“Of the 122 million equines found around the world, no more than 10 percent are clinically sound.
Some 10 percent (12.2 million) are clinically, completely and unusably lame.The remaining 80 percent (97.6 million) are somewhat lame, and could not pass a soundness evaluation test.”
- American Farriers Journal, Nov. 2002, v.26 #6, p.5.
This number is absolutely astounding. However, the more I read about hoof care (which I’ve been doing a bit of, lately), the more it seemly like this statistic might not be that unreasonable. (Basically, we do a really cruddy job of taking care of our horse’s feet. Many of our horsekeeping practices actually probably hurt our horses (and their feet) instead of helping them. But more on this at a later date.)
I keep seeing the statistic sited on barefoot trimming sites, but can’t find the article online. I’m off to the vet med library now to find the article, and will report back as to what I think from reading it.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Renae // Nov 15, 2008 at 6:36 pm
can you elaborate please?
2 ozvet // Dec 2, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Hi Renae,
I found the article mentioned in the quote, however, it was not very helpful. The quote comes from the magazine editor’s note at the beginning of the magazine and he is actually quoting someone else.
I was interested in knowing what their criteria was for “lameness” and what population of horses they were evaluating to obtain such a high statistic.
I’m going to try and see if I can find contact information for the person quoted in the article. If I can find anything more out, I’ll let you know.
Mary
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