Shoeing

“ This natural bearing surface is what we want to utilize in shoeing. We put on a shoe merely to prevent excessive wear of the hoof. If we can protect the wall the frog can take care of itself, and we have only so to apply our shoe that we do not damage any useful structure or interfere with any natural function. ”

“ I refer to the art of shoeing, by which, in arming that portion of the horse's hoof coming in contact with the ground, and sustaining the whole weight, while it receives the full force of the propelling power, would (in our northern climate, at least) under the strain of loadbearing or draught, soon be destroyed, and the animal rendered useless, injury is not only averted, but the utility and power of the horse are largely increased. ”

“ The solidity of hot shoeing (or fitting) being greater than that of cold, the workman having more facility for the former than the latter, and also owing to its requiring less time, we are of opinion that in the army, as everywhere else, the preference must be given to the ferrure à chaud.'
Lafosse, Bourgelat, Chabert, Gohier, Rainard, Reynal, Delafond, Renault, Bouley, and Rey—in fact, all the most distinguished veterinary professors or practitioners who have studied the subject—have unhesitatingly given the preference to the mode of fitting the shoe while hot. ”

“ He takes the shoes off the last with as much difficulty as if he were skinning the lasts. The gallant seats himself upon a chair; the shoemaker kneels down, and takes possession of one foot, which he handles as if he were sent there to administer the torture. He puts one shoeing skin [1] in the heel of the shoe, fits the other upon the point of the foot, and then begins to guide the shoe over the shoeing skin. Scarcely has it got farther than the toes when it is found necessary to draw it on with pincers, and even then it is hard work. ”

“ It will be perceived that what we may term hygienic shoeing is reduced to a few simple lessons, which any one may learn and readily practise, or see carried out on their own horses; and that it has nothing of the painfully elaborate carving, rasping, nailing, and filing attending the usual method of shoeing, and which demands much skill, much labour, and after all entails grave injury on the horse. ”

“ In the common system of shoeing, to avoid slipping in winter upon the ice, and in the cities upon the wet, slimy surface of pavement, or to assist draft, it is customary to weld a calk upon the toe of a shoe, and to turn up the heels to correspond. ”

“ This is a point to which we call attention as of great importance. In shoeing a horse for light or rapid work with a common flat shoe, seven or eight nail-heads protrude, and take the force of his blow on the ground. ”

“ On the 10th August, 1865, he makes the following communication to the Société Impériale et Centrale de Médecine Vétérinaire: 'Many among you have already heard of a new system of shoeing that I have imagined to prevent horses from slipping, at the same time affording them a natural bearing on the ground, and opposing contraction of the heels, and preventing several diseases caused by the shoeing now in use. ”

“ By it the foot of the horse, principally, ought to be maintained in the condition in which it is found if its conformation is good and regular, and its defects should be repaired by shoeing if it is found vicious and deformed. By shoeing, also, it is often possible to remedy the inevitable consequences of disproportions between various parts of the body, or at least to modify their effects. ”

“ The operative act of shoeing, in its general sense, as appertaining to the making of the shoe, the insertion of the nails, and the external finish of the foot, are too well known, and publicly performed, to require the most trifling description. ”

“ The shoe recommended to be worn by Mr Clark is that described by Osmer, though he says it was employed by him many years before that veterinarian's treatise was published. 'In shoeing a horse we should in this, as in every other case, study to follow nature; and certainly that shoe which is made of such a form as to resemble as near as possible the natural tread and shape of the foot, must be preferable to any other. ”

“ Having selected shoes suitable for the feet and adapted to the special work of the horse, having also prepared the foot for shoeing, we arrive at another important part of the farriers' art—fitting the shoe. ”

“ Lastly, cold shoeing is less economical.
'Advantages of hot shoeing. In hot shoeing, the shoe is more readily adapted to the foot.
'The shoes which have been fitted hot to the hoofs are applied more equally. The shoeing is more solid, because the nails are not broken by the displacement of the shoe; there is a better adaptation of the clip at the toe, and a more intimate adhesion is obtained between the iron and the surface of the horn.
'Hot shoeing endows the hoof with more resistance; the horn, heated by the iron, is less hygrometrical, and less permeable by fluids. ”

