FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Where all of your technical questions are answered...

Below are the answers to frequently asked questions we have received since launching our product in February 2009. We tested Happy Hoofwear™ shoes on our own horses for over a year, and then expanded our testing area to much of the Southeastern USA. The answers were supplied by a panel of farrier consultants from Ohio, Florida and Tennessee, one who is a Certified Journeyman Farrier, another teaches at a farrier school and a working farrier who tried our shoes early on in different terrain conditions. Some of the advice is opinion based upon what they found worked and other answers are what we consider the “best practices” with our particular shoe. You as the professional may find the information and suggestions helpful, but your personal inspection and knowledge of the horse you are shoeing and the riding conditions are obviously the most important factors in using our shoes.

If you have a question that we haven’t answered, please send us an email at Sylvia@happyhoofwear.com or call us at 941-373-7087. Be sure to look at our other How To articles: Getting the Right Fit, Shoeing with Happy Hoofwear™ Shoes, Using Adhesives & Glues with Happy Hoofwear™ Shoes, Happy Hoofwear™ Shoes and Pads, Happy Hoofwear™ Shoes and Screws, and our Shoe Size Comparison Chart.

• 1. What size nails do you use? Will the nails pull through Happy Hoofwear™ shoes because they are made of polyurethane?
• 2. Do you need to predrill the shoes?
• 3. How long do these shoes last? Do you get any resets?
• 4. What do you do with the toe clip?
• 5. Can the shoes be glued on?
• 6. What type of glue/adhesive works best?
• 7. Can shoes be worn on the hind feet or just on the front?
• 8. What are the dimensions of the shoes?
• 9. Can the bars in the back of the shoe be cut out?
• 10. If you put Happy Hoofwear™ shoes only on the front, is there a difference in height if you use a steel, aluminum or go barefoot in the back, and more importantly - will that be a problem?
• 11. Can the shoes be worn with pads?
• 12. How do the shoes wear in grass, sand and concrete? How slippery are Happy Hoofwear™ shoes in the mud, wet grass, or asphalt?
• 13. Can the shoes be used in winter?
• 14. Any opportunity to use studs for additional traction?
• 15. How to find the best size for the horse wearing Happy Hoofwear™ shoes.
• 16. Can Happy Hoofwear™ shoes be used on Driving Horses?
• 17. Can Happy Hoofwear™ shoes be used on Gaited Horses and does it alter their gait?
• 18. Can Happy Hoofwear™ shoes be used on flat feet and/or bruised soles?
• 19. Can Happy Hoofwear™ shoes simulate a Natural Balance Shoe?
• 20. Will a horse ever pull a Happy Hoofwear™ shoe?

1. What size nails do you use? Will the nails pull through Happy Hoofwear™ shoes because they are made of polyurethane?

Any choice of nail should work with Happy Hoofwear™ shoes. Whatever a farrier uses in his or her routine day-to-day work should also work with our shoes. Our consultant farriers have used a number of brands and sizes of nails to include: Capewill city head #5 and #6, Delta city head #5 and #6, Izumi city head #4, and Mustad E head #55 and #60. With any city head or E head nail, this simply is not an issue. Our polyurethane designed shoe is tough, strong, and resistant to wear. With a healthy hoof, the nail clinch will let go of the hoof before the nail head pulls through the shoe.

2. Do you need to predrill the shoes?

No, you do not need to predrill our shoes and most of our farrier consultants did not. However, we do recommend that when you drive a nail, you should angle it a little steeper to have the nail come out in the hoof where you want it. It may take a little bit of practice, but after one or two shoeings, it becomes easier to do. Initially, if you just start driving your nails, they tend to come out a little bit low. Shoeing a horse with Happy Hoofwear™ shoes is no different than shoeing any other horse. If you choose to, and some farriers do, you can predrill the holes using a 1/8th inch drill bit, and the nail then works exactly the same as any other hoof you shoe.

3. How long do these shoes last? Do you get any resets?

This question is one we frequently hear from owners, but we will share with the farriers what we have been told in our follow up reports. We have a farrier who has had Happy Hoofwear™ shoes on horses for approximately 8 months with many resets. We have been told our shoes were on a horse ridden on pavement and concrete and the farrier has reset Happy Hoofwear™ shoes 3 times. It all depends on whether the horse stands in the stall most of the time, gets ridden primarily in a soft arena, or if it is a buggy horse out on the roads going ten miles a day. A personal observation from one of our farrier consultants is that Happy Hoofwear™ shoes will last anywhere from two to three times longer than a steel shoe. However many resets you or the horse’s owner get with Happy Hoofwear™, you are getting a quality shoe made in the USA at a great price.

