Barefoot Horse Keeping E-Book

Anni Stonebridge

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Barefoot Horse Keeping provides a practical, accessible and objective guide to barefoot horse care and management. The book draws on empirical research and the authors' twenty-five years' experience delivering barefoot hoof care, saddle fitting, behavioural training and rider coaching. Topics covered include: the Barefoot philosphy; the herd and the environment; hoof trimming; diet and nutrition and equine anatomy and biomechanics. Of great interest to all horse owners and veterinary students, and fully illustrated with 230 colour photographs.

Leseprobe

BAREFOOT HORSE KEEPING

—The Integrated Horse—

ANNI STONEBRIDGE AND JANE CUMBERLIDGE

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2016 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2016

© Anni Stonebridge and Jane Cumberlidge 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 174 1

Acknowledgements

Deciding to become a hoof care professional has, quite literally, been life-changing. Choosing to do something that defies convention is never easy, but it has been both rewarding and at times extremely challenging. Numerous people have supported us and been influential in our barefoot journey. The authors would like to express their sincere thanks and respect to: our families and particularly Duncan Stonebridge for providing us with many wonderful photographs that so beautifully illustrate this book; the Barefootworks Co-operative team – Dawn Saunders, Liz Angus, Lesley Holehouse and Abi Hogg; the Dinnet Equine Herd Project – Wilma and John Doherty, and Cathy Todd; Bob Bowker; Lynda Davey; Brian Hampson; Dan Guerrera; Dorothy Marks; Kerry Ridgway; Mark Johnson; Paige Poss; Peter Laidley; Seaton Baxter; the Equine Sciences Academy; and HCP colleagues both in the UK and internationally, for the thousands of hours of discussions. Finally, we are grateful to our clients and their fascinating horses, without whom this book would not exist.

Contents

1INTRODUCTION

2TRIMMING

3ENVIRONMENT, HERD AND HUMAN INTERFACE

4DIET AND NUTRITION

5EQUINE BIOMECHANICS AND FUNCTIONAL ANATOMY

6TRANSITIONS

7TROUBLESHOOTING

8FINAL THOUGHTS

Reading and Resources List

Index

1 Introduction

The authors Anni Stonebridge and Jane Cumberlidge, and their dogs.

The rationale behind this book comes from over twenty-five years’ experience in delivering barefoot hoof care, saddle fitting, behavioural training and rider coaching. The authors have been horse owners, hoof care professionals (HCPs) and educators during this time, and have been intimately involved with the barefoot scene internationally. They apply their scientific education and transfer experience from prior careers to their work. Along with four other long-term HCPs (Dawn Saunders, Liz Angus, Lesley Holehouse and Abi Hogg), they are members of Barefootworks Hoof Care Co-operative.

Barefootworks – the UKs first hoofcare co-operative.

Barefootworks was established in 2006 as the first independent hoof care practice in the UK. The Co-operative is an industry group rather than attached to a training organization, but has links in training background and training provision to the Equine Sciences Academy, the American Hoofcare Association, the UK Natural Horse Care Practitioners Association, The School(s) of Barehoof Strategy and the American Association of Natural Hoof Care Practitioners. A ‘cross-training’, evidencebased and critical thinking philosophy defines the integrated and holistic services the Co-operative provides, and sets Barefootworks hoof care apart from traditional farriery services and other hoof care providers.

This book is intended to provide a practical, accessible and objective guide to barefoot horse keeping. The content is informed as deeply as possible by empirical research and practice findings. The text is illustrated by photos from the authors’ records, together with diagrams and graphics, and enhanced with case studies and commentary from other professionals.

Trimming in practice.

Successful barefoot horse keeping requires education, planning and consideration, and can be complex and challenging. Whilst the authors appreciate that a number of readers will choose to perform their own hoof trimming, they strongly recommend that they secure the services of an experienced and educated HCP for regular checks. The authors define an HCP as a trimmer or a barefoot-educated farrier. If things take a turn for the worse, even the most open minded and optimistic owner-trimmer is unwise to take on and manage rehabilitation alone. The action of trimming itself is not difficult, but experience gained from hundreds of horses and thousands of feet allows HCPs to develop acute observational and evaluation skills. Extensive education and continuing professional development also gives HCPs the knowledge to analyse and provide solutions for the problems they encounter. In the authors’ opinion it is not sufficient for the domesticated horse owner to ‘leave it to Mother Nature’, when the horse as a species has been fundamentally removed from its evolutionary origins. Feet respond to environmental pressures and do not ‘know’ what they need, even in barefoot horse keeping circumstances.

