Hoof Boots For Sidebone - Cleo Update:

A lot of people have been asking about our big mare, Cleo. And for the new folks to this site- Cleo is a personality plus, big draft horse who is one of our permanent residents at our centre.

Unfortunately, she started about 2 months ago with some severe lameness issues and after X-rays, she was then diagnosed with bone spurs in her front lower hoof bones.

This condition is known as Sidebone, and she also has an early onset of Arthritis, which is suspected due to the strain on her body due to her size.

While we wanted to provide Cleo with the best chance of recovery and managing this affliction, we haven’t taken the traditional route of addressing her lameness.

Most vets recommend that we use metal shoes for support and bute for pain management.

So, we decided to go an alternative route and with the support of our open-minded Vets, we opted to use flexible hoof boots and Devil’s Claw as a natural anti-inflammatory for pain relief for our lovely girl …..

And I have to say this approach has been an overwhelming success and she is back on her feet in a record time.

Cleo is a Percheron and Clydesdale cross- she is a very big girl indeed and her size makes for a challenge in all we do with her. So, she has certainly tested this different approach to the max.

But even with her mass, she has gone from hobbling around gingerly for those first few weeks that we were waiting for her hoof boots to arrive, to now moving happily and fluidly again, now without the need of the boots, all without any further signs of lameness or her being sore. Which we are very pleased about.

Previously we haven’t had the option of using hoof boots on the bigger horses like Cleo, as they didn’t make them that big, but we managed to find some humongous boots for her that we ordered in from the USA and along with a carefully managed rehabilitation plan, they have been a fabulous success to aid in her recovery.

Our ongoing studies into the mechanism of the hoof show how important it is to the horse's general health to be able to feel the ground whilst having an improved circulation in the legs, along with shock absorbency, which are just some of the benefits of being barefoot, that are retained with the use of hoof boots.

Unfortunately, we have found this just doesn’t happen with horses when metal shoes are used which has delayed healing in some of our previous rescue cases before we converted to boots.

One of our deepest concerns about using traditional metal shoes is the jarring to the joints that they can cause, and none more so than when used with the weight of a big draft horse like Cleo.

After all it’s not hard to imagine the pain caused by jarring a sore limb that happens when the metal of the shoes strikes through the hoof from every step taken.

Whereas, with hoof boots, they offer the best of both worlds to horses by providing much-needed support, cushioning and padding, whilst still being flexible to encourage that all-important circulation that happens through direct contact of the frog being made with the ground.

Which we have been pleased to see time and time again when helping so many horses to recover with such positive benefits to help to speed up the healing process for all manner of lameness issues.

We have been so pleased with the use of boots over the many years that we’ve used them with the rescue horses at our centre that we now sell a range of hoof boots to help horses that are available on this link: www.naturalhorse.co.nz/hoof-boots