Barefoot Barn Rat Natural Hoof Care

03/20/2025

Fyi, for those who have flood damage!

10% Off In Stock Fencing supplies through 3/31/25!

02/19/2025

It is important to me to keep all client horses safe, and I don't want to bring anything home to my own horses. Please consider talking to your vet about appropriate vaccinations. I appreciate you contacting me to reschedule trims if your horse shows any sign of illness that might be contagious.

Strangles is a highly contagious disease of the equine upper respiratory tract.

12/30/2024

PHCP is sharing their top three recommendations, each a cornerstone for understanding hoof health and holistic horse care.

12/25/2024

12/20/2024

Donated! I am so thankful for the scholarships that made it possible for me to pursue my trimming education! I have expanded my knowledge and skill through clinics, mentorships, webinars, and continued consultation with mentors, clinicians, and fellow trimmers in this program. As I finish up my final presentations to complete the certification, it is time for me to better show my appreciation!

As the year comes to a close, would you consider donating the value of ⭐️ ONE TRIM ⭐️ to the scholarship fund? We would love to continue providing students in need with financial support toward their education, and it takes a village to fund that effort. If we each give a little, it will add up.

Donate at https://progressivehoofcare.org/product/make-a-donation.

11/12/2024

Being a female farrier is:

Sometimes having to wait for your client to hear from a man exactly what you've been saying for months for them to believe it.

Being told you're not strong enough to muscle the dangerous horse, when sedation and training are what's needed.

Putting up with a million micro aggressions from your peers online and in-person.

Being held to an entirely different standard of skill and knowledge than male farriers.

Working twice as hard to get half as much respect from clients, vets, and other farriers.

Striving for perfection not only because it's good for the horse, but out of fear you will be run out of the industry if you make a single mistake.

Having to be physically and emotionally tough as nails to survive and thrive as a woman in a profession and society that doesn't even think we deserve equal rights.

I am so grateful for my community of fellow women farriers. We are stronger together, and you all keep me going so I can focus on what I set out to do: help horses.

10/28/2024

Whelp...

Not my favorite

❤️ 🙋

10/06/2024

My brain: 🤯

10/04/2024

We have a great lineup of speakers and opportunity to make connections with people from around the world!

10/03/2024

Packed and ready to go!

We have put the final touches on the 2024 PHCP Conference and are ready to head out in a couple of days. For those attending, we appreciate your dedication to continuing education and to nurturing relationships in the hoof care community. See you on Thursday!

10/03/2024

Why do biomechanics matter?

No one uttered this term to me, in all my years of riding and lesson-taking, until I was well into my 20's. I heard lots of other words: contact, responsiveness, connection, rhythm, impulsion, suppleness. All of them felt like these ethereal concepts that had multiple meanings depending on who you talked to. They also had varying degrees of importance or ranking in terms of what you need first before the horse can offer the next thing, depending on who you talked to. I still see this all the time, and hear about how frustrating it is from other horsepeople trying to do the best they can.

Biomechanics are the physical relationships and structural laws that govern how living things move. Biomechanics are the HOW in all of those aforementioned ethereal terms. They are vital in understanding how to correctly develop a horse for riding. This is the first reason why biomechanics matter.

The second reason is because horses weren't designed to be ridden. I cannot overstate how important this is to understand if you want to ride horses and ride them well: horses were NEVER designed to be sat on. The horse is born with a specific set of biomechanical tools available to him, and they serve him very well...when they are needed.

The thing is, those tools were designed for maximum efficiency if the horse's life is in danger: used for brief moments, blips in between long stretches of calm. Those exact tools can cause injury, unsoundness, and degeneration if used every day, day in and day out, for years.
. . . . . . . .

I want you to look at these two photos.

The top horse is using what nature gave him (and what work with humans helped him turn into long-standing patterns in movement). The bottom horse has been given new tools and taught how to use them to move in ways that preserve soundness, not encourage degeneration.

The top horse is moving in a way that directly ties into the same sympathetic nervous system responses that kick in when a horse is in danger. The bottom horse is demonstrating all of the power potential the nervous system makes available when the horse is in danger, but accessing it through relaxation and completely different biomechanics.

The top horse is using the ground to support his weight in movement, putting a lot of pressure on his joints. The bottom horse is doing a lot of that supporting himself by virtue of his posture, putting significantly less strain on his joints.

You may have already figured out this is the same horse. These photos were taken approximately two years apart.

I guess what I'm getting at is this: the way to develop the bottom horse isn't to simply take the top horse and add contact, impulsion, responsiveness, ride circle after circle, do pole and hill work, etc. Whatever you apply to the ridden horse will only reinforce what is already in him.

You must teach him, literally from the ground up, a new way of moving, a different biomechanical perspective. Some horses will come by this easier than others, but not a one is born knowing how to put all of these things together on their own when the human asks it. Not a one.

We have to show them how.

PC: Mandy Helwege. Thank you for permitting me to share your lovely boy.

09/16/2024

I hear this phrase ALL the time and every time I do my heart breaks for the horse in question.

It is a very big misconception in the industry that pain can be ruled out in the horse.

What leads to this statement can also vary drastically from person to person.

The horse might have had a quick muscle palpation, they might have just been scoped for ulcers, or they might have had a very extensive (and expensive!) veterinary work up over days or months.

Regardless, you cannot rule out pain. You might not be able to find a source, but you cannot rule out pain.

Ask any human who has not received an immediate diagnosis for their pain or not been listened to regarding their own health concerns.

Pain does not have a blood test or a specific color or feel.

Pain can be obvious, it can be concealed, it can be complex, it can be poorly understood.

There are certain things, like gastric ulcers, that can be definitively ruled in or out as a SOURCE of pain with a gastroscopy.

But it is the horse’s behavior that says whether pain is or isn’t present. And unfortunately, very often pain in the horse is not a simple thing to diagnose and cure.

When a trainer, owner, rider, or vet says “we have ruled out pain” it is often an invitation to train the horse with harsher methods to overcome performance or behavioral problems.

If the horse refuses to do something, doesn’t cooperate, struggles with tasks, has a change in behavior, or exhibits behaviors that have been scientifically studied to indicate pain in the horse (such as the equine discomfort ethogram and ridden horse pain ethogram)….ALWAYS keep in mind that just because it can’t be located, DOES NOT mean a horse is not in pain.

09/09/2024

Remember, short, brown grass that looks like “there’s nothing out there to eat” is just as dangerous and high in sugar as the lush, green grass!

07/24/2024

I had the opportunity to spend a couple days learning from and trimming with PHCP mentor, Christina Cline in Twisp, WA. Here are a some ponies and pups we hung out with.