Pigeon Toes

What an area of conflicting information the web is!


Lottie has pigeon toes (as do 98% of all horses apparently?!) and this has been the subject of discussion with our trimmer. He feels very strongly that if she'd been kept shod (shod in such a way that created a more aesthetically pleasing straightness in her forelegs) then she'd have a significantly reduced life expectancy. I've also heard another (different branch/system of trimmers) state that the majority of navicular cases he sees occur in incorrectly shod pigeon-toed horses. Neither say shoeing causes the problems perse... More that the pigeon toe encourages us to respond incorrectly by giving in to our desire for straightness, rather than what the foot really needs.


That got me interested in the differing views on pigeon-toes and what it really means for our horses... So off on a research trawl I went! As with so many things equine, I struggle to find research and just get a lot of hearsay so I'm apologising in advance for repeating interesting but unsubstantiated bits and pieces here!

www.americanblacksmith.com "Your farrier should not be trying to correct an adult horse's pigeon toes. Balance and level is the rule here. "Corrective" trimming and shoeing can put stresses all the way up the horse's legs and also cause the foot to land unevenly, thus causing pain in the heel area."

http://farrieritis.care4horses.com "...Most horses and i've approximated 97-98 % of horses have this condition ( pigeon toed )... Fixing this is all about shoe placement and rasping the excess foot at the medial side ( which is basically flare ) and growing new foot... Nothing too serious here but if you're after balance and removing risk of lameness these things need to be adressed."

"There's nothing wrong with shoeing at all providing it's done right . In fact there are actually some serious balance issues that can only be addressed with shoeing such as pigeon toed horses and addressing what to do with flares and load characteristics on the foot and a few other things." (John Silveira)

The last guy does say that the foot shouldn't be shortened on one side to correct (as is taught in 'Old-school'). I have no idea what all this means!