Equine dentistry. Image courtesy of Pete Markham from Loretto, USA (Equine Dentistry) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)] via Wikimedia Commons.

It is recommended that anyone choosing to keep their horses barefoot should secure the services of a well recommended support team, including HCP, vet, dental technician, body worker, sympathetic saddler and trainer. The health of the equine foot is intimately related to the health of the rest of the horse. When troubleshooting is needed, in the authors’ experience a co-operative team of professionals is the best way forward. Even if a horse never requires anything other than routine trimming, body work and dental care, interventions can impact on the entire body. For example, dental balance is vital to addressing movement asymmetry, and body work adjustments will not be maintained if the horse has imbalances in its feet.

THE RISE OF THE BAREFOOT INDUSTRY

Traditional farriery. Image courtesy of McLellan, David (Second Lieutenant) (Photographer) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

There has been a sea change in the equestrian world in the last thirty years. In their book The Revolution in Horsemanship, Miller and Lamb wrote that ‘the last fifteen years [have] seen the development of a whole new level of equine professional service industry’.1 Expectations regarding the role and educational experience of the HCP have changed beyond all recognition. Barefoot horse keeping has generated a new industry category in parallel with farriery, distinctly removed from the traditional craft based specialism.

Modern equipment for hoof trimming.

Many practising HCPs, including the authors, began as horse owners looking for a more ethologically informed hoof care approach than was provided by traditional farriers. The discovery that such a service did not exist stimulated them to expand their knowledge horizons, just as the internet was beginning to change human communication and information exchange. Initially sharing knowledge through self-published books and websites, early barefooters started to amass information and to explore existing veterinary and farriery texts to find out more about the function of the integrated equine foot.

A few gurus emerged, who self-published some inspiring books, mainly based on personal practice observations.2 Dissemination of this new information provoked a demand for clinics and hands-on trimming services. Occasionally overwhelmed, these individuals realized that a new market was emerging, and they diversified into training new HCPs to satisfy demand.

Trimming is physically demanding and inherently risky, as any job working with large animals can be. Establishing trimming schools was self-legitimizing, and allowed the early generators to imagine a futurity of trimmers ready, rasps in hand, to promote their ideas. The next line of HCPs emerged in the early 2000s, having attended training delivered by the gurus. The training they received varied widely in quality, and often involved international travel to attend a self-certification course. On their return they compared the feet they saw locally with the ideology and technical advice they had learned. Some of it deviated significantly, but from trimming hundreds of horses and analysing effective approaches, they established ‘what works’ for the horses in their region under their care.

Students attend a dissection clinic – Shetland.

National Occupational Standards for Equine Barefoot Care – LANTRA.

In 2010 the UK training organization LANTRA published the National Occupational Standards (NOS) for Equine Barefoot Care.3 These standards were the result of a consultation process with representatives from the barefoot hoof care, farriery, veterinary and welfare professions, and cover all the basic aspects of providing barefoot hoof care services and running a barefoot trimming business.

A draft regulatory framework for barefoot hoof care.

Following the release of the NOS, the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has included barefoot trimming as a work package in the Review of Minor Procedures Regime project. At the time of writing, DEFRA has completed gathering evidence for the project, which will inform the development of options and the production of an impact assessment. DEFRA counted fewer than two hundred barefoot trimmers practising in the UK, including qualified commercial trimmers, owner-trimmers, unqualified and partially qualified trimmers. Regulation has substantial support within the commercial arm of the industry. The majority of practising trimmers recognize that regulation is an intelligent step to gain formal industry recognition and to develop industry standards. In 2014 the authors were involved in a voluntary professional group developing a draft regulatory framework. As the DEFRA Impact Assessment is completed, it is hoped that work towards a regulatory framework will be continued.

TRAINING FOR BAREFOOT HOOF CARE PROFESSIONALS

Hoof trimming clinic – Aberdeenshire.

