'Barefoot diet'... advice please!

floradora09

floradora09

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In brief, we're going to take the shoes off my 16yo TB for a bit this winter to give his feet a break from shoes. I've bought and read 'Feet First' (very interesting read, and although I feel I understand the issues a lot more now, I also feel I have discovered how little I know!!) :eek:

In simple terms I've inferred that diet is key in how comfortable he will be without shoes, and that he needs a balanced diet, low in starch. This is where I've got stuck! At the moment he's having about 700g of Bailey's performance balancer a day, with a scoop of Alfa A Oil and the NAF Biotin supplement. (Balancer link here for nutritional analysis: http://www.baileyshorsefeeds.co.uk/whatproduct/condition/no19.htm )

Soo.. my questions to anyone brave enough to tackle them!

1) If I stick to feeding him the balancer, is he going to be receiving the correct levels of minerals? Noticed it doesn't contain Chromium, B-vitamins and Omega 3 or Magnesium... will I need to supplement these and if so, how much?

2) What are the recommended levels of all these minerals?!

3) If I feed the biotin will it be causing imbalances elsewhere?

4) In the winter he often requires a more calorific feed to keep condition on him, and usually I would use Bailey's no. 4
( http://www.baileyshorsefeeds.co.uk/whatproduct/condition/no4.htm ) but would the starch in here make him uncomfortable, or is it already sort of broken down due to being micronised? What else could I feed him for extra calories/condition?

Thank you! :)
 
Hi Floradora

I've read quite a lot on here about barefoot and I'm in a similar position to you as my mare is going to be going barefoot from Saturday as she was diagnosed with navicular today and I've read such fantastic stuff from people on here that I think it's the way to go.

Mine will be on Allen and Page Fast Fibre - she is a skinny TB and although she isn't a good doer, she has been on this for the past month and is glowing. There is a lot of fibre in it and it's low in starch. She is supplemented with micronised linseed with magox and brewers yeast. She has adlib haylage and daytime turnout.

I'm very lucky in that I phoned my farrier tonight about it and he was fully supportive of my decision to go barefoot....
 
Hiya mine are all barefoot,and compete at affiliated dressage and work 4 times a week

Lots of quality hay,as much as they will eat. No haylage

And half a scoop of slobber mash per day

That's all ours get and look great on it keep it as simple as possible if u can

They get carrots and apples in haynets as well,
 
My boys are barefoot, one only for last six months, they are fed readi grass and thunderbrooks pure essential base mix which has all the minerals etc,they need. One bag feeds 2 horses the maintenance rate for 6 weeks (2 meals a day) and my boys are over 500 and 600 kgs. And they have 4 sections of hay a night,occasionally apples and carrots as a treat. And they look fantastic, their feet are rock crunchers :)
 
Diet is obv most important, but different horses are more or less sensitive to how perfect the diet is! Some will be fed a 'bad' diet but do very well and show no niggles, but some will have a 99.9999% 'right' diet and still have issues!!

Your ideal diet will be the same healthy diet as for any horse, just having shoes off highlights any shortcomings in the diet. So, fibre being the basis, low sugar and starch of course. Added to that, magox will be required by most horses, microionized linseed is v useful - anything else is dependent on your grazing/hay. Low/no alfafa chaff without molasses, speedibeet is good (although high in calcium), fast fibre is ace too and gobbled up by even the fussiest horse! If your horse needs more cals then add extra microionized linseed, really brilliant stuff.

I would start with the above, ideally for a couple of months before shoes come off so your horse has a chance to improve his feet before having to actually use them!
If he isn't comfortable on the above diet, then it would be worth while having a forage analysis and feed plan done. Forage Plus do this - we have had ours done and found the results facinating! Our grazing is basically shite, so our girls are much better off on a mineral balanced diet, really glad we went for it, even though it isn't the cheapest feed option, it is def best!
 
I have had a feed plan done by www.forageplus.com and its pretty amazing. Almost too much information, however I now have a much clearer idea of where to go now and in the future will probably get my forage tested every year now - as it is almost impossible to guess what you need?
 
^^^ This.

The problem with balancers is that they are balanced to a horses requirements and make no allowances for its forage intake. if, as an example, you forage is high in iron and you feed a balancer you're then feeding too much iron which will then block the uptake of copper and zinc which are important for healthy hooves.

As said before a good start is low sugar / starch with the addition of magnesium oxide and micronised linseed. Lots of people have success feeding brewers yeast, yea-sacc or charcoal. There is some trial and error involved without forage analysis.

