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Q & A
How do I Handle my Young Horse's Hooves?
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Question
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"I have a QH filly and have been trying to clean out her feet but
most of the time she picks up her foot really fast and up really high
where all her muscles are tense and it throws her off balance.
Sometimes this escalates into a fight with her either jumping around or trying
to kick at me. How can I get her used to handling her feet without me
or my filly getting hurt?"
Answer
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What I would do with this filly is use a rope to accustom her to picking
up her feet. This enables you to stay out of kicking range, and allows
your filly to learn to give to pressure around her pastern/fetlock.
I use an extra long lead/lunge that is soft cotton (15 ft. or so), or
you can use 2 separate lead ropes if you don't have a long one. I hook
the snap to the horse's halter so that I can control the horse's
head/direction. Use either the second lead rope or the tail end of the
long lead rope to loop around the horse's pastern (front or hind foot).
You should use a special loop that loosens and falls off should the
horse escape, but that doesn't fall off while you are applying pressure
to it.
Start by standing on the filly's left side. Hold her leadrope near her
halter with your left hand, and hold the rope that is looped around her
pastern in your right hand. Apply gentle pressure to the rope around her
pastern until she lifts her foot. If lifts her foot, then resists the
pressure by kicking, trying to put the foot down, etc. just hold the
pressure constant on the rope so that she doesn't feel and "give". The
instant she relaxes the foot, release the pressure. Then, repeat the
process until she is comfortable with giving to the pressure of the rope.
Once she is picking up her feet nicely with the rope, make sure that she
will allow you to rub her all over her body and legs before trying to
pick up her feet by hand. Once you can do that, you should have no
problems picking up her feet.
Another method that I use sometimes for back feet is to ask the horse to
"rest" its toe on the ground, next to its other leg. This exposes the
sole of the foot. With the foot rested, I rub the leg all over gaining
the horse's trust. If the horse puts weight back on the foot at any
time, I simply (and gently) ask the horse to rest it's foot again. Once
the horse is fine with this, I pick the foot up 1 inch off the ground
and set it right back down again and continue rubbing the leg. I
continue in this manner until I can pick the foot 2 inches up, then 3
inches up, etc. without resistance. If the horse resists, you need to
back up in your steps and progress more slowly. Eventually, you'll be
picking the foot up 1-2 feet without problems.
I also recommend that you read our Horse Training for Hoof Handling article, and check out the Horse Training section of our website that contains many articles on important training topics for young horses.
Happy Horsin'
Cheryl McNamee Sutor
Wholistic Bare Hoof Specialist
Certified Mentor Hoof Groom
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