Mother Nature's crucible is a refiners fire. Life's overwhelming desire to be has gifted the wild horse with incredibly perfect feet. Horse meat is high on the carnivores' totem pole of meal choices, and a horse without sound feet is an easy meal. So, the genetics for lousy feet were weeded from the Mustang herds long ago.
I was reminded of this fact today while out trimming Kate's feet. Kissin' Kate Barlow, our Sulphur herd Mustang has the most beautiful feet of any equine that I have ever examined. And they are hard as steel. It takes all my strength to cut through them with my long handled nippers, and the sharp teeth on my file feel like they are grabbing sheer substance as they bite the dense keratin of Kate's hooves.
But Nature didn't just give her a set of Mustang Steels to protect her life. Nature gave her works of art. Them's some beauts!
4 comments:
I hope you're not hanging any iron on those fine hooves???? but where's the mustang roll/?????
Nice feet :-) Nearly as perfect as mule feet! What are mustang mule feet like? Never seen one...
The only iron that ever touches that set of Mustang feet is the iron I trim her feet with and what ever she steps on around the neighborhood. :)
I've been hoping to see a good set of Mulestang feet in action, but I can't get her to conceive. My brother has a set of young ones. The seem pretty good!
Even after a good trim like that, I can lope her down a gravel road without a single hint of tenderness. My barefoot mules aren't that tough.
I usually put a roll on the front of her hooves, but wanted a photo that showed each structure and the evenness and symmetry of her hoof wall.
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