I've had my share of TB's (all ex racers) and have with some experimentation managed to keep them nicely covered over winter on a fibre only diet, its just a case of finding what works. :)
 
We're mineral balanced too - it has made a positive difference to my lad although he is still sensitive to spring/summer grass. We also have a feeding plan from Forage Plus

We feed:
Soaked hay (analysis was done post soaking!)
Grass - muzzled for summer turnout
Fast Fibre
Bran
Linseed
Bespoke mineral mix
 
All our horses are barefoot. They don't get special diets, in fact just basic grass, hay and haylage. We don't feed cereals if they don't need them because the horse is not evolved to eat large quantities of cereal. They do get salt and minerals ad lib in the field.

Why should one suppose that taking shoes off is going to have a detrimental effect on the quality of the horn? The hoof can function normally and healthily only without shoes on. Nor are we regularly compromising the qulaity of the hoof by sticking nail holes in every six weeks.
 
ThePony said:
Diet is obv most important, but different horses are more or less sensitive to how perfect the diet is! Some will be fed a 'bad' diet but do very well and show no niggles, but some will have a 99.9999% 'right' diet and still have issues!!

Your ideal diet will be the same healthy diet as for any horse, just having shoes off highlights any shortcomings in the diet. So, fibre being the basis, low sugar and starch of course. Added to that, magox will be required by most horses, microionized linseed is v useful - anything else is dependent on your grazing/hay. Low/no alfafa chaff without molasses, speedibeet is good (although high in calcium), fast fibre is ace too and gobbled up by even the fussiest horse! If your horse needs more cals then add extra microionized linseed, really brilliant stuff.

I would start with the above, ideally for a couple of months before shoes come off so your horse has a chance to improve his feet before having to actually use them!
If he isn't comfortable on the above diet, then it would be worth while having a forage analysis and feed plan done. Forage Plus do this - we have had ours done and found the results facinating! Our grazing is basically shite, so our girls are much better off on a mineral balanced diet, really glad we went for it, even though it isn't the cheapest feed option, it is def best!
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for the replies everyone, I can see that really it's best to keep it simple and play it by ear. :)

This I found particularly helpful.. but just a couple of questions- why no alfalfa? I always thought it was good for conditioning and contained antioxidants. Might look at swapping this for fast fibre, keeping him on the balancer and adding magox for now, then add micronised linseed if he's looking like he needs some extra calories! :)
 
Classicalfan - of course taking the shoes off wont be detrimental but if your horse has poor horn quality, taking the shoes off will soon highlight this and you find yourself having to deal with it.
I've got a barefoot tb and he is one of the sensitive souls and it took a bit of experimentation to see what worked.
He is fine with haylage and hay and gets a mixture ad lib.
He has minerals balanced to the forage, I'm another one whose grazing was so unbalanced that feeding a general mineral mix was pushing up some things I already had too much of and not enough of others.
For feed he gets Kwikbeet and Coolstance Copra. He can cope with Alfalfa though I'm not feeding atm. The Copra is high calorie so good for keeping weight on.
I add to this Linseed (more in the winter than the summer) and brewers yeast which has biotin as well as other B vitamims and yeasts that are good for the stomach. I ran out of the brewer's yeast over the summer and he had a bad patch. He starting improving within 3 days of starting him on it again.
You may have to experiment a bit to find what works.
 
Roughage, roughage and more roughage.
May seem a very boring diet to us but it is what equines are designed to eat.
We are lucky to keep all our barefoot horses out 24/7 with access to different types of forage for a bit of variety and a stock vitamin and mineral block available.
 
floradora09 said:
Thank you very much for the replies everyone, I can see that really it's best to keep it simple and play it by ear. :)

This I found particularly helpful.. but just a couple of questions- why no alfalfa? I always thought it was good for conditioning and contained antioxidants. Might look at swapping this for fast fibre, keeping him on the balancer and adding magox for now, then add micronised linseed if he's looking like he needs some extra calories! :)
Click to expand...

Hi,
Alfafa is best avoided as (like sugar beet) it is high in calcium - most UK grazing is also high in calcium so you are giving your horse a double wammy. Calcium throws out your calcium:magnesium:phosphorus ratios. Alfafa is also a legume which some horses stuggle to digest, this can lead to an acidic hind gut which can cause inflamation of the laminae - and so obv footyness also. Just easier to avoid some potential trouble spots where it is simple to do so.
 
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