The demand for barefoot hoof care continues to grow. Thousands of barefoot horse keepers are joining social media groups, and there is on-going demand for specifically barefoot hoof care services.

HCP training is entirely self-funded, including the development of certification courses. Most UK certification providers recognized quality deficits in the original certification courses, and have designed their training programmes and assessment criteria to reflect or exceed the level of educational content and professionalism expected in other animal health care industries. The authors estimate that they have each spent more than double the amount on HCP training than it cost to achieve a bachelor degree, without affordable loans or grants. The cost for certification as an HCP in the UK is approximately £5,000, excluding travel and subsistence costs. In addition, each year HCPs are mandated to attend continuous professional development in order to maintain their certification, and membership fees to their certifying organization. A lot of training is modular, supported by self-study and online learning platforms. There are no formally recognized training criteria, so many courses range into other fields in order to replicate degree level programmes.

The authors are involved with UK industry efforts to achieve government recognition and training accreditation. At the time of writing in 2015, there are no government-recognized accreditation routes for professional barefoot hoof care training in the UK. The hoof trimmer, hoof care practitioner and equine podiatrist all provide a similar service, despite how they may promote themselves. The education most HCPs receive is extensive, crosses boundaries between equine disciplines, and allows HCPs to function as integrated equine health advisers with a hoof care specialism. A small number of farriers are educated in barefoot performance trimming, but despite early input from pioneering farriers there has been generally little movement from farriery towards attaining integrated barefoot knowledge. The rise of social media has perpetuated antagonism from both groups, despite the obvious benefits of knowledge sharing.

HCPs are educated to provide knowledge and support beyond working on feet. Almost all trimming training schools cover the four pillars of barefoot horse keeping: environment; trim; diet; and exercise. Training providers often run an educational business alongside a trimming or farriery practice, but are not yet linked to educational institutions. The main challenge in industry development is that HCPs are a small, nascent, vulnerable and factional industry group. Unlike other professionals, most HCPs are mandated to identify themselves with their original training provider after certification, rather than becoming an independent but certified practising professional.

Choosing a career as a hoof care professional may also be mediated by perception of risk. Effective professional insurance is difficult to purchase, and there have been several instances where HCPs have been prosecuted under farriery and welfare legislation. Farriery and trimming is a very physical job, and practitioners have a significant chance of work-related acute and repetitive strain injury.

Why cross-training is essential in barefoot hoof care

As an integral part of equine anatomy, the hoof is a responsive and functional anatomical structure; however, the evidence base adopted for farriery training is insufficient to inform the ‘whole horse’ paradigm. With this ‘whole horse’ requirement also existing for barefoot hoof care, it has been essential that activists in the fledgling industry behaved as intellectual magpies. There are many areas of research that provide insights to explain and unravel complex functions and disease processes. The demand for barefoot trimmers has increased, and individuals with transferable skills, knowledge and experience have analysed the science of hoof function and care in order to evidence base their own practice.

The greater part of the barefoot community is not intentionally critical of traditional farriery, but their beliefs reflect a broader reaching and on-going educational journey than farriery training currently delivers. Academic research into hoof function is limited in real world application, therefore both industries need to translate, absorb, evaluate and distribute their research findings. Strong lines of communication can effectively manage the dissemination process more quickly than the ‘jungle drums’ approach. The authors would like to see the industries move closer and inform each other’s practice to the ultimate benefit of the domestic horse.

In human psychology cross-training has been highlighted as a significant way to speed up the acquisition of practical skills and intellectual knowledge. Integral theory applies this insight to the development of the individual, society, culture, and human thought and behaviour. As Ken Wilbur describes in the book Integral Life Practice, ‘developmental models are in general agreement that humans beings, from birth, go through a series of stages or waves of growth and development. The lower, earlier stages are initial, partial and fragmented views of the world, whereas the upper stages are integrated, comprehensive, and genuinely holistic’.4Barefoot Horse Keeping provides a milestone in the evolution of barefoot hoof care as it moves from its initial wave of development into an integrated future.

Footprints in the sand.

