It is ugly hoof season

Long and loose seems to be the norm for shod or barefoot horses lately.

I’ve seen bewilderingly fast hoof growth in the last couple of months. As I eluded to in my previous post, I am amazed that shoes are staying on so well, but everyone must be at least trying to fight the problem somehow. This brings me to something I’ve seen and been thinking about lately.

As I was shoeing for some of my favorites in Indian Hill, I noticed the horse in the stall was not stomping at the flies. It was such a glaring lack of annoying banging and stomping that I thought there might be a problem. I stood up and watched him for a moment and saw he had what looked like fly sheet material on his lower front legs. It was about 98 degrees out, so I asked the lady if she ever had any reason to think that made him too hot and she said, “No”.

I’m sure I have seen this in use somewhere, but I have not seen other clients using these. I don’t recall what I was told they are called, but I wonder how many others would use them and what thoughts there are about using them. I am not attracted to “stuff”, but these might be very handy indeed.