With a steel shoe the nail holes gradually get larger with each reset, often requiring the farrier to use a larger nail in order to get a tight fit. This wearing of the nail hole is generally referred to as “wallowing out”. Sometimes the nail holes are wallowed so badly that the steel shoes must be replaced, even if they are still thick enough for continued use. This rarely happens with Happy Hoofwear™ shoes. The same nail holes can be used many times over. If the farrier does become concerned about using the same nail hole for the 3rd or 4th time, simply relocate the nails into a new location.

4. What do you do with the toe clip?

Our farriers have told us that typically, if you have a good hoof wall and if you like the slope of the hoof wall at the front of the foot in the toe area, they will set the clip up against the edge of that hoof wall and nail the shoe assuming that puts the whole shoe in the correct position. Sometimes a farrier may cut a little notch in the hoof using nippers and/or a hoof knife to fit the toe clip into. (See How To Guideline: Shoeing With Happy Hoofwear™ Shoes.) If you have a dished foot or you want to set the shoe back on a thick walled horse and rasp off a lot of foot,our farriers will actually cut the toe clip off with nippers, position the shoe where they want it, nail it on, and then dress up the foot. Other farriers will dress the foot first, and then fit and nail on the shoes after they have done the rasping.Either method works well and is simply a personal choice.

5. Can the shoes be glued on?

Yes, Happy Hoofwear™ shoes can be glued on and there are a number of commercial adhesives on the market you can use. For the best results, be sure to follow the manufacturer’s directions and be sure to roughen up the hoof surface of the shoe before applying the glue. (See also our How To Guideline: Using Adhesives and Glue With Happy Hoofwear™ Shoes.)

6. What type of glue/adhesive works best?

We have glued shoes using both Equilox and Vettec products, and both brands work well. Both manufacturers have good instructions for using their products on their web- sites, http://www.equilox.com and http://www.vettec.com respectively. Both glues are temperature sensitive, and both react negatively to small amounts of moisture, oils, and dirt. Correctly dealing with temperature and cleanliness is far more critical than which glue is used. (*Happy Hoofwear™ is not affiliated with either company and you should use your own judgment in deciding which product to use.)

7. Can shoes be worn on the hind feet or just on the front?

HAPPY HOOFWEAR™ SHOES currently are offered as a front patterned shoe and seem to fit most horses’ hooves for the front foot. (*We are working on hind pattern shoes and hope to offer them by August 2011. So check back in with us.) However, because hind feet are a different shape, our shoes are not likely to work well on most hind feet. Our shoes will not likely work well with horses that have front feet shaped like hind feet either. Although some farriers have reported they have used our shoes on the hind feet of the horses they shoe, this is the exception we have found.

One of our Farrier consultants has reported that he has found when you put the front pattern onto the hind foot shape, whether it actually is a hind foot or is a front foot that is just narrow and long, you could dress up the quarters to fit the shoe. However, when you cut back the shoe, you are actually cutting all of the way into the crease. This would weaken the shoe enough that it begins to distort and does not give good support to the foot. It will gradually work the nails loose and two or three weeks into the shoeing period the shoe becomes loose. Another observation: If you drop a shoe size so that you do fit the quarters on the hind foot, now you have a length issue. You are not supporting the heel and/or you set the shoes so far back you have to really dub the toe, which means you may have compromised both the hoof length and the hoof angle, or you may have compromised the support of the heel of the foot.

Trimming the sole in an attempt to get a concave shape to the sole may result in a foot being tender for several days. Happy Hoofwear™ shoes do not create sole pressure so trim the soles of these flat feet as little as possible. The width and thickness of our shoes will both lift the sole off of the ground and give good coverage to protect the sole. The bar will help transfer weight to the frog and bars of the foot, relieving both compressive and concussive forces on the heel area. Due to this weight transfer, Happy Hoofwear™ shoes produce a “loading” effect that is very similar to a bare footed horse in the wild. (Go to our How To Guideline: Getting the Right Fit for more information.)

8. What are the dimensions of the shoes?

We’ve tried to make it easy for farriers and owners to know which Happy Hoofwear™ size shoes would work best on the horse being shoed. You can go to our website at www.happyhoofwear.com to print out the exact size and put it up to the horse’s hoof. If you like to know the numbers, we have included the measurement chart information below for your reference. We have also noted the comparable information for a number of other brands of horseshoes.

Below is the technical information on the measurements and weights for your easy reference.

