Any recommendations for good hoof supplement?

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Christmas Crumpet

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Farrier has suggested using a hoof supplement to get some growth on pony's feet but not sure which one to use. I did use Kevin Bacon with my old TB but not sure there was that much growth so I would rather use one that other people have had results with.

She is fed sugar beet, conditioning cubes & molichaff at present which suits her workload for hunting.

However, she will have her shoes taken off at the beginning of March for a 6 month holiday and to give her feet a rest.

Hopefully by taking them off in March, the ground will still be soft enough that her feet adjust gently to being shoeless.

I am interested in feeding her a barefoot diet but am not sure whether it would be sensible to do this whilst she is still hunting.

Any thoughts gratefully received.
 
Farriers formula always has worked for me , I am using pro hoof on one ATM it gets rave reviews on here but I'm yet see much difference .
The difference in the feet of my TB who is on Farriers Formula is easily visible.
I do think that with these things what works on one horse in the situation it lives in ,won't necessarily work on another horse living some where else and eating another diet.
If you are thinking of BF at the end of the hunting season you right to be looking at making changes now there are loads of Bf diet threads on here have a search about.
 
I would recommend pro hoof. However, no amount of minerals will make up for the amount of sugar and starch in that diet, I'm afraid :o. NSCs are the enemy of feet. For hoof health it would be advisable to switch your feeds to ones high in fibre, and supply calories in the form of oil instead of NSCs.
 
TwoTurtleDoves - please can you elaborate further. What are NSC's? Forgive me for being thick but don't have a clue what they are.

What would you feed a horse that is hunting twice a week instead?
 
OK - non structural carbohydrates.

So I'm looking to feed high fibre/low sugar feed. To make the transition gently, I can swap sugarbeet for unmolassed sugarbeet, molichaff to unmolassed chaff and conditioning cubes to high fibre cubes/nuts.

Biotin/Magnesium oxide also suggested?
 
carolineb said:
TwoTurtleDoves - please can you elaborate further. What are NSC's? Forgive me for being thick but don't have a clue what they are.

What would you feed a horse that is hunting twice a week instead?
Click to expand...

Sorry, NSCs are non-structural carbohydrates (combined sugar and starch, basically). In your position I would probably start with a base of speedibeet (which has a similar energy content to most conditioning cubes whilst being low in sugar and virtually nil starch). To that I'd add micronised linseed, and if more is needed then I'd go with oats - they're the best tolerated of the cereals. Many people also have success with rice bran, so that's an option too. If you want to add a chaff, look for one that is unmolassed.

That in combination with ad lib forage should be a diet with sufficient calories for hunting, whilst also being healthy for the horse :).

ETA: crossposted! Yep, sounds good, but I'd add the linseed in order to make sure he's got enough fuel in the tank for hunting. Mag ox is good - biotin not strictly necessary, but can be helpful for very compromised feet. Pro Hoof contains both of these, among other things.
 
NSCs are non structural carbohydrates.

This article explains the thinking better than I could. http://www.hoofrehab.com/diet.htm

If you want to learn more about grass and hay then check out the Kathryn Watts link. Horses get most of their nutrients and NSCs from grass and hay.

It's not just about a good supplement it's about the whole diet and exercize/management. Second pro hoof or one of the Forage Plus balancers.
 
What you need is a balanced diet - no supplement balances all diets and most that claim to be complete are not.

A nutritionist can do it or google "as fed analysis", look at NRC requirements and work it out with a pen and paper or there are online nutrition programs which make it easy. Once you have the basics sort then therapudic doses may be worth considering if you don't get results from a balance diet.

Vits and minerals interact so you need the balance right for the horse to make use of them.
 
Maccachic, whilst I don't disagree, for that you would need to know the nutrients being gained from forage, as that is where the bulk of them will come from. Products like pro hoof and the forage plus balancers were created specifically to balance typical uk forage and grazing, but to be any more precise you would need to have an analysis done on grass and forage.
 
Analysis on hay and grass is relativly cheap and I think you will find typical UK grass doesn't exist except in Marketing material.

It depends on a whole range of factors and to call grass spread across a country with different conditions and fertilisers program, grass regimes etc typical is misleading.

Those two supplements may well be suitable but what I have found by actually working it out is that a lot are not 100% complete or even close to it. Marketing seems to talk a lot of stuff up.
 
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