What did horses do before farriers?

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I just saw a post where a horse was abandoned for a number of years and it’s front hooves looked like the bottom of a rocking chair. I’ve also heard over the years about how farriers are necessary to a horses health. Now obviously horses have been around longer than the folks who take care of their hooves, so what did they do before people?

Did they have to scrape them on rocks or did they just have to wear them down by running? Just curious. Thanks!

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Everyone else has offered a bunch of really great info on surfaces and natural wear and I’ll offer one other piece to that. And that’s that in the wild if a horse’s hooves didn’t wear correctly, if they split or developed abscesses or any number of other problems that can make a horse come up lame they got eaten. Domesticated horses *live* to develop severe hoof problems, in the wild a horse with bad feet that can’t run would quickly get picked off by predators.

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