Between visits, the owner's job is three things and none of them involves a knife: inspect the foot daily and know what you are looking at, manage the ground the horse stands on, and keep a record so the farrier and the vet inherit information rather than guesses. Trimming, paring, rasping and opening any part of the hoof belong to a farrier or a veterinarian. UF/IFAS Extension puts the average hoof growth of a mature horse at three-eighths of an inch a month and schedules most horses for a farrier visit every five to eight weeks, which means the foot you inspect today is measurably different from the one your farrier last saw.
That is the whole job. What follows is what each part of it actually means.
Why the in-between period matters at all
A shoeing or trimming cycle is not a period in which nothing happens. UF/IFAS Extension's hoof care publication for Florida horses states that "for a mature horse, the average hoof growth per month is three-eighths inch" (UF/IFAS, Hoof Care for Florida Horses, VM265, read 2026-08-28). Over a six-week cycle that is a meaningful change in the shape of the foot, and it is happening while nobody is looking at it professionally.
There is measured work on what that change does. Leśniak, Williams, Kuznik and Douglas, in Animals 7(4): 29 (2017), photographed the feet of 26 riding school horses before and after farriery on a four to six week interval and found that even inside that shorter interval measurable changes occurred, including an average palmar shift in the center of pressure of 0.5 cm and alterations in hoof wall angles. Their conclusion was that "the results support regular (four to six week) farriery intervals for the optimal prevention of excess loading of palmar limb structures, reducing long-term injury risks through cumulative, excessive loading" (Leśniak et al., 2017, read 2026-08-28).
Read that carefully, because it is the one piece of hard evidence on this page. It is a study of 26 riding school horses, not a rule for yours, and it says that change is measurable inside a short cycle rather than that any particular cycle is correct. What it does establish is that "nothing happens between visits" is not true.
Job one: the daily inspection
Picking out feet is not cleaning. It is the daily physical examination of the part of the horse that carries all of him, and the cleaning is a side effect of getting a look.
What you are collecting, every day, is a comparison against yesterday and against the other three feet.
- Smell. UF/IFAS notes that thrush is "recognized by a strong odor during hoof cleaning." A foul smell coming out of the frog is information you get for free every day and only if you are close enough to notice.
- Heat, felt with the back of your hand at the coronet and the wall, compared with the other feet.
- Digital pulse, compared with the other feet. This is the single most useful thing an owner can learn to feel, and we cover it in how to find and feel a digital pulse.
- The shoe, if he wears them: is it tight, are clenches risen, is it shifted.
- The wall, for cracks and chips, and where they are.
- The sole and frog, for anything embedded, and for texture.
What you are not doing is deciding what any of it means. An owner's job at this point is to notice and report.
Job two: the ground he stands on
Most hoof problems that recur are environmental, and that is genuinely good news because the environment is the part you control.
UF/IFAS states that "overexposure to wet conditions can lead to hoof infections such as thrush and white line disease," and that while moisture is necessary for hoof quality, "excessive moisture can also lead to weakened hooves which will cause lameness."
The Merck Veterinary Manual's account of thrush lines up with that. It records that thrush "was associated with poor care of hooves and poor hygiene in stables, including infrequent hoof cleaning; irregular farrier care; and keeping the horse in moist, unhygienic conditions for extended periods of time," and adds that "lack of exercise is another proposed factor" (Merck Veterinary Manual, Thrush in Horses, read 2026-08-28).
Three of those four factors are yours: hoof cleaning, farrier scheduling, and the wetness and cleanliness of where he stands. The fourth, conformation, is not. Merck notes that "horses with deep sulci and narrow heels more commonly develop the disease, compared with horses that have wide heels and shallow sulci," which is a reason some horses need more of your attention than others and is not a failing on your part.
If you board rather than keep the horse at home, the ground he stands on is somebody else's decision, and it is one of the things worth asking about on a barn tour. We work through those questions in choosing a boarding barn, and what the different board levels actually include in full board versus pasture board.
Job three: the record
Your farrier sees the foot for an hour every six weeks. You see it every day. The gap between those two facts is where information gets lost, and a short written record closes it.
Worth writing down, per horse:
- The date of every farrier visit, and what was done.
- How the feet looked at the end of the cycle, in a sentence.