9. Can the bars in the back of the shoe be cut out?

While the bar can physically be removed, our farriers have advised us this is not a good practice. Why? A horse’s foot has a tremendous load placed upon it with each step taken. When the horse steps onto his foot it compresses down towards the ground and it spreads out to the side. (*Think of a balloon sitting on a table. Lean on the balloon with your hand and it will squash down thinner and spread out wider. A horse’s hoof does this same thing when weight is placed upon it.) As the heels and quarters move, what we have been advised by our farrier consultants is that with this type of shoe, if you cut the bar out in the back, the heel of the shoes gradually opens up and spreads out past the heel of the foot, which means they are no longer supporting the foot. It is simply where the material gives under pressure and eventually it does not have enough memory to come back to its normal position. The bar across the back of the heel serves as a very important stabilizer and prevents this from happening. The bar helps hold the heels of the shoes in place and it is an integral part of the shoe and it needs to be there. The bar also allows some of the weight of the horse to be transferred from the hoof wall to the bars and frog areas. This “loading” effect is very similar to that of a barefooted horse. *Remember too that some show regulations govern the type of shoe that can be used in certain disciplines and owners should check to make sure a bar shoe is acceptable.

10. If you put Happy Hoofwear™ shoes only on the front, is there a difference in height if you use a steel, aluminum or go barefoot in the back, and more importantly - will that be a problem?

If you put the Happy Hoofwear™ shoes only on the front, yes, there will be a difference in height between the front shoes and the hind shoes, but the difference is not a problem. If you use a steel shoe on the hind hooves the average steel shoes are approximately 1/4" thick. If you use aluminum shoes these are an average of 3/8" thick and if the hind hooves are barefoot, of course, there is no shoe.

Since horses have independent suspension front and hind (although some gaited horses are an exception) for a vast majority of the horses, there is no problem with wearing our Happy Hoofwear™ shoes on the front and wearing steel, aluminum or no shoe on the back.

As farriers know, however, making sure you match size, style, weight and thickness for the left and right hooves is critical, although again there are always exceptions. There are times when farriers deliberately shoe with different shoe lengths, shoe thicknesses, shoe sizes, left foot versus right foot, but those instances tend to be for the special and unusual cases. Normally you want the shoe to be the same size, the same style, the same weight, the same thickness right down to the same amount of wear pattern at the break over point when you are talking left and right. Bottom line: Happy Hoofwear™ shoes can be worn in the front and whatever the farrier decides is best for the hind (to include going barefoot) will work without a problem for the horse.

11. Can the shoes be worn with pads?

Yes, Happy Hoofwear™ shoes can be worn with pads. They can be used with flat pads or with wedge pads or with a rim pad. (*Be sure to read our How To Guideline: Using Pads with Happy Hoofwear™ Shoes for more information. Both full and rim pads are discussed.)

With a rim pad, you will have to drill the shoe, drill the pad, and rivet them together, just as you do with a steel shoe. In terms of hoof packing, whatever hoof packing the farrier normally uses can still be used with your choice of pad and the Happy Hoofwear™ shoes. (*Nothing changes as far as applying the pad to the foot or to the shoe, it is the same as any other shoe.) Very rarely do you have to deal differently with the Happy Hoofwear™ shoes than you do with any other steel or aluminum shoe. Your trimming is the same; the nailing is the same; the fitting process is the same; and using pads are the same. Our farrier consultants have told us “it’s a very easy shoe for any competent farrier to use.”

12. How do the shoes wear in grass, sand and concrete? How slippery are Happy Hoofwear™ shoes in the mud, wet grass, or asphalt?

Well, we can share with you that the wear of a horse with Happy Hoofwear™ shoes depends upon the surface conditions that the horse is ridden upon. Grass is the least abrasive so the shoes last the longest and concrete is the most abrasive, so they wear out sooner than they would on grass. In Florida we tested the shoes for about 2 years and the predominant surface is sand, which is abrasive as well. Again, as with any other shoe, if you are on concrete for half an hour every month, or half an hour every day, the wear factor is dramatically different. As a general rule, we have found from our follow up research with owners and farriers alike that Happy Hoofwear™ shoes on grass will outlast the steel shoe almost 2 to 1 and on concrete Happy Hoofwear™ shoes will outlast a steel shoe 3 sometimes 4 to 1. A good value for farriers and owners alike!

While there are always exceptions, Happy Hoofwear™ shoes have been tested in each of these environments, and, in general, provide traction that is equal to or better than that provided by steel shoes. In addition to good traction, Happy Hoofwear™ shoes provide superior cushioning in all environments, allowing a horse to move out with confidence, rather than short striding to lessen the impact on the heels and sole of the foot. This relaxes the back, shoulder, and hip muscles, greatly reducing the risk of injury due to poor footing. If, however, there is any concern about having the appropriate traction, either 2 or 4 studs per shoe can be added. (Please refer to our Guideline in the FARRIER’S CORNER section of our website for additional information about the application of studs with Happy Hoofwear shoes “ Using Screw-In Studs”.)

13. Can the shoes be used in winter?

Yes, Happy Hoofwear™ shoes work very well on snow and ice. They are no more slippery than steel shoes in the same conditions. One bonus is that they do not have the snowballing effect that is such a problem with metal shoes. Moisture does not freeze to the polyurethane material like it does to metal, plus with the flexibility of the Happy Hoofwear™ shoe, the compressed snow and ice pops out of the foot every few steps, even when the horse is walking slowly.

