Winter Is Here! So Are Studded Hoof Boots

6 January 2010 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com

This art is from an ad for ice calks that was in the Horseshoers Journal 100 years ago; courtesy of Cornell University's Flower Sprecher Veterinary Library.

Ten years ago I wrote an article on winter hoofcare. It began:

"Does the sound of sleigh bells set your nerves on edge, because you are anticipating a wreck on the next icy patch down the road? Do you dream of the day next spring when you will be able to see your horse below his knees? Do you lie awake at night designing heating wires that can be implanted in horseshoe pads to melt the ice balls?"

Funny how things don't change much around here. Winter still makes me nervous. The fresh snow is beautiful for a week at the most. Then it either melts or solidifies into an ice field, especially any place the ground is level.

Right about the time that happens for the first time each winter, horse owners start to panic, especially if they haven't had their horses shoes adapted for winter or pulled. Flat shoes on ice induce unanticipated equine acrobatics and an immediate call to the farrier. Sometimes, unfortunately, the call is to the vet clinic.

Today I found out that Cavallo is now offering studs for their hoof boots. Studded hoof boots are becoming a more universally-available traction option for winter riding or driving on horses that are barefoot or seasonally shoeless.

These photos, courtesy of Cavallo, show how simple it is to drill the hole for the stud and then use the drill to insert it. I'm assuming that the same drill is reversible and will remove the stud as well. You'd have to be very careful not to drill through the sole of the boot and you will notice in these photos that they are drilling into a brand new boot. If you are drilling into an older boot that has a lot of wear on the "tread", the placement of the studs would be critical, and the whole process might require more thought and accuracy. As always, check with the manufacturer of the boots for their experiences. Most horse owners would want to leave this drilling task to their farriers. If you make a mistake, you've ruined an expensive piece of equipment.

This is a pretty big difference from the insertion and removal of studs in a horseshoe that is attached to the horse, where a stud wrench is required. I think there would be a danger that horse owners would be tempted to leave the studs in the boots all winter and never take them out, or ride in them when they aren't needed. They'd also need to remember to plug the holes when the studs are removed. Just as with shoe calks, owners or grooms would need to keep the stud holes clean, check the studs for cracks and wear, and make sure the holes aren't fatigued. Horseshoes are replaced periodically, but a hoof boot is built to last for quite a while, so the stud hole will need to be checked to make sure it has a good grip on the neck of the stud.

There must be 101 ways to winter-shoe a horse, with a variety of rim and full pads, hard surfacing puddles, nuggets, pin studs, screw-in studs, ice/frost nails, etc. This draft horse is an extreme example; he is shod to work in the woods and pull a sleigh. Notice how much the special ice nails protrude from the shoe. (Michael Wildenstein photo)

Now, won't someone design a simple velcro strap-on device with pre-installed permanent studs? (One that stays put and doesn't shift under the horse as it walks, please.) Ice-studded strap-ons could be handy for very temporary use, and you would want to be able to put them on one horse, take them off, and put them on the next, so they should be adjustable in size. Another idea: Some sort of super-gritty (on the ground side), anti-slip sole packing material might be a godsend, just the thing for boarding barns that won't allow horses to wear winter shoes or hind shoes if they are turned out.

It's always important to remember that horses can massacre their pasterns and coronets with studs and that horses that interfere when tired can and will cut their legs or bandages. And that you should obviously be consistent in the placement of studs in boots. Logic says don't use the horse with just one studded boot on and be very careful about turning horses out with boots on. And remember that if they step on you with a studded boot on, it will hurt!

The biggest caveat of all in using studded boots would have to be that the boots fit well and the horse moves well in them. An icy day is not the time to try boots on a horse for the first time. Studded boots are not a replacement for shoes but rather safety and traction equipment for an unshod horse. Nothing is more upsetting than seeing a horse slip and slide across a paddock; it's even more upsetting to be on top of a sliding horse.

Even with studded hoof boots, a horse won't turn into one of those tolting Icelandics who race on the ice. They wear special shoes to be able to do that.

It's not too late to get a horse set up for this winter. It's never too late to take the best care you can to prevent injuries and stress. How great it is that horses have so many options these days. It means that people care and that clever-minded companies are recognizing a need and serving up new ideas to try.

