Although it's ideal to use boots when icing a horse's hooves, many other items around your home can be used such as jeans, plastic grocery bags and inner tubes from large truck tires.
Icing hooves during a bout of laminitis often does wonders for a horse. Yet, there are times when a hoof boot or sleeve to assist in cryotherapy isn't available. Don't let that stop you.
"There are no excuses," Raul Bras told attendees at the 2014 International Hoof-Care Summit in Cincinnati. "A lot of times people say, 'Well, I can't do this,' or 'I can't do that.' Yes, you can, if you want to."
The equine veterinarian and farrier at Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky., says he has seen some practical items that you can find around your home that can be used to facilitate the icing process.
"There are a lot of ways to ice a horse's feet," Bras says. "I had a client who went to her house and picked up her husband's jeans. She cut up the legs and tied them to the horse's feet and put ice in them. It worked out."
Some have used plastic grocery bags to ice hooves, while others have used an inner tube from a large truck tire. What creative methods have you used in your practice to ice hooves? Please share your icing method in the comment section below.
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