Barefoot diet for a backwards weight needing tb

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toomanyhorses26

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My tb has been and had his mri which wasn't the best news ever but we are cracking on and I am trying to formulate a plan which will hopefully get him back ridden. I have had some awesome advice on here from some lovely people but I keep coming back to the fact his diet doesn't seem right for either making the transition to barefoot or improving what he has with shoes.

He is a big rangy horse who struggles to hold weight most of the year apart from when the spring grass/sunshine comes through. He looks good at the moment and would like to get a balance of the weight,sparkle (I show him ) and doing the right thing by his feet.

When in full work he has traditionally been fed endur0 100,micronized barley and alfa a molasses free but we did have a dabble with straights (oats,barley,fast fibre,alfa a free and linseed which also seemed to work well. Since the lameness hit I switched back to a complete food as such as the straights seemed to boil his brain with doing no work so he is currently on show improver pencils,high fibre pencils,fast fibre and alfa a free. He eats 8-10kg of hay a night and is out on average grazing

SAny advice would be much appreciated
 
Is he turned out?

There is nothing better than good old grass and rest for some horses. Any stress that he feels will not help him gain any weight.

Could you turn away and let him rest for a while. It will do him good and you should see an improvement.

It does sound as if he is getting an overload of starch which will do nothing for his digestive system or weight if he fizzes up on it. Stick to high quantities of fibre based feeds and high fat diet instead of a high carb one.
 
I have a barefoot horse that is a poor doer. Nikimariet's fig is barefoot and she has some interesting experiences trying to find a feed that gives him enough energy for his work without compromising his feet or sending him loopy. Princesssparkle's CS is a barefoot tb in hard work too. Would be worth checking out their posts.

Anyway, mine isn't in quite as hard work as CS and Fig. She schools or hacks 6 days a week. She gets pro hoof to give her the vitamin and mineral balance she needs. Then micronised linseed for weight (it is good for the coat and omega oils too) I can easily increase the quantity she has of this if she looks a little light. I add salt and mix it all together with speedibeet as a carrier. If she needs more weight I add more beet.

This worked really well over winter together with epic quantities of haylage and she held her weight better than on specific conditioning feeds. She has gone a bit fussy since the grass has come through though so I am adding chaff to encourage her to eat.

If you find there isn't enough energy in a diet like this you could add oats which are barefoot safe.
 
Earlier this spring I put my skinny TB on a diet of half a scoop of oats, a mug of micro linseed, a mug of full fat soya, a mug of equijewel. He got that twice a day with some fast fibre, salt, Forage Plus hoof health balancer and yea sacc/brewers yeast.

After two weeks I had to stop it as I was worried he might pop :eek:. My good doer also put on weight from hoovering up the crumbs :rollseyes:. On the plus side, I won't have to buy any feed for a while now!

I really rate the forage plus hoof health balancer though, smashing stuff.
 
awesome thank you ladies - think I just need to think outside my little box so to speak :) I have oats so we can do that already. I have ordered a hoof specific supplement - one that I read good reviews on here (name escapes me at present ) so hopefully we are on our way to better things
 
What you're feeding isn't a barefoot diet at all so it's no wonder he's going lame. You're feeding far too much starchy feeds. Here is a list of barefoot friendly feeds that also are great weight gainers.. Linseed meal, Coolstance Copra, UNmollassed sugar beet...although this one is still hotly debated in the barefoot community, Thunderbrooks base mix, Black oil sunflower seeds, germinating oats. Alfalfa is very controversial as it makes a lot of barefooters footy also. Ryegrass is also a big no no, if you can get hold of some Timothy hay then get this and make your own chaff with it to mix with your feed. Good luck and hope you get your boy sorted :)
 
His feet had never been an issue until the last 8 weeks when he has been intermittently lame and the mri discovered his issues - this is all brand new to me and tbh I know now this isn't a barefoot diet even though on the surface it has worked well for him up until this point hence my questions. I want to do the best by my horse has having to retire both in the space of two weeks isn't something I want to contemplate at this point. My reasons for asking is I want him to feel well at the same time aas having good/better quality horn/feet
 
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