Note: Horse owners should check with hoof boot manufacturers for individual recommendations not only of how to install studs, but what studs to install. Some hoof boot manufacturers include Stride Equus (Marquis), Delta-Mustad, Easy Care, Theo, Swiss Horse Boot, and Renegade, in addition to Cavallo, who just started selling their new boot-specific studs today. A little homework goes a long way.

© 2010 Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask.

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. 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).

To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found.

Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Friends at Work (Long Ago) in Suffolk, England

Smith, originally uploaded by KindredSpiritUK.

Here's a snappy little pony getting some tuning up done at an unrecorded location in Suffolk, England in the 1920s or 1930s. I thought there were several interesting things about this photograph and hope you agree.

First, I wondered about a farrier working on a slope so perhaps these two fellows were making a call to a stableyard to replace a lost or twisted shoe on this nice pony.

I also wondered about the strap around the pony's neck; it looks like the leadline is attached to it, rather than putting a halter over the bridle, or removing the bridle. Or maybe it is someone's belt!

Notice the tail. Great Britain passed legislation banning tail docking of military horses in the late 1800s, and a national law in 1949 called the Docking and Nicking of Horses Act; Germany banned docking in 1933. Sharon Cregier from the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada has written extensively about tail docking in horses.

What do you see in this photo?

Thanks to the Kindred Spirits UK Archive of David Kindred's old photos for making this image available.

The Place to be Tonight

by Fran Jurga | 31 December 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Here's a peek inside the Smiddy in Dundonnell, Scotland, which is almost as far north as you can go. It's past Inverness, and looks west toward the Outer Hebrides. It's a smiddy no more, but a mountaineering hut where up to ten hikers can rest for the night. But the forge fire blazes and the tools are still there and here's a fellow to serenade us on the accordion.

The red dot on the map at left locates Dundonnell on a map of Scotland. The islands to the left are the Outer Hebrides.

Auld Lang Syne is, after all, a Scottish tune penned by the great poet Robert Burns. But you knew that.

Here's the Dundonnell smiddy from the outside.

I can't think of anyone I'd rather spend an evening by the fire with than the readers of this blog. Of course I'm not really in Scotland, except maybe in a flight of imagination.

Thanks to Dundee, Scotland photographer Robbie Graham for the loan of this photo. Robbie asked for a "wee credit", but I'd give him a lot of credit. His photographs are extraordinary; take a "wee" tour of Scotland with Robbie with this set of images of the country he obviously knows and loves so well.

Happy new year from the Hoof Blog as I turn off the Big Mac for the year! May Auld Lang Syne's cup of kindness find you all often in 2010.

2009: Thanks for reading The Hoof Blog

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

Thank you for reading and watching and listening to this blog, and for sharing it with others, and for your support of all the projects, products and events associated with Hoofcare & Lameness.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask.

Saved the Best for Last: Paul Williams and Pearl and the Rest of the Story

by Fran Jurga | 31 December 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com This is the story that stopped me in my tracks and I wonder what it will mean to you. Please watch these videos but understand that they are only the beginning of this very special end-of-the-year story. The television crews showed up when the deed was done, and the film footage showed only the wreckage of a burned-out horse barn. You heard only the testimony of onlookers. Yet something about this little story from a small town outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania piqued my curiosity. There had to be more to it. And there is. The fireman who rushed into the burning barn at Greenmoor Commons Equestrian Center in Cecil Township, Pennsylvania was not just a local volunteer fireman. He was a farrier. And he was rushing in to save a horse he knew very well. Paul Williams knew exactly where Pearl's stall was, and though he said that she didn't seem to recognize him, we can only wonder about that. Others had tried to get her out but failed. Water from the fire hoses was filling her stall. She was standing in a foot of water. "It was her blanket that saved this mare's life," Paul told me. "She was completely soaked. The blanket was saturated." That saturated blanket and the deep pool in the stall meant that the sparks and embers falling from above were doused as they entered the stall. Pearl was safe, for the most part, though. "And the wind direction was in her favor, too, " Paul recalled. "But it was that thick blanket that saved her." The story doesn't stop there. "I was at the station when the call came in, and I heard a horse was trapped," Paul told me. Paul has been through special large animal rescue training and he is dedicated to educating horse owners and firemen about fire safety and horse rescue, along with a fellow firefighter who is a horse owner, Ed Childers. And Paul does it all as a volunteer fireman, in addition to his farrier work, and the training of his horses. His fire department has only expertise, not equipment; they use an old bedliner out of a pickup truck as a glide for an injured horse. They have no slings or straps or pulleys. They rely on just their common sense, and (most of all), their horse sense. Just ten days before Pearl's heroic rescue, Paul had been personally touched by fire. He trains Standardbreds, and had been looking into buying back one of his former trainees, a mare named Dancing Cassidy. She was stabled in southern Ohio at Lebanon Raceway. On the morning of December 5th, two men and 43 horses died in a barn fire at Lebanon Raceway. One of those who died was Paul's mare, Dancing Cassidy. "She won the night before," Paul said, still proud of her. "I wanted to get her out of there and bring her home but I never got the chance." You may have noticed in the video that Paul has an accent. "People ask me if I'm from Boston," he laughed. He moved to the USA 15 years ago from Brecon in South Wales, but the musical Welsh accent has stuck. Paul rode National Hunt races back home in the winter; when he came to America, he set up his farrier business and started training Standardbreds and Thoroughbreds; he lives three miles from The Meadows racetrack. He estimates there are close to 3500 active riding and race horses in his county, and that he's picked a good place to shoe and live the life that suits him.