“ Even with the most careful farrier injury may occur during shoeing, or may arise as the result of the operation. Sometimes the foot, from its condition or form, renders an accident possible, and it may be so diseased, or defective, as to render shoeing with safety very improbable. Sometimes the shoe is to blame, and sometimes the nail or clip. ”

“ Shoeing, as it is termed, is required either when the armature has been worn out, the hoofs have grown too long, or the wear and growth have both reached a stage when the intervention of the farrier is needed. The length of wear of the shoe will depend upon the material of which it is made, its weight, and the attrition to which it has been subjected. It is generally better that it should wear for a long than a short period; frequent shoeing, requiring frequent nailing, damages the crust by piercing its fibres and splitting them. ”

“ Seeing further, however, that it only appears when shoeing is commenced, we may in a greater degree also regard it as acquired. The lesson, therefore, that this and other forms of contraction should teach us is the carefulness with which the shoeing should be superintended in a large stud, or in any case where the animal is of more than ordinary value. ”

“ Universal as the practice of shoeing is at the present day, there are yet places, such as North Germany, Hungary, and others, where it is not always necessary, and where horses are seldom shod, except on the fore-feet, or only in winter ”

“ Nevertheless, the antiquity of shoeing, notwithstanding the well-directed labours of many learned men, is yet a subject admitting of considerable diversity of opinion, simply because of the absence of written documents, or records of a positive character, by which this art could be traced to its origin in any particular part of the world. ”

“ As my object here is merely to show the use and abuse of shoeing, I may have said sufficient to show that in the unshod foot of an animal that has not been improperly reared, and has descended from sound stock, we find a perfect organ adapted to meet all natural requirements. ”

“ After remarking on the necessity for shoeing in some countries and not in others, and the probable simplicity of the earlier attempts to defend the hoofs, he says, 'in process of time, the fertility of invention, and the vanity of mankind, have produced variety of methods, almost all of which are productive of lameness ”

“ In this we cannot altogether blame the farrier; he is only carrying out the ideas of men who have published books on shoeing. Can we wonder that it soon becomes necessary to adopt every means to supply artificially that which has been removed so indiscreetly. Heavy iron shoes with plenty of cover to defend the morbidly sensitive horn of the soles, which may have been thinned till the blood was oozing through, before these cumbrous shields were applied. ”

“ Taking into account the amount of work horses may have to perform, and making every allowance for its effects during a lengthened period, there can be no doubt whatever that the feet will remain nearly, or quite, as perfect after twenty or thirty years' service as they were before being submitted to the farrier's care, if only a rational system of shoeing be pursued. ”

“ Having thus produced both foot and shoe, as unsullied representations of NATURE and ART, and adapted the make of one to the formation of the other, with a consistency no man of common comprehension will presume to dispute, we proceed to an impartial examination of the letter B, which represents the mode of SHOEING adopted, and some time persevered in, at a place of veterinary celebrity, upon the discontinuance of the very short-lived concave shoe. ”

“ When time is not an object, the best test of a workman is to require him to make a fore and hind shoe and put them on the horse. At a one-day show, or at a competition when the entries are large, it is sufficient to require the making of a fore and hind shoe and the fitting and nailing on of the front one. ”

“ A proper mode of shoeing is certainly of more importance than the treatment of any disease, or perhaps of all the diseases incident to horses. The foot is a part that we are particularly required to preserve in health ”

“ He claims the positive merits that "it prevents slipping, over-reaching, and interfering, cutting, or picking up stones, balling snow or mud, contracted feet, corns, sandcracks, thrush, springing of the knees, and shrinking of the shoulders. It also prevents the nails striking the ground while the foot is sensitive from shoeing." ”

