Problems with feet

Posted: Tue May 24, 2016 9:48 am

Hi all,

I am new to owning a shire so will tell you a bit about our 'Stanley' he is 2 this month and a lovely natured lad. He has a locking stifle and was going to be shot....Hence he now is with us! He came to us quite poor and it's took us a while to get him right weight wise. He recently had the vet out as he injured his eye on a tree and she stated that his weight was spot on. He lives out 24/7 and we have had some issues. It's took us 2 months to be able to get a rug on and off him without him running away! But the problem we still have is his feet. We struggled getting him to lift his feet, he would just slam them down quite harshly. In the end we decided to bring in some help, a man called Joe Parker who is a natural horsemanship guy. He worked with us on a 3 hour session and Stanley is now so much better about his feet. He will let you pick them up and hold them for a few seconds, and is not slamming them down anymore. We still have a long way to go as he won't let you hold them long enough to use a hoof pick, so at the moment we are gradually trying to hold them a little longer each day, even if only a couple more seconds and trying to build it up that way. His feet tbh are not too bad but could benefit from a nice trim. Does anyone have any experience with feet or natural horsemanship? Stanley responded really well to him and I feel that for us its the way forward.

Many thanks,

Kim, Billy and of course Stanley x

Friend for Life Joined: 25 Jun 2008 Posts: 3141

Hello Kimbo and welcome to the forum. Have you thought of getting a thick lump of wood, a cut off railway sleeper or something similar will do and just place his feet on that rather than lifting them high. You only need to get them just off the ground to clean them and a farrier could also trim like that. We had this with a shire and it worked but calm, patience and consistency usually works in the end. Good luck.