- Anything you noticed and when: a smell, a lost shoe, a stone bruise, a day he was footsore.
- The weather and the footing, roughly, because thrush and abscesses follow wet spells and the pattern only shows up over months.
This is the same discipline as the health log we describe in a per-horse health log your vet can actually use, and it works for the same reason: a single observation means very little and a series of them means a great deal.
What is not your job, stated plainly
Trimming, rasping, paring, cutting or opening any part of the hoof. Not the frog, not the sole, not the wall, not a crack, and not an abscess. That is a farrier's or a veterinarian's work and this site publishes no instruction for it.
Deciding what a finding means. A strong digital pulse, sudden severe lameness, heat in one foot, or a foul discharge are things you report, not things you interpret.
Treating with anything you have read about online. Several pages that rank for hoof problems publish specific antiseptic dilutions and household-chemical mixes. This site reproduces none of them. The concentration, the product and the protocol are your vet's or your farrier's to specify, for your horse.
The escalations that do not wait
Call the vet, not the farrier, and call now, if:
- The horse will not bear weight on a foot. The Merck Veterinary Manual notes that "a hoof abscess is the most common reason for a non-weight-bearing lameness in horses" (Merck, Hoof Abscesses in Horses, read 2026-08-28). Common does not mean minor, and it is not the only cause.
- Both front feet are sore at once, or the horse is standing with his forelimbs stretched out in front of him. Merck describes laminitis as "the inflammation and subsequent separation of the laminae of the hoof" and notes that "usually, both forefeet are affected" (Merck, Laminitis in Horses, read 2026-08-28). It is one of the conditions where the safe assumption is the worse one until a professional says otherwise.
- There is a strong, bounding digital pulse in one or more feet.
- Something is embedded in the foot. Do not pull it out and do not wait to see. Call.
Call the farrier, promptly but not as an emergency, for a lost or shifted shoe, risen clenches, a crack you have not seen before, or a foot that looks long to you.
FAQ
What is the owner's job with hooves between farrier visits?
Daily inspection, environmental management and record keeping. Not trimming. UF/IFAS puts average hoof growth for a mature horse at three-eighths of an inch a month and most horses on a five to eight week farrier schedule, so the foot changes measurably between visits and somebody has to be watching it.
How often should I pick out my horse's feet?
Daily is the standard advice and the reason is that picking out is the only time you get close enough to smell, feel and see the foot. Merck lists infrequent hoof cleaning among the historical associations with thrush.
Can I trim my own horse's hooves?
Nothing on this site tells you how, and this page does not treat it as an owner task. Trimming, paring and opening any part of the hoof is farrier or veterinary work.
How fast does a horse's hoof grow?
UF/IFAS Extension gives an average of three-eighths of an inch a month for a mature horse. Growth rate varies between horses and with the season, which is why the number is an average rather than a schedule.
Does wet ground really cause hoof problems?
UF/IFAS states that overexposure to wet conditions can lead to infections including thrush and white line disease, and that excessive moisture can weaken hooves. Merck lists moist, unhygienic conditions for extended periods among the associations with thrush. The environment is the part of this you control.
When do I call the vet rather than the farrier?
Any non-weight-bearing lameness, both front feet sore at once, a strong bounding digital pulse, or anything embedded in the foot. Those are veterinary calls and they are not calls to postpone.
Sources consulted: UF/IFAS Extension, "Hoof Care for Florida Horses" (VM265), read 2026-08-28, for the three-eighths inch per month growth figure, the five to eight week visit schedule and the moisture statements; Merck Veterinary Manual, "Thrush in Horses", "Hoof Abscesses in Horses" and "Laminitis in Horses", all read 2026-08-28; Leśniak K, Williams J, Kuznik K, Douglas P, "Does a 4-6 Week Shoeing Interval Promote Optimal Foot Balance in the Working Equine?", Animals 7(4): 29, 2017, read 2026-08-28, for the 26-horse sample and the 0.5 cm center-of-pressure finding. University of Minnesota Extension's hoof care pages returned HTTP 403 to our request on 2026-08-28 and are not cited; that is our retrieval failing rather than anything on their side. No figure on this page is ours. This site is not written by a veterinarian or a farrier, and nothing here is a diagnosis, a dose or a trimming instruction.