed by S. Otis Livingston, had an agent who also represented Phoenix. The Livingstons made rasps and aprons, as well as Livingston, Anchor, New Haven and Coleman brand nails. Henry Livingston was involved as an investor--or more like a modern-day venture capitalist/equity trader--in the Forge Village and Globe horse nail companies in Massachusetts.

According to an ad in the 1907 Horseshoers Journal, the company was founded in 1845, predating Capewell. At that time, farriers were sold "horse nail iron" from Norway, which they used to make their nails. Early manufactured nails were sold unpointed, especially from some of the firms that Henry Livingston invested in.

The Livingstons were an influential political family and a very wealthy one. They helped write and then signed both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. It was a Livingston who swore George Washington into office for his first term. U.S. Presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush are direct descendants of the Livingstons of Poughkeepsie.

I know if I dig deeper (or someone in Poughkeepsie does it for me) I will find a more direct link between the Livingstons and ownership or backing of the Phoenix Horse Shoe Company. Then, this really will be the night before horseshoes.

But for now, let’s pretend that Henry Livingston was frustrated because his horses all needed sharp winter shoes to get around the icy December roads of Poughkeepsie. He imagined they could fly, all hooked to a sleigh. Perhaps his farrier gave him an idea, too!

Merry Christmas…and to all, a good night!