Buffing the Hoof Wall to Remove Super Glue and Trimming Hooves

This horse is coming out of shoes for the winter. The owner is an avid trail rider and hauls him out of state for camping trips. His hooves are very healthy but he needs extra protection for some of the rocky trails they ride on. They went on their last camping trip for the year so it's time to have a break from shoes for awhile.

If possible it's a good idea for riding horses to spend at least 3 months out of shoes every year to allow the hooves time to recover barefoot. It doesn't matter if the the shoe is made out of steel, aluminum, or a synthetic polyurethane. A shoe is still a shoe. And if the horse is comfortable enough barefoot in their living area they should go barefoot for awhile during a time of the year when they are not ridden as much.

When I remove a horses shoes I sill usually leave more material on the hoof than I did in this video. The horse may need that extra material as they transition to barefoot. But this horse has very healthy hooves that I know very well, so I gave him a regular trim as if he had already been barefoot.

The tool I use to remove the glue on the hoof wall is called a buffy. It sands the material off of the hoof wall. It does make the hoof very pretty, but while removing the glue it also removes the periople. The periople is a water proofing layer on the hoof that the horse needs to protect its hoof wall from moisture. When I'm just doing a regular trim I do not buff the hoof and leave as much periople on the hoof as possible.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments section. I will try to answer them to the best of my ability!

To purchase Healing Hoof Clay to treat thrush: