Applying Happy Hoofwear ™ Shoes With Screws
Happy Hoofwear™ shoes are just as easy to apply with screws as they are with nails. A 1 5/8” coated drywall screw works best. The ideal times to screw on a Happy Hoofwear™ shoe is when there is too little or too poor a quality of hoof wall to accept nails, or when the foot is too sore for hammering nails in.
The hoof in this photograph meets both of these criteria. The other foot had recently been shod with a steel shoe and was normal. On the sore foot the sole was very thin already, so our Farrier Consultant could not trim it enough to remove sole pressure if a steel shoe was used. A Happy Hoofwear™ shoe can and did rest directly on the sole without creating painful sole pressure. What really helps here is that the Happy Hoofwear™ shoe is so flexible, because it is made of polyurethane. As you can see by the photographs, we did not touch that foot with either a hoof knife or rasp, and the foot was definitely not level. As each screw was put in, the shoe was able to flex and follow the uneven contour of the hoof, thus giving complete support. A steel shoe would simply have touched the high spots, most of which were sole rather than hoof wall, and created areas of pressure. We could have used a leather pad or a soft plastic pad under the shoe to achieve a similar effect, but this foot was too sore to nail. Another alternative would have been the use of an adhesive product (such as Equilox or Vettec) to build up and level the foot, but this would have been at a much greater cost to the owner.
In this photograph, our Farrier Consultant had an old shoe in his truck that fit well, but the foot was so tender that each stroke of the hammer caused the horse to react violently. By using a screwdriver and screws, all resistance quickly evaporated. By the second screw, the horse was completely relaxed.
This photograph shows the second screw going into the shoe. The procedure used for applying a shoe with a screw is essentially the same as nailing. Our Farrier Consultant started on one side, and alternated back and forth. Because Happy Hoofwear™ is a polyurethane shoe and has a continuous nail bed, the farrier can place each screw where the hoof wall is best, rather than where there is a predetermined hole. As such, in this case the Farrier was able to get 3 solid screws in each side of the foot.
Our Certified Journeyman Farrier recommends using a 1 5/8” coated drywall screw as he found this is the best choice. Aim your screw just as you would a horseshoe nail. The screw should come out of the wall just as a nail does and in approximately the same location as a nail would exit the wall. The same way that you influence nailing depth by how you strike with your driving hammer, the depth or exit point of the screw is influenced by how you use your power screwdriver.
HELPFUL HINT: If you are very slow and cautious, then you will send the screw very deep up the wall. We suggest using short, fast bursts of the screwdriver trigger, which will cause the screw to exit the hoof wall much sooner.
When the screw head is seated, use your pull offs to snap off the protruding section of screw. Rather than clinching, use a metal file to smooth the broken end of the screw. Drywall screws are brittle, and so tend to break off cleanly, often just below the surface of the wall. Typically, there is very little that needs to be filed. To remove a screw, or to remove the shoe prior to trimming and resetting, simply reverse your screwdriver and back each screw out. Occasionally, after 5 or 6 weeks, our Farrier Consultant will need to use the tip of a nail or screw to scratch the dirt out of the X slots of the Phillips head in order to back the screw out.
Our Farrier Consultant found an additional benefit to using screws rather than nails. The foot in these photographs has three deep wall separations. With radiographs, a veterinarian had determined that these separations were a significant factor in the lameness exhibited. By driving a nail through the wall, it tears apart the separated laminae even further, causing great pain with each hammer stroke. The screw goes through the wall easily, and actually pulls the separated wall tighter together, just as a screw will draw two pieces of wood tight. The wall separations are thus stabilized by the screws, and with less motion there is less pain. Within minutes of finishing this shoeing job, our Farrier Consultant estimated an 80% decrease in lameness. When the owner called two days later, she told the Farrier who did this case study that her horse was trotting in the pasture for the first time in over a year!
THIS IS RUBY. Her owners are Kirk and Lee Underschultz. Ruby is reported to be the perfect Farrier sidekick!
HELPFUL HINT: Between visits to this horse, our Farrier Consultant asked the owner to apply ISP ointment to the hoof wall, sole and frog every couple of days. Our Farrier Consultant says that the iodine and sulphur contained in ISP are absorbed through the hoof wall and are immediately available to bind the amino acids cistine and methionine, thus promoting keratinization within the hoof wall. This is the only product that he knows of that will strengthen the hoof wall from the outside in, rather than from the top down as feed supplements do. And this foot needed all of the help it could get! For more information on ISP, contact Steve Garvin.
(*We at Happy Hoofwear™ like to share with farriers and owners alike what other farriers have shared with us over the last few years when we took our time testing our shoes and working with others in the industry. The information regarding the products mentioned is simply informational in nature and personal observations by others and are not an endorsement of any product referred to in our Guidelines. Happy Hoofwear™ is not affiliated with any of the companies referenced. We always recommend you follow the manufacturer’s instructions.)
These photos show the completed shoeing job with both medial and lateral views. Is this horse healed? Definitely not, but by screwing on a Happy Hoofwear™ shoe our Certified Journey Farrier consultant was able to stabilize the damaged wall, thereby removing pain without surgery or drugs. Reduction of pain resulted in increased movement, and as farriers you are well aware, increased movement causes greater blood circulation and a healthier foot.
While this may not be the prettiest shoeing job, the horse was very sore and the Farrier’s immediate focus was on function, support, and pain reduction. Our Consultant anticipates that by stopping additional tearing of the wall separations, and by increasing the blood flow, it will simply be a matter of time for the damaged hoof to grow out and be trimmed off the bottom. Because the horse of his own volition is now trotting in the pasture, we consider this to be a successful shoeing job!
Some farriers might claim that our Farrier Consultant could have accomplished the same end by making a shoe using an appropriate size nail, and customizing the nail placement for this particular hoof. He agrees that was an option and he possessed the necessary skills and equipment to do so. However, he believes that option would have required a second trip to the barn and coordinating with a vet visit to administer a nerve block facilitating nailing into this very sore foot. Additionally, costs to the owner would have been much higher, and the horse would have continued to be three-legged lame for several more days. On the other hand, screwing on a Happy Hoofwear™ shoe allowed the Farrier to cut costs and give immediate relief to the horse. The owner was happy, her horse was happy, and now she brags to everyone she knows about what a wonderful farrier she has!