SOCIAL CAPITAL

Through the internet and social media, there has been a massive increase in instantly available information. Large numbers of people are joining online barefoot fora, and the choice to keep horses barefoot has been significantly democratized. It is clearly beneficial to establish social groups and social capital. Social capital is built on functional and reciprocal social relationships, including the opportunity to care for others. As humans have evolved alongside domesticated animals, other species have been folded into this social framework. An effect of domestication has been to confuse the requirements of other species with human requirements, which evidence shows is often to the detriment of the other species.

Students at a Barefootworks Seminar with Dr Kerry Ridgway.

The author Jane Cumberlidge at work.

As humans continue to keep horses, professionals in supporting industries are often placed in the position of advocating for the horse as a different species through educating owners. HCPs from Barefootworks and other trimming organizations arrange educational seminars with specialists on a wide range of equine health and performance topics. By focusing owners on the endogenous requirements of the horse, it is possible to help owners maintain a productive and appropriate distance between themselves and their horses.

Writing this book has allowed the authors to illustrate the daily complexity of their work. Whilst on the one hand it is encouraging that so many people want to make the move into barefoot horse keeping, they are aware that demand for HCPs far outstrips supply. They hope that Barefoot Horse Keeping will provide an informative, intelligent and stimulating resource for horse owners, and inspire more people to consider a career as a hoof care professional.

REFERENCES

1. Miller, R.M. and Lamb, R. (2005). The Revolution in Horsemanship and what it means to mankind. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press.

2. Jackson, J. (1992). The Natural Horse: Lessons from the wild for domestic horse care. Flagstaff, Arizona: Northland Publishing; Ramey, P. (2003). Making Natural Hoof Care Work for You. Harrison, Arizona: Star Ridge Publishing; Jackson, J. (2002). Horse Owner’s Guide to Natural Hoof Care. Harrison, Arizona: Star Ridge Publishing.

3. LANTRA. (2010). Equine Barefoot Care National Occupational Standards. Coventry: LANTRA.

4. Wilber, K., Patten, T., Leonard, A. and Morelli, M. (2008). Integral Life Practice. Boston, Massachusetts: Integral Books.

2 Trimming

WHY TRIM AT ALL?

The horse, in its original evolution in North America and repeated radiations and extinctions worldwide, developed the anatomical features to become the fastest distance-running quadruped on earth in arid regions of poorest forage. To assess the impact of the horse on human culture then, we must first turn, not to the well-watered heartlands of pristine civilization, but to the steppes and the deserts of our world.1

Horses and humans have interacted for six thousand years, an eyeblink in the history of the genus equus. For most of that time the horse has been used as a vehicle for cultural expansion and strategic military invasion and conquest. Characteristic of this relationship is the action of nomadic and transient human populations moving from remote, barren regions to invade or trade with ‘sedentary centers of civilization… circumscribed alluvial states’.2

DOMESTICATION

Significant clues to the reasons why today’s domesticated horses need hoof care are evident in the lifestyle of a historically domesticated horse.

Horse domestication probably first occurred in the fourth millennium BC on the Eurasian steppes, a great expanse of grasslands stretching eastward from Hungary for more than 6,400km to the borders of China… mobile horsemen… far-ranging routes across forbidding mountains and deserts… wide expanses of arid and semiarid lands… traversing barren regions… early nomadic movement across the Eurasian steppes… the extreme mobility of agro-pastoralism ranging over thousands of kilometers…3

The principal features of the lives of these horses were:

Lots of movement

Geographical distance

Arid landscape

Native grasslands

Distance and deprivation were drivers of horse domestication. Horse physiology is adapted to living in an arid environment where food is scarce and movement is a survival requirement. Nomadic populations in the fourth millennium lived at a distance from trading centres, and utilized horses to travel and transport goods to make a living. Trade centres developed in geographically suitable locations, which is why many cities are sited on major rivers and coasts. Around human habitation there sprang up an agricultural community to provide food. Nomadic horse keepers also traded horses, and passed on their horse keeping beliefs and their tools into developing urban communities. Early nomadic travel was done completely without recourse to horse shoeing, because the horses were adapted to their living environment. As modern barefoot horse keepers are often aware, the horse does not adapt well to living in constrained urban environments, therefore as they were forced to co-exist close to human habitation, the well known problems of domestication developed. The wiry, lean Steppe horses became fat pasture dobbins with sore feet.