Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/676

 The second rule—to maintain the integrity of the hoof in form and texture, and allow freedom to those movements of which it is capable, is one of vital importance to the well-being of the animal. To indicate in a general manner how it should be enforced, I cannot do better, I think, than enumerate the various steps in the operation of shoeing, as they have been inculcated by me for several years. The directions are applicable for all kinds of horses, and even for every description of foot, and are those I give to the farriers under my supervision. It will be perceived that what we may term hygienic shoeing is reduced to a few simple lessons, which any one may learn and readily practise, or see carried out on their own horses; and that it has nothing of the painfully elaborate carving, rasping, nailing, and filing attending the usual method of shoeing, and which demands much skill, much labour, and after all entails grave injury on the horse.

Shoeing, as it is termed, is required either when the armature has been worn out, the hoofs have grown too long, or the wear and growth have both reached a stage when the intervention of the farrier is needed. The length of wear of the shoe will depend upon the material of which it is made, its weight, and the attrition to which it has been subjected. It is generally better that it should wear for a long than a short period; frequent shoeing, requiring frequent nailing, damages the crust by piercing its fibres and splitting them.

The shoe is said to be 'worn out' when it has lost a portion of its substance at the toe—where the greatest amount of wear usually occurs, or when it has become