Cristina Farmer Horse Repair

04/25/2024

The Veins of Horses’ Hooves are Like Roots of Plants

Just as plants need a good supply of nutrients, a strong root system to absorb these nutrients, and proper evaporation to continue the cycle, your horse's hoof health also depends on good blood flow, good fuel and a healthy digestive system that metabolizes the nutrients effectively.

As a farm-to-table chef, I've learned that managing a food farm and a horse's hoof bio-system share striking similarities. As a chef, I would carve out time at the midpoint of each season to plan for the upcoming ones. Sowing the seeds of what I would like to harvest. My yearly cycle was shaped by my goals, implemented through my labor, and adjusted according to natural phenomena.

Managing a permaculture farm and a hoof bio-system require similar skills and understanding. Permaculture has taught me that caring for a bio-system holistically leads to more harmony. The solutions often lie within the problems themselves and the timing of interventions is crucial. This means we can't rush things, but we also need to be proactive.

Regardless of the breed, a good habitat is fundamental for a good life. In fact, the habitat in which a horse lives directly influences the health of their body, attitude, spirit, and even their feet!

The hoof of a horse is not just a foot, but a living sensory organ that provides life and relays information to the rest of the horse's body, including the nervous system, which controls movement.

The importance of a horse's hooves is encapsulated in the saying "no hooves, no horse". However, if the ground the horse stands on, the food they consume, and their movement patterns from season to season are not in harmony with their fundamental needs, it's likely that their health will not be fully supported.

If you look at the anatomy image of the tissue in the hoof, it looks exactly like the roots of a plant. Just like plants require nutrients in the soil for growth, a horse's hoof interior has a dense network of vessels, including arteries, veins, and capillaries that supply the right amount of nutrients to the inner parts of the foot, so it can grow healthy and robustly. These vessels wind through the bones and tissue, delivering nutrients via blood to a vast network of vessels. This circular network also functions to transport deoxygenated blood into the venous system, from where it returns to the heart. Each hoof of a horse is considered a 'micro heart', leading to the saying that horses have five hearts.

A common cause for the change in appearance such as horizontal lines appearing on the hoof wall, which are fibers on the outer part of the hoof resembling our human's nail, is a diet change that occurred too quickly or an unbalanced diet.

Adopt a forward-thinking "permaculture" approach for your horse's well-being. Create a suitable habitat, provide a balanced diet, trim hooves timely, and prevent fungal and bacterial infections. This holistic care will help your horse thrive, promising years of joy and companionship.

04/22/2024

Having difficulty working with arthritic, seasoned horses while they stand on three legs?

Here's an ingenious tip from me to you.

1-Install a platform and bring the horse right to the edge.

2-Work through the front part of the hoof wall.

3-Then help the horse move a tiny bit at a time to get the side angles.

We had so much fun accomplishing what seemed to be an impossible task. There's so much joy in helping a senior equine. 🩵🐴

04/12/2024

Are you ready for the weekend?

These three boys sure are after trims. Happy trails to all of you!

04/04/2024

This little one got the care she needed. Thanks to clear communication and kindness, her experience was wonderful.

She has some issues with hoof growth that we’re going to watch closely so that she can grow to live a good life with healthy feet and an able-body.

Truthfully, Bailey was easy to work with because she was for the most part stuck in a “frozen mode”. She did have moments of curiosity/seeking. And that was when she would relax and allow me to trim.

Do you have a nervous horse? How does he or she reacts to fear? With Freeze, Flight, or Fight?

03/20/2024

Picture of message from the owner of an endurance horse. 👇

Moody, standoffish mare hasn't been sleeping lying down for a while. However, since her fascial nerve release bodywork last Saturday, she's started taking long, daily naps lying down.

Does your horse lie down to sleep? It's essential for your horse to reach deep REM sleep to fully repair muscle fatigue. Otherwise, tired muscles can lag and become a real problem.

03/13/2024

Muscular compression in the withers originates from the shoulder muscles due to landing with unbalanced fore hooves.

03/11/2024

✨ ✨ I will be in the Bentoville, Gravette area this Saturday 3/16 with spots available for trimming and/or bodywork from 2:00 to 5:00 pm. ✨ ✨

03/08/2024

Very sweet and scared intact male donkey in much need of hoof rehab and rebuilding equine/human trust. 💗🙌🏻 Honored to have him in my book from here on out.

03/04/2024

Do you want a more harmonious horse? A horse with a regulated nervous system is calmer, more responsive, and easier to train, leading to a more rewarding experience for both the horse and the rider.

Relieving soreness and pain is an important aspect of horse care. A comfortable horse is more likely to behave well and perform to its full potential. Combined with practices that open the diaphragm to aid in breathing to enhance the horse's overall physical wellbeing. These efforts renew mental energy, mitigate inflammation, stimulate muscle growth, and reduce muscle spasms.

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03/02/2024

Taking care of our youngest equine friends is paramount to their future health and performance. Foals, weanlings, and yearlings have unique needs and challenges that must be addressed.

