I bought my gelding, Zorro, the 24/7 Equine Fusion boots because he is having a hard time growing heel. He is such a mover and a shaker that he just needs a bit of protection while his hooves try to grow. Time will tell how well they hold up. I love the aggressive sole of this shoe and the leather uppers. They are very lightweight.
Gluing them on was a bit stressful… whenever there is glue involved I feel like I have one shot-just one chance to get things right- that is so stressful to me! But I did like how easy they make putting these shoes on. You just put glue on the leather uppers of the boots. Then you slide the hoof in and pull the zip ties to tighten it all up! Easy peasy!
To get started I cleaned up Zorro’s hooves. I picked them with a hoof pick and then scrubbed them with some water and a scrubby brush, followed by my little metal brush. Then I cleaned out the little bits that didn’t come out with all the scrubbing, around his frog. I didn’t want anything to be in there festering and creating thrush.
Once his feet were clean I went ahead and trimmed him up. I didn’t want to take off much foot because the whole idea behind this is to help him grow more foot. Also there wasn’t much to take off because he’s been wearing them off on the track all by himself-hence my problem. Zorro’s heels have been pulled forward and under his hoof for some time. I have been working diligently to get them to stand up straight and pull back under him.
24/7 Equine Fusion Boot
After trimming I tried the little shoes on. Each hoof needed a little of the flare removed in order to fit well. I also had to trim the tops of the little shoes down so they wouldn’t touch Zorro’s coronet band. The glue can be caustic and is not good for the skin.
Once I had them fitting well (and they were a perfect fit!) then I had to rough up his hoof wall a bit so the glue would stick. That was stressful. I’ve always been taught NOT to use the rasp on the hoof wall. After doing that I wiped his hooves down with some alcohol to be sure they were very clean for the glue.
Then came the mixing of the glue. It says in the directions that it has a processing time of 20-30 seconds and a curing time of 3 minutes. I found that the glue was stiffening in about 5 seconds! Eeek! I had to work so fast and went through more glue than I meant to. I just hope his left boot will stay on because I didn’t feel like I got enough glue on the boot. Time will tell!