Freedom’s High Tech Shoes

Commentary, hoof care, 2 Comments
Freedom's Glue On Shoes
Freedom’s glue on shoes — one is set, the other is “cooking”. Sigafoos shoes attach using an adhesive bonded fabric cuff system instead of nails.  I decided to try glue-ons because he’s had so much trouble this year with cracking and breaking. Normally he comes out of the winter with really nice hooves. Not this year. Then the hard ground made them worse.
Sigafoos
The shoes incorporate a 1/4″ thick rim pad that reduces concussive shock on the hoof and lower leg. I have sneakers like that :).
Ready for glue
This summer has been really hard on Freedom’s hooves. The drought conditions left the ground like concrete. Add a couple of months of stamping at flies and Freedom just didn’t have enough hoof wall to hold nails. They were already shaped here, so the don’t look as bad as they did when my farrier arrived!
The hoof is covered with epoxy.
The hoof is covered with epoxy and then the shoe is applied. The adhesive has twice the holding power of nails and, once it’s cured, it’s not impacted by wet, dry, hot or cold environments. It’s important to pick a day when it’s dry and preferably not humid. in theory, you should keep your horse in a stall overnight. Freedom doesn’t have a stall so we waited for the perfect day.
Freedom had to hold his hoof up during the initial "set" of the shoe.
Freedom had to hold his hoof up during the initial “set” of the shoe.
Pour in pads
Pour in pads were added to help set the shoe and provide additional support.

Freedom has had the shoes on now for about a month and so far, so good. He’s moving very well in them and they’re staying on well. One of them started to fray a bit so my farrier came back and added extra adhesive and that did the trick.

The downside? They are wicked expensive. Two front shoes plus a trim behind set me back $325. The good news? These shoes should last at least 8 weeks, maybe 10 and after that he should be able to go back into regular shoes.

Have you ever tried glue on shoes? What did you think?

2 thoughts on “Freedom’s High Tech Shoes”

  2. I had a horse whose front hooves went bad from a particularly wet season. He got really bad quarter cracks so he had special therapeutic shoes along with apoxy and copper plates that were applied to seal the cracks and reinforce the hoof wall. Sadly in my case, he still got white line disease in both front hooves, and since that’s very uncommon where we lived at the time, it went undiagnosed for too long and he was put down.

    It looks like the shoes you have put on Freedom are even more high tech! I like that they seem to seal out moisture and contaminants. Hopefully you can do an update when the shoes come off to show the difference from before and after! I would love to see that.

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