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Looking After Horses Hooves During The Hotter Months

The sun is blazing, the anvil is shimmering like a mirage. Horse, owner, and farrier are all sweating... just for different reasons. But everyone knows it isn’t summer until you’ve eaten or inhaled a fly. THEN, it’s summer. Or when you go to grab a shoe off the rack and it already feels like it has been in the fire. Trimmers might be feeling smug thinking that they don’t have to cosy up next to a forge, but we all have to snuggle up to that sweat box on 4 legs! We’re all in this together.

Everyone is more irritable in the hot weather, especially when you’re praying for a cool breeze to tickle you but then the horse lines up its nostril and breathes down your already hot sweaty neck and that itself is enough to make you question all of your life choices at once. Especially when you already feel like a portable sauna wearing thick jeans. Wearing shorts doesn’t leave you feeling like you’ve beaten the heat when you’ve got nails through your legs, bad tan lines or stud hole nuggets down your boots. Safety first! Whoohoo! And nothing says safety like a rasp flying out of sweaty hands.

Look After Yourself First

So before I even think about the feet and how I’m going to care for them, how am I going to care for myself because I am no good to anyone if I’m cranky, burnt and dehydrated.

Dealing With The Heat While Caring For Horses Hooves During The Hotter Months

Coping mechanisms include, but are not limited to, crying in your car and surviving off iced coffee. (Turns out iced coffee dehydrates you though so do have some electrolyte sachets stashed away.) Changing the structure of your day. Everyone’s secretly hoping that somebody cancels that 5:30am appointment you made but by 2pm and 45 degrees I feel pretty smug knowing we got it done in 25 degrees instead!

Strategies For Maintaining Comfort While Caring For Horses Hooves In The Hotter Months

Make sure you’ve got shade, hard standing and a sky raisin strategy.

Shade

The owner might only be stood out in the sun for 20 minutes but if you’re out there all day, soon you won’t be feeling too healthy.

Hard Standing

Because fires, snakes, fire bans and fires.

Sky Raisin Strategy (Handling Flies)

And I do not mean for you. If the horse isn’t ready to give in and surrender to them and you don’t have any fly spray, you’re about to step into the ring with one grumpy stompy sweaty MMA fighter weighing in at 600kg.

My husband said he could never be associated with me if I started wearing a fly mask and just to get on with it, but he will happily set up work with his portable fan, mister and make several requests for air conditioning to be installed.

Handling Hoof Concerns During The Hotter Months

With anything, prevention is better than cure but a lot of this is dependent on what the owners will be committed to achieving. Nutrition. Biotin is great but it’s not magic fairy dust. You can’t out supplement bad management.

Be Mindful Of Moisture

I think a big thing is consistency. My heart sinks a little bit every time I see that the turn out is irrigated. You then have a combination of feet getting too dry and too soft mysteriously both at once. Thrush? In summer? Yes – horses love to break the rules.

Keeping hooves hydrated but not soaked is hard. Applying a moisture balancing product will help reduce rapid drying of the feet but there is only so much they can do.

There aren’t too many times that I’d ask the owners to soak the hooves before I get there. Maybe in an extreme case where you really need to make some changes, big heavy horses when it’s hard enough already but never for shoeing. When hot shoeing I‘ll wait until I’ve burnt the shoe on to soften the hoof before attempting to ease the sole out.

Helping Hard Hooves

Hard hooves have their positives as well as their negatives.

Positives, feet become hard which means extra protection for them but with that they become brittle too. Big chunks flying off and those sharp corners when you’re cutting feet that feel like they could slice your thumb off. 

Tools For Looking After Hard Hooves During The Hotter Months

So do your wrists a favour. When it feels like you’re using a teaspoon and not your polished, sharp hoof knives.  Send them off to hibernate for the summer. Bring out the half round cutters and get good with using your nippers. I don’t change rasps out dependant on the seasons, still a die hard Heller eXcel Legend fan.

My half rounds really do get a work out in summer. Handy when the frog is harder than concrete and getting ready to shed as a whole package but is refusing to let go, even though its 2” higher than the rest of the hoof and is making the horse sore. You can nibble away at it taking it down as much as needed, whereas with your knife would want to sink in deep and rip it out at the roots. Same goes for retained soles. Don’t forget that it’s there for a reason though! The ground is hard, the hoof needs protection. I don’t take anything away unless I really think it’s negatively impacting the hoof or the horse.

Cutter CPR

Cutter CPR is one thing I didn’t learn at college but probably should be added into the curriculum. (Safety glasses are recommended for anyone within hoof shrapnel range.) When feet are like glass and your arms and legs are shaking from straining to get that first cut in with your nippers, it’s time for cutter CPR. One rein on the floor, both hands on the other rein, let it begin.

Adapt Your Schedule

Keep regular appointments or even shorten the schedule so you can keep on top of small chips and cracks before they burst open.

Watch The Weather

Predict the weather changes, if you think you’re going to get a good rain before the next shoeing – maybe don’t stitch the shoes onto the coronary band because if it does rain and the feet soften and collapse. You’ll have a sore pony. Popped clenches and calls from owners worrying the frog is falling off.

All in all, hooves hate dramatic climate changes… unlike some horses who thrive on drama. In hot weather, hoof care is all about consistency—consistent moisture, consistent trims, consistent footing, and consistent attention. Keep the hooves hydrated, balanced, and clean, and you’ll prevent 90% of the common summer issues long before they start.