“ If owners would interest themselves so far as to accompany their horses to the forge, and carefully watch the process of shoeing, they would see distinctly that the nailing on of a shoe has no great mystery attached to it, and that any carter or groom could do it as well as a farrier, if he tried in earnest. ”

“ The strongest evidence that shoeing was not practised among the Greeks of this period, is to be found in the great attention paid to the nature and durability of the hoofs by horsemen and others, and this testimony one would think perfectly convincing. ”

“ It is the case of an imperfect art attempting to improve and beautify nature.
The subject of shoeing is an important one in another point of view. For very many years, veterinary surgeons have agreed that various diseases of the limbs have a hereditary tendency ”

“ CHAPTER XI.
the establishment of veterinary schools in france. treatises on shoeing. clumsy specimens of shoes. lafosse, sen., the greatest authority on modern farriery. the evils of shoeing. destructive paring. improved shoeing. the short shoe and the incrusted shoe. opposition of the parisian farriers. lafosse, junior. bourgelat, the founder of the veterinary schools in france. the adjusted shoe. burning the hoofs when fitting the shoes. jeremiah bridges. the influence of locality on the hoofs. the ‘screw’ shoe. numerous diseases of the foot. osmer. complaint against farriers. ”

“ The shoe is said to be 'worn out' when it has lost a portion of its substance at the toe—where the greatest amount of wear usually occurs, or when it has become very thin either over the whole surface, or in one of its branches. ”

“ If used on the inside heel of a shoe they constitute a danger to the opposite leg should they bend and protrude from under the shoe. As a temporary provision against a sudden frost or fall of snow they are useful—but they are only a make-shift. ”

“ When a shoe is seated from one side to the other so as to produce a saucer shaped surface harm is done to the foot. Such a shoe presents no level bearing-surface, and the weight of the horse pressing the wall on an inclined plane causes the foot to be pinched or compressed in a manner which soon causes lameness. ”

“ The shoe is rolled without a heel calk, so that the frog-pressure may be readily secured without heating and drawing the iron:—the nail holes are punched so that the nail furnished by us with the shoe may be driven, without the use of the pritchel to punch out the holes. The shoe, being made of the best quality of iron, may be bent cold to adapt it to the shape of the hoof. ”

“ An assistant holds the shoe in a pair of tongs on the anvil, and it is pierced from fine to coarse by light blows, the punch being withdrawn quickly, and straightened if bent, moistened to keep it cool, and dipped in grease to make it cut more promptly. ”

“ When a shoe requires much alteration to bring it into exact correspondence with the foot, even the most expert farrier cannot do justice to his work with cold iron—he gets as near to a fit as he can and when the hoof is strong little harm is done. ”

“ A wide shoe with a flat foot surface is easily fitted on all concave feet—i.e., on all hind and most fore feet. To make use of the whole bearing-surface a shoe must rest evenly from toe to heel—the flat surface of the shoe must take a level bearing on the whole flat bearing-surface of the foot. ”

“ Whatever form the farrier adopts, a shoe should rest equally throughout, and the contact of foot and shoe should be exact over the whole bearing surface. Assuming then that a properly prepared foot presents a level surface, the fitting of shoes becomes simple so long as the smith possesses manual dexterity and follows the indications of common sense. ”

“ He always recommends free paring, and for rough and brittle hoofs 'plenty of rasping on the outside to make them smooth, and the shoe put on with nine nails—four inside and five out.'
For the contracted or hoof-bound foot, he recommends paring the sole thin and opening the heels well, and putting on a shoe like a half moon. ”

“ Apply the weighty side of shoe on the inside of foot, fix the outside of the foot from the center of toe to the outside heel the lowest, it will be good in some cases to have the outside web of shoe only one-half as thick as that of the inside, the thinner the outside the better for the winging in. ”

“ The shoe standing straight and just, drive in all the nails to the number of eight, four on each side, so as the points of the nails may seem to stand on the outside of the hoof, even and just one by another, as it were in a circular line, and not out of order like the teeth of a saw, whereof one is bent one way and one another way. ”