The Wild Horse Cop-Out

Honestly when I hear someone use the wild horse excuse, I judge them. We do not treat our domesticated dogs as wolves, there is no reason on earth to treat our horses as such.

RE: hoofcare

It's really funny how it varies. My boss has two stallions who never get their feet trimmed. The last time was, well, before I started working there in May of '09, so I'm sure it's over two years now. Who knows how long. And their toes are a smidge longer than I'd like, and their heels a hint underrun, but really, they look fine. The horses are sound. But they pace the fence all day long, and have the ground all worn down hard along that fence line, and they've got dozens of acres each.

I have a mare who needs to be shod every five and a half weeks, or she's throwing shoes left and right and her angles are getting all wonky. And she can't go barefoot, or her hooves fall apart and she's lame. Yet my old gelding can go over eight weeks between either trims or shoeings, and I only get him done at that time because it seems wrong to let him go any longer than that. But his feet just don't grow, though they're certainly hard and strong enough.

I think trimming really depends. I had a horse I was selling, she was barefoot as she was out of work and her feet were fine, I went 12 weeks between trims with her without a problem.
My current horse is shod all around and he sees the farrier every 6 weeks.

Wild horses have thousands of acres of land to roam. They move 10+ miles a day, which wears their feet down. They can browse on all kinds of grass, bushes, trees, other plants to find all the nutrition they need. In bad weather, they can seek out shelter in trees, gulleys, depressions in the side of a cliff, etc.

A domestic horse lives in a confined space, usually with other horses. They eat on the ground they pooh/pee on, even if you pick it up, the parasites and bacteria are still there. We give them hay, which is only eaten in the wild in the winter, when the grass is dead... Because of said confined space, horses move around less, so their feet grow longer. They have less access to fun things to munch on. They have more confrontations with other horses, which can lead to injuries, spread of disease, spread of parasites, etc.

A well taken care of domestic horse has an average life span of 20-30 years old, barring any accidents. The average life span of a Mustang is only about 10 years old... If they get hurt or sick, they become lunch.

We went to see a local well known boarding and breeding facility, they stand some really gorgeous and talented Warmblood stallions, and own some impeccable mares and breed some really good stock. A friend of ours was interested in potentially purchasing a foal.

He took us to the youngster pen, and we were SHOCKED to find all these youngsters running on disgusting feet that had obviously never been trimmed. This man is pointing out his prized filly, purchased for $50,000 and then kicks a chunk of her foot and goes "Come along now, knock that off already will you?" And these people are from EUROPE! I mean, no offense, but I really thought Europeans in general tended to view equine care a lot more seriously, especially PROFESSIONALS. These people do grand prix show jumping for crying out loud!

My mare's dam had feet like rocks - the farrier never took the nippers to her the entire 6 years I owned her. We did a LOT of road riding, and she just always wore her hooves down smooth with no chips or cracks. He'd rasp her lightly when he came to do the others and she just never needed more.

Her daughter on the other hand, can't go more then 5 weeks without damn near falling apart or throwing a shoe!

I went to look at a horse for sale owned by a veterinarian a couple years ago. On the ad, the horse was beautiful--shiny, in great shape, well-bred and beautifully-conformed. When I arrived at the vet's home, however, I was appalled. The horse from the photos was very thin and covered in bite and kick marks. His feet were in terrible condition, but nothing compared to some of the other horses on the property, who were also ribby and worse (3's and 4's on the body score scale) and sporting overgrown, chipped, splitting, abscessed feet. A bunch of horses were crammed into a nasty rocky drylot with no vegetation and broken chunks of boulder all around. It was horrifying. And Dr. Dip**** didn't know a thing about handling horses, either. So appalling, watching him "train" on this poor, forgiving, totally confused colt for us, with the saddle hanging off the side of the horse's neck. And, he told us, he'd been a few minutes late for our appointment because he had just put his stallion down....but it was his time; he was old. I found out later the horse had been 18....