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What is the best way to remove overreach/bell boots from a horse2007-11-24 21:19:15

I work on a yard and recently a few horses have been wearing overreach boots when they are turned out. We have some pairs that have velcro and so are easy to remove but most are those that are made from one piece of rubber so must be pulled off over the hoof. I find them really difficult to remove and yesterday scraped two fingers on a horse's shoe. I don't have any choice about which sorts of boots are worn so can't change this but are there any tips and tricks for getting these boots off easily?

Answers:

a good tip is to put them in hot water before putting them on ,and it softens the rubber ,making it easy to pull them off,the second thing is to put hoof oil on the over reach boot before removing and turn it inside out and pull,these methods work well with my eventers who are always turned out in over reach boots

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Turn them inside out, so they are flipped up and pull the rim and then just slide them off

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cut them off and then tell the owner that the horse keeps loosing them in the field.

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The best way to get pull on boots off is to take a hoofpick (one of those without a brush on it) and hook it over the top of the boot. Pull the boot off. The hoofpick will save your fingers and make it much easier to take the bell boots off (I hate these kind of bell boots).

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Get the yard owner to buy Velcro ones for all the horses, the pull on ones are so dangerous! They only wear them if they overreach, the boots won't top that, just protects the heels. Velcro boots will come off quickly in an emergency whereas the pull no ones will stay put - and could cause a lot of problems.

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get someone else to do it theyre a pain specially if the feet are wet and muddy, way i found best wash off legs if dirty, rest foot on or between your legs like the farrier does, slip two fingers in the gap between the fetlock and the boot just above the clefts of the frog(so you dont catch your hand on the shoe) and pull, if the horses leg is supported you will have two hands to pull with and so you can also try pulling the boot out of the hoof witth both hand s and slip it off like that, for real tight buggers, vaseline on the boot and baler twine round the boot to pull on ,