A Treatise on the Foot of the Horse and a New System of Shoeing by One-Sided Nailing, and on the Nature, Origin, and Symptoms of the Navicular Joint Lameness with Preventive and Curative Treatment

By James Turner

First published in 1832, this is a detailed treatise on farriery, with a particular focus on the nature, origin and symptoms of navicular joint lameness. Written by a member of the Royal Veterinary College and accomplished army surgeon, it goes into great detail of preventative and curative treatment, as well as offering practical tips to horse shoeing. Contents include: "Manuscript Transmitted to the Veterinary College in 1816", "Navicular Joint Disease Unknown as the General Seat of Chronic Lameness of the Fore Feet", "Contraction", "Two Forms of Contraction", "The General or Apparent Contraction", The Occult of Partial Contraction", "Insidious Nature of Contraction", etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in a modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on maintaining and caring for horses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Home Farm Books
• Release date: Oct 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781473344013

Book preview

A TREATISE

ON THE

FOOT OF THE HORSE,

AND A

NEW SYSTEM OF SHOEING,

BY ONE-SIDED-NAILING;

AND ON THE

NATURE, ORIGIN, AND SYMPTOMS,

OF THE

NAVICULAR JOINT LAMENESS,

WITH

PREVENTIVE AND CURATIVE TREATMENT.

BY

JAMES TURNER,

MEMBER OF THE ROYAL VETERINARY COLLEGE, AND VETERINARY SURGEON

IN THE ARMY.

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the

British Library

Horses – Care and Maintenance

The horse (Equus ferus caballus) is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. It is an odd-toed ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family ‘Equidae’. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began to domesticate horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. We, as humans have interacted with horses in a multitude of ways throughout history – from sport competitions and non-competitive recreational pursuits, to working activities such as police work, agriculture, entertainment and therapy. Horses have also been used in warfare, from which a wide variety of riding and driving techniques developed, using many different styles of equipment and methods of control. With this range of uses in mind, there is an equally extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colours, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behaviour.

Looking after horses is a time consuming, as well as moderately expensive task – only to be embarked upon seriously. Horses can consume approximately 2% to 2.5% of their body weight in dry feed each day. Therefore, a 450-kilogram (990 lb) adult horse could eat up to 11 kilograms (24 lb) of food! Sometimes, concentrated feed such as grain is fed in addition to pasture or hay, especially when the animal is very active. In practical terms, horses prefer to eat small amounts of food steadily throughout the day, as they do in nature when grazing on pasture. Although this is not always possible with modern stabling practices and human schedules that favour feeding horses twice a day, it is important to remember the underlying biology of the animal when determining what to feed, how often, and in what quantities.

Aside from these more basic requirements – food (and water), horse grooming; the hygienic care given to a horse, is a very important practice. Grooming is an important part of basic horse care, essential for horses used in competition. Regular grooming helps to ensure the horse is healthy and comfortable. At a minimum, horses are generally groomed before being worked, and are usually groomed and cleaned up after a workout as well. This helps improve the health of the skin and coat, decreases the chance of health problems such as thrush, scratches and chaffing – as well as giving the groom a change to check the horse's health, such as looking for cuts, heat, swelling, lameness or a change in temperament (such as depression) which could indicate the horse is sick. Importantly, it also helps form a relationship between horse and handler, which can carry over to other handling duties and riding. Horse showmanship is a horse show class that considers quality of grooming for as much as 40% of the total score.

Important aspects of grooming are hair trimming and clipping – variable by breed, region and discipline. Severely ‘incorrect’ clipping is often considered a great faux pas in the horse world.

Common forms are ‘bridle path’ clipping; where a section of mane, just behind the ears, is frequently clipped or shaved off. This allows the bridle to lie comfortably on the across the poll, and makes it slightly easier to bridle the horse, as the mane and forelock are separated and easier to keep out of the way. Fetlocks can also collect undesired amounts of mud, dirt, and burrs - and may be trimmed for practical reasons. The back of the lower cannon (leg) is also commonly clipped, also to remove long hairs. For a truly polished look, the coronet band (top of the hoof) is clipped to shorten the small straggling hairs that grow along the edges. In addition to basic trimming, many horses are ‘body clipped’ in the winter months, to remove their winter coat. This can serve a practical purpose, as it keeps the horse more comfortable during work, and helps it cool down faster, as well as an aesthetic one. The same reasoning lies behind clipping the mane and the tail; at its most basic, brushing out foreign materials and tangles – yet for competitions, far more extensive grooming is common place.

An aspect as yet unmentioned, though especially important, is hoof care. Although many horses are quite healthy without daily brushing, lack of hoof care can result in various problems, which if unattended, can result in short or long-term soundness issues for the horse. Hooves need to be trimmed after four to ten weeks; otherwise they will grow too long and cause discomfort. The most basic form of hoof care is cleaning, or picking out the feet. A hoof pick is used to remove mud, manure, and rocks from the sole of the hoof – thus preventing thrush and stone bruises.

If the horse was not trained to pick up its foot when a person runs their hand to the fetlock and lifts lightly, most horses will pick up their feet if the tendons behind their cannon bone are squeezed. Most horse management guidelines recommend picking the feet daily, and in many cases, the feet are picked twice in one day, both before and after a ride. Hoofs can also be dressed and polished; dressing improves moisture content, in turn preventing hoof cracks, tender feet and lost shoes whilst polish is generally used for show purposes.

As a concluding note, ‘farriers’, the people who will carry out much of this work, are incredibly important, with an interesting history. Farriers have largely replaced blacksmiths (after this specialism mostly became redundant after the industrial revolution), and are highly skilled in both metalwork and horse anatomy. Historically, the jobs of farrier and blacksmith were practically synonymous, shown by the etymology of the word: farrier comes from Middle French ferrier (blacksmith), and from the Latin word ferrum (iron). Modern day farriers usually specialize in horseshoeing though, focusing their time and effort on the care of the horse's hoof, including trimming and balancing of the hoof, as well as the placing of the shoes. Additional tasks for the farrier include dealing with injured or diseased hooves and application of special shoes for racing, training or ‘cosmetic’ purposes. In countries such as the United Kingdom, it is illegal for people other than registered farriers to call themselves a farrier or to carry out any farriery work, the primary aim being ‘to prevent and avoid suffering by and cruelty to horses arising from the shoeing of horses by unskilled persons.’ This is not the case in all countries however, where horse protection is severely lacking.

We hope the reader enjoys this book.

ADVERTISEMENT.

MY views regarding the precise seat of the disease in chronic lameness of the Foot of the Horse, have been, for several years, before the public; and veterinary practitioners have since discarded the old and erroneous term of Coffin Lameness, and adopted that which is truly descriptive of this formidable malady, viz. The Navicular Joint Disease. I am now induced to collect the papers on this subject, which are dispersed through various numbers of THE VETERINARIAN, together with my other papers in that periodical, illustrative of the System of Unfettered Shoeing; which system secures the ordinary defence to the foot, without confining the elastic hoof in its alternate expansion and contraction, and affords facilities to the growth and full development of the organ, notwithstanding a continued application of shoes to the two-years-old, or even yearling colts.

It is my present purpose to collect them together with additional important facts, in order that they may appear in a more convenient form, and serve as a Text-Book to a more enlarged work on the Structure, Functions, Diseases, and Treatment of the Horse’s Foot; which, I shall venture, at no very distant period, to lay before the public, accompanied with coloured plates descriptive of the healthy and morbid condition of this important and very complex organ.

I