Does washing horses all the time really mess up their feet? I hear this said all the time but I really don't believe it. What do you guys think?
Good Question Eric, Although i shoe mostly at the racetrack , these horses are bathed at least once a day , and many are cold hosed on their legs , And many of them spend an hour a day in ice tubs. I find their feet a bit softer then i would like , but can't really sayit messes up their feet. I find stabled horses are always standing in moisture. the bedding alone is moist. And grooms and trainer always get offended with me saying this because they keep their stalls as clean as possible. I tell them that when you kneel down beside a horse to rub it's legs down and put bandages on him , when you stand up your knees have wet spots on them , thats the moisture in the bedding . These horses are standing in that moisture 24 hrs a day.
Really messing them up? No. Repeated soaking and drying will theoretically remove some of the natural oils from the surface, but to no remarkable ill effect in my experience. For several years, especially in the summer, our horses would get their feet wet/dry perhaps 5 times a day. No problem whatsoever. If the concern is soaking them too much, again I have not found living in mud to have any ill effect on a healthy hoof. Clean mud, that is, not dirty stalls, not manure and all kinds of filth. We do pick the droppings from those paddocks at least every other day, muddy or not. Our horses practically play in mud all winter, all day long. Again, not a single problem with it.
In my climate, most of the horses I do have wet feet 24/7 for six months. makes them easy to nip and rasp. no real problems.
Mine spend a lot of time with wet feet. Either because of the weather.... Weather it's going to rain or just be a foot of mud! Weather it's muddy and I decide to hose the mud off their legs and feet or weather it's dry and weather I decide to bath them. I do actually use sawdust for bedding and specifically one of the reasons I choose that is to give them some relief from permanent wet and mud. I've not really got anything with "messed up feet" and for sure none with unhealthy feet. I've a couple that are somewhat challenged by their conformation and it could be better in terms of their hoof form and I'd say that the main problem is parentage and genealogy.
