When using synthetic shoes with pour-in support, you might want to consider getting your mind in the gutter.

Scott Morrison of Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky., uses a product that’s designed to prevent debris from plugging up your gutters.

“We just staple some gutter guard onto the polyurethane shoe and trim the excess mesh to fit,” the International Equine Veterinarian Hall Of Fame member explained to attendees at the 2017 International Hoof-Care Summit. “Then you cut a little tab in the heel area and fold it over so you can glue it onto the foot. You just glue on the synthetic shoe, but you’ve got that gutter guard where you have the little tab, so you can get the glue wrapped around the heels and on the inside of the bar, which is an important area of attachment for the shoe. Once the glue sets up, you can fold the tab back and pour in the sole support material (Figure 1). It works pretty slick.”

There’s only one drawback, Morrison says.

“It’s just hard to get the sole pressure out from under the gutter guard,” he says. “Sometimes you have to cut a tongue depressor in half and reach up under there and try to clear the sole pressure away from underneath the gutter guard on the toe area of the shoe. That’s the only hard part.”

Watch a video of Morrison demonstrating the technique by visiting American Farriers Journal’s YouTube channel.