The horse rescue work is unfunded but Paul said that the day after the fire, an anonymous check for $500 arrived at the firehouse, and he was delighted. If you'd like to help Paul help more horses, I'd recommend that you learn what you can about fire prevention and emergency care of horses. And if you have a few dollars left at the end of year (or anytime), I know a donation would be put to good use if it was sent to the North Strabane Fire Department Large Animal Rescue Unit, 2550 Washington Rd., Canonsburg, PA 15317-5224 USA. I'm sure Paul would also travel to give talks on rescue and safety.

The fundraising t-shirt for the North Strabane Large Animal Rescue team.

When I asked Paul about being a farrier and rescuing horses and how the two jobs fit together, he quickly said, "Well, who better than us?" And that's, as they say, the rest of this great story. If you live near Pittsburgh and would like to learn more about large animal rescue and fire safety, Paul and Ed will give their next seminar on January 9th. There's lots more info at the North Strabane Volunteer Fire Department web site. I'd like to thank Jim Durkin and everyone at WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh for making a special effort to release the video of Paul and Pearl, and uploading it so we could show it on this post. It is not that station's policy to allow their news footage to be used by outside web sites, and I know they made a special exception in this case for this special story, knowing that Hoof Blog readers would like to see the footage. Thanks too to CNN, who have had quite a few horse-related video clips open for use on the blog lately. © Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. 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). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

The Three Smiths of Helsinki

27 December 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Three blacksmiths, originally uploaded by digikuva.

What a well-traveled group of readers checked the Hoof Blog today!

Our "Where in the world?" question asked for the location of the Three Smiths sculpture by Felix Nylund. I thought it would be a stumper, but a flurry of correct answers quickly came in from around the world!

The winner was farrier Jonathan Oehm of Queensland, Australia who, like so many Aussies, has been around the world and back again.

Close behind was farrier/doctor Mike Miller of Alabama and veterinarian Hank Greenwald of Washington. Then a three-way tie almost to the minute between "CJ" and Cynthia Dekker (locations unknown) and Sandy Johnson of Florida, who remembered the statue from her time in Helsinki shoeing at the FEI World Cup Finals in 1998.

The most recent winner is Frederick Marmander, a farrier from Sweden.

I had never seen the sculpture before and I was really excited to find these photos. Something unique about this statue is that it was damaged by bombing during World War II, and the anvil has a hole in it where shrapnel hit it.

As with so many artistic representations of smiths and farriers or anvils and hammers, the statue is said to be a celebration of the laborer, but the coordinated forging between the three men symbolizes the need to cooperate peacefully to get jobs done, according to the art museum in Helsinki.

Smiths are often depicted unclothed in classical art, but it seems a bit cruel of the artist for a city with the climate of Helsinki!

Thanks to everyone who answered or at least thought about where in the world this statue might be! What a worldly readership this blog has!

Where in the world?

IMG_1898, originally uploaded by venlalaland.

Who knows where this photo was taken? The name of the sculpture is The Three Smiths, and the name is also given to the square in the famous city where they stand, 365 days of the year.

