Receiving consistent foot care is really important for a young horse’s physical health.
When Chewie was at Habitat for Horses, the trainers at the rescue worked with her on picking up her feet, and their farrier was able to trim her feet on a regular basis. Overall, she is pretty good about picking up her feet, especially for a young horse who has had minimal training!
Right now, she will let me pick up and hold each foot for a short amount of time. However, if the duration is too long, she starts getting bored and frustrated.
Eventually, I would like to reteach her how to pick up her feet and build a good amount of duration into this behavior.
For now, my goal is to find a “good enough” routine that allows me to clean her feet and trim her feet, while still keeping her happy and enthusiastic about the process.
Here are a few things I have done to make hoof care easier for both of us:
- We do Chewie’s hoof care in her pasture or in a small paddock that is attached to the pasture. Both of these places are familiar settings where she is comfortable engaging with me.
- I work with her at liberty. That is, she is not tied up or even wearing a halter. She can walk away if I do something that she finds uncomfortable or if she has had enough for the session.
- Chewie has a bucket of food to munch on while I trim her feet. Eating the food fills the time and gives her something to do.
- We take short breaks periodically. Breaks allow Chewie to rest the foot that I am cleaning or trimming and to rebalance.
- We don’t trim all four feet on one day! I spend a little bit of time trimming and spread out the process over several days. This prevents both of us from getting fatigued.
I have now trimmed Chewie’s feet twice since she arrived.
Both times, she has been happy to participate. I’ll share more about how our hoof care training evolves, as I continue to work with her on picking up her feet and trimming her feet.
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