Cytek or natural balance shoes

[makoiyi]

Does anyone have any first hand experience with either of these methods of shoeing? My farrier uses Cyteks but I've hear such varying opinions on them I am uncertain whether to use them when it comes time to have my horse shod

Comments

[chiere]

I have no advice as I've never tried them but after checking out the web site, I can see where their arguments make sense,... My observation is that I'll bet it isn't popular with the halter group as it says it helps with a more natural alignment, which isn't the straight line down that most halter folks are breeding for.

[gemmabowles]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[foalstory]

my farrier used natural balance shoes on my horses for a number of years, simply because they were short backed and needed to 'break over' faster to get the front legs out of the way! we didn't square the toes as much as let them hang over a tad, but with the hinds, that meant if he hit himself, it was with hoof, not steel. much better. aaaanyhow, never any issues with them, BUT this was a farrier using a tool for his own use. He didn't do the full 'subscribe to natural balance' thing where people blindly follow 'one' system just because it's all they know.

[littlefoot82]

The natural balance shoes worked very well on my old mare, who'd had bacterial laminitis and consequently had a very wonky foot with minor coffin bone rotation. (I'd post pictures, but they were all lost in the Great Hard Drive Crash of 2010.) Anyway, the one foot was very misshapen, and the natural balance shoes gave her more support because of the way the toe part was shaped.

We had a couple others who went in and out of the natural balance shoes, generally the steel ones instead of the aluminums. My farrier believes in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," but for the horses who got a little bit foot sore in the summer (we were on very hard clay), or something, using the NBs for a couple of cycles seemed to help. Never put them on the hind feet, just the front.

[glenatron]

I met Troy Kerr, one of the guys who designed the Natural Balance programme a while back and although I don't know much about shoes I thought the process made sense and one thing that is really important as far as I'm concerned is that the trim they do before the shoe goes on is a good trim. As I recall the aim is to have a foot that would be sound if the shoe wasn't present before fitting the shoe. They also seemed to have a focus on avoiding the heels getting too long, which should certainly improve soundness and the horse's way of going.

The thing is that certainly round our way there are some Natural Balance farriers who don't necessarily do a great job. Tory certainly did, and the principles are absolutely sound, but then it comes down to how well executed they are by the person on the ground and that's always the tricky part.