Be the first person to correctly identify the location and you'll win a copy of the New Dictionary of Farrier Terms (2010 edition) by David Millwater.

Send an email to threesmiths@hoofcare.com if you think you know where this sculpture is.

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!

Friends (Still) at Work: Noni Harland

by Fran Jurga | 22 December 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Life Data Labs in Cherokee, Alabama is such a nice place to work that no one wants to retire. That's the gist of an article in an Alabama newspaper today, which cited the supplement manufacturer for its high percentage of workers who are working beyond retirement age...because they want to.

But Noni Harland wins the prize. She is 91, and still comes to work every day.

The day I visited, Noni was keeping an eagle eye on the vaccum-sealed bags of supplements as they were packed for shipping. Hard work runs in her family; Noni's daughter Linda is president of Life Data Labs.

I remember visiting the plant a while ago, and there she was, just as bright and friendly as can be, although that could be said of all the employees. I think it is hard for some people to reconcile the "big company" status of Life Data: they dominate the hoof supplement race, do their own research with a PhD/DVM on hand every day, and run a research farm that would be the envy of any big feed company. And the horses that run in the fields there would be the envy of many Thoroughbred breeders.

So you think their corporate headquarters is in a skyscraper somewhere, don't you? Or in a glass and steel temple in an upscale corporate office park? Think again. Corporate offices are a few steps from the entrance to the spotless mill where the supplements are made. And the massive warehouse is just beyond that.

Dr. Frank Gravlee took some time off to show me around the warehouse. I think he might be researching anti-aging supplements for humans on the side.

From my experience, I'd say that Noni and Dr. Frank and others at Life Data Labs keep working into their senior years because there's no place they'd rather be but keeping that company at the forefront. Their hard work put Farriers Formula on top, and my guess is that they plan to keep it that way.

To read more about the unique age group of employees at Life Data Labs, read the article in the Muscles Shoals Times Daily. The Life Data Labs web site is always worth a visit too, as is their new YouTube channel. You can subscribe to their channel and you'll receive email notifications when new videos are posted by Life Data Labs on youtube.com.

And the next time you open a bucket of Farriers Formula, and you see that little brochure in there on top of the pellets, you can stop and smile. Noni's been hard at work to get it ready for you.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. 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). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Introduction to Hoof Anatomy: Dermal and Epidermal Structures

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



Time for an anatomy review? The exterior of the horse's hoof is pretty familiar territory to anyone reading this blog, but sometimes the anatomical reference terms used in this article are all new to someone from outside the hands-on world of horses, or maybe some blog readers get confused about the terms in the English language, since, according to the statistics I've been checking, this blog is read by people from just about every country on the planet!

This simple video reviews the structures of the hoof capsule with an emphasis on dermal vs epidermal (inner vs outer, in plain language; sometimes referred to as sensitive vs insensitive in older terminology that described the laminae and sole).

If an anatomist was comparing the hooves of several mammals, he or she would use the terminology you will hear in this video. Everything has a noun to identify and an adjective to modify or locate it. The most common ones you'll hear are directional--medial or lateral, dorsal or palmar, but listen for things described as epidermis and corium, and for the characteristics of the layers of tissue in the coronary band. It's nice that the narrator speaks so slowly.

I apologize if this is too basic for you, but maybe you'll watch it anyway, and pass it on to someone who would like to study anatomy.

Lately it seems like some people don't study anatomy as much as they interpret it, according to their theories of the function of the hoof, but that seems backwards to me. I think my own theory on this is based on years of marveling at the hoof and hearing the most learned scholars marvel too at the complexity of the hoof's design and yet the efficiency of its functions.

I don't think we've cracked the case yet, but when we do, I believe it really will be like finishing a jigsaw puzzle: you just can't have any leftover unexplained anatomy pieces lying off to the side when you're done with your explanation of the foot. Everything that is there, is there for a reason and is doing something. All the parts work together. All the parts are important. That's the beauty of it...and the mystery of it, as well.

Thanks to mido851114 , an Egyptian vet who obviously found this video helpful, and posted it on YouTube so I could embed it here for you. The video was originally made for a set of comparative species dissection narrations at the Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine in 1995 with credits to Drs. Nongnuch Inpanbutr and Maureen Caito. Dr. Inpanbutr is from Thailand. And so the world gets smaller and smaller...

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. 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). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.