14. Any opportunity to use studs for additional traction?

Yes, studs can be used with Happy Hoofwear™ shoes to increase traction. We have found two companies that make screw-in studs that will work with well with our shoes. You may wish to visit their websites at: http://www.easyboot.com under accessories, or go to http://www.easywalkerhorseshoescanada.com/5101.html and look under pricelist. Depending on conditions and the amount of traction that you desire, 1 stud can be used in each heel, or, for additional traction, 4 studs per shoe can be used, placing 1 stud in each heel and 1 stud on either side of the toe. (See also our Guideline for “Using Screw-In Studs”)

15. How to find the best size and style for the horse wearing Happy Hoofwear™ shoes.

Trim the horse’s foot just as you normally would do. Take the shoe, put it on the foot, or if you have the pattern that you’ve printed from our website, take the pattern and put it on the foot and just see which size fits. Again, the farrier knows the horse best and it is primarily an individual farrier’s choice which size will work best for the horse being shod. (See also our How To Guideline and photograph series: Getting the Right Fit)

16. Can Happy Hoofwear™ shoes be used on Driving Horses?

As many of our Amish farriers and customers have discovered, Happy Hoofwear™ shoes are an excellent choice for buggy and carriage horses. They are a long wearing shoe without the need of borium for traction. By eliminating the use of borium, which grabs the road surface, much of the rotational torque exerted on joints is eliminated. Damage to the asphalt roads is also greatly reduced. Add to this the concussion of impact that is absorbed by the shoe rather than being passed on to the joints, tendons, and ligaments of the leg, and the choice of using Happy Hoofwear™ becomes a very wise decision.

17. Can Happy Hoofwear™ shoes be used on Gaited Horses and does it alter their gait?

If your horse will gait barefooted or in regular keg shoes, then there should be no problem using Happy Hoofwear™. If, however, your horse requires weighted shoes in order to gait properly, Happy Hoofwear™ shoes will not be able to duplicate that effect.

18. Can Happy Hoofwear™ shoes be used on flat feet and/or bruised soles?

Absolutely. Bruised soles can occur with any horse, but most commonly with flat footed horses. Solving this problem starts with the trimming process. Flat soles typically are thin, sensitive soles. Trimming the sole makes this problem worse, and yet with steel and aluminum shoes, your farrier must trim the sole to avoid “sole pinch”. This is where the hard, inside edge of the shoe touches the sole of the foot, thus creating pressure. To avoid this, the sole must be trimmed into a dished configuration. Happy Hoofwear™ shoes are flexible and do not cause this pressure, even if the sole is left flat and untrimmed. Happy Hoofwear™ has a wide web to protect the sole, plus allows the sole to be left much thicker, giving natural protection to the foot, just as has been documented in the feet of wild horses. Sole contact with the shoe allows Happy Hoofwear™ to spread the “load” over a much larger portion of the hoof. The bar across the heels of the shoe transfers weight to the frog and bars of the hoof, again, distributing the load over a much larger area. In essence, we are simulating how the bare foot of a wild horse is loaded. Physics dictates that as we INCREASE the weight bearing surface area of the foot, we DECREASE the number of pounds per square inch. This makes for a much more comfortable horse!

19. Can Happy Hoofwear™ shoes simulate a Natural Balance Shoe?

Yes they can. A Happy Hoofwear™ shoe can be nipped or rasped into whatever configuration the farrier chooses. As well as rocker toes, rolled toes, and squared toes, your farrier can cut away the outside of the toe of the shoe, and then rasp off the surface to get the desired breakover point, thus duplicating the Natural Balance shoe.

20. Will a horse ever pull a Happy Hoofwear™ shoe?

Yes, they will. When a foot has been correctly trimmed and balanced, and the shoe has been correctly fitted and applied, the risk of losing a shoe is minimal. However, just as with a steel shoe, if your horse explodes with joy at being turned out for the first time in a week, the likelihood of jerking a shoe off goes way up. Deep mud, rough ground, an unbalanced rider, pawing at the fence, etc., all contribute to the loss of a shoe. UNLIKE a steel shoe, a bright orange or hot pink shoe is MUCH easier to find! And they don’t get all twisted like a steel shoe. Simply pull out the old nails and tack it back on.

DID NOT FIND THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION?

If you have a question we have not answered here about a topic we have not addressed, there are most likely others who have a similar question. So please contact us by email at Sylvia@happyhoofwear.com or by telephone at 941-343-7087. We have a certified Journeyman Farrier as one of our consultants and we try to get a response to you within 24-48 hours. We want to do what we can to ensure your shoeing experience with Happy Hoofwear shoes is a good one for you, the owner and the horse.

Sincere thanks,
The Happy Hoofwear Team