How to Pick Up & Raise a Horse Hoof

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Kelli on behalf of Expert Village. I'm going to show you some techniques that I use to properly care for my horses feet. So, the first thing you'll want to do in order to ensure good hoof care,is you'll want to pick up the horses foot. So, we are just going to give her a little pet on the shoulder here to let her know that we are getting ready to move down her leg. So, I'm just going to run my hand down her leg. I'm going to, and she's really good at this, but we are just going to give her a little bit of squeeze at the fetlock which is the back portion of the leg here, so she will pick up. Now, if she was a little bit more difficult about it, what we might have to do is run our hand down the back of the leg and kind of literally push her on her shoulder. Lean my arm into her shoulder so she will pick it up. So that is one way if your horse is a little bit more difficult about picking up the foot. That's one technique that you can use to get them to understand what you are asking them to do. But, you want to make sure that you run your hand down the back of the leg so that they know what you are asking them to do. Give them a little squeeze at the fetlock. You can lean into their shoulder if you need to. And, when you move to the back feet you want to be a little more careful, because they are going to have more of a tendency to kick with this foot then they would with the front foot. We are just going to give her a little pat on her rump to let her know that we are here. We are going to run out hand down the back of the leg, give her a little squeeze and pick it up. We want to make sure that we stand good off to the side. We never want to stand too close or have our face directly over this in case she would happen to kick, because they have a lot more likelihood of kicking with that back foot. So, just be really cautious when you are picking up their feet, that you are being aware of that. So, that's how you would want to pick up your horses foot."