From thoracic birth trauma and growing pains to healing gelding scar tissue and muscular discomfort, the early years of a horse's life can be full of obstacles. Natural crookedness, coordination issues, and behavioral and learning challenges can also arise, requiring careful attention and intervention.

We can help our young horses live healthy, balanced lives by fixing problems early. It's all about making sure these amazing animals have a good future. At Cristina Farmer Horse Repair, I help keep horses healthy, starting from the beginning.

03/02/2024

The equestrian sports industry is beginning to face the consequences for the lack of ethics. Horses, being naturally diplomatic, try to avoid conflict and stress. Similar to us, they hold tension in their bodies. The elderly horse in the video endured much hardship due to unethical trainers. However, he is now able to heal, enjoy a better life, and have his needs acknowledged and met.

The shift towards more self-aware and emotionally intelligent horsemanship, which promotes stability for all, will allow us to focus on holistic care by way of prevention. How I, Cristina at Cristina Farmer Horse Repair, facilitate this transition on the industry is by being patient, kind, and positioning myself as a supporter of change, and well-being.

03/02/2024

The horse's body will do what it takes to keep the horse moving straight, even if it loads unbalanced. If a horse's hoof shape is unbalanced and then the horse stands in a compensatory posture, and moves with a compensatory landing, trimming the hoof, without working on the horse's body, won't help the horse from compensating.

03/01/2024

Can I be too old to start a career in barefoot hoof trimming? I might not be as fast, and perhaps I will strain my body more easily. But I won't let age discourage me from pursuing my passion for helping horses, studying them, and always striving to improve myself to benefit them. I've always believed in the power of a growth mindset and education, which together can lead to unstoppable success. I believe that as long as I keep taking good care of my body, my age is not something that will stop me from achieving my goals.

Have you guys experienced a new wind that changed the course of your career path?

No matter if you are just starting out or a long time professional, you should always be open to gaining more knowledge 🙌. PHCP will be teaching in Florida this weekend if you want to join us!

03/01/2024

The size of the circle that the lunge line or round pen makes is very important. When a horse moves in a circle or makes turns, centrifugal and centripetal forces that push outwards and inwards happen. These forces become important when a horse is being trained in a round pen or on a lunge line.

The horse and the lunge line or round pen wall both create forces. When we exercise the horse, these forces mix together, creating a push and pull effect that helps the horse get stronger. The goal is for the horse to become strong enough to overcome the forces from the environment with its own body's forces.

If you don't use the right distance when trying to fix movement through posture and body alignment, it can make things worse, not better.

As a general guideline, if a horse isn't strong enough to manage the forces involved, it's better to run it in large circles. The faster the speed or smaller the circle, the harder it gets.

If the horse tries to straighten its head, but it can't balance the forces needed to move in a circle, the neck will move inward the circle while the rest of the body disconnects and stay out. *This is when you need to stop or slow down.* Because if the horse keep trying too hard, the muscles will contract and strain and develop hypertension which often leads to a series of other issues.

02/29/2024

Promising information for diagnosed navicular horses and for owners that are proactive in prevention. Getting this now.

Those of you that have followed this page for any amount of time know that I have a little bit of an obsession with navicular rehab.

I have spent the last 10 years traveling the world talking to anyone I can about hoof health and soundness, especially in regards to “caudal hoof pain.” It led me to change my entire career and become a full time hoofcare provider with a hoof rehab facility focusing primarily on navicular rehab cases.

One of the most common requests I get is “what do you do for your navicular cases?” Often, these cases come to me after the traditional corrective shoeing, bisphosphonates, NSAIDs, etc don’t seem to work.

The last decade I feel like I’ve been sharing the same information over and over, and a friend mentioned to me, “Why don’t you write it all down in a booklet so you can have it all handy in one spot?”

So that’s what I did. A compilation of information from mentors smarter than I am around the world, all about navicular rehabilitation.
A year and a half of typing, re-typing, working with an illustrator (the wonderful Allyssa Stratton), an editor (the super patient Alex Warden), and countless friends who have read and re-read page after page so I can present you with this -

Navigating Navicular Disease: An Optimistic Guide for a Pessimistic Diagnosis.

This guide is NOT a replacement for vet care and a fantastic in-person hoofcare provider. Instead, alongside a great professional team, it walks you through the basics of what navicular disease is, what structures can be affected, how it is diagnosed, various approaches, and a step-by-step of the approach of what the owner can do to grow the healthiest hoof possible for their horse, and how we can troubleshoot getting these horses comfortable and ideally back in work without injections, NSAIDs, or other palliative methods.

It includes case studies of horses rehabbed back to full soundness with no continued pain relief or corrective shoeing, as well as detailed navicular dissection images from Lindsey Field of The Study of The Equine Hoof.

This is in ebook format right now, and available on my website here: https://thehumblehoof.com/product/navigating-navicular-disease-an-optimistic-guide-for-a-pessimistic-diagnosis-ebook/

Hoofcare providers, this guide was written with your navicular horse owner clients in mind. Feel free to share with them!

All profit made from this ebook goes directly to the navicular rehab cases on the farm here in MA, as well as towards providing free resources like The Humble Hoof podcast❤️