Barefoot help please

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wish upon a star

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Hi

I'm after some help on the care of a barefoot horse please. I've read a lot on here about barefoot horses since acquiring my own but have some questions.

Diet: I've read that the diet should be low in sugar, high in forage, a vitamin supplement and linseed for barefoot horses. My horse is currently on a balancer and chop so what would you suggest to feed instead?

Exercise: We are currently starting to hack out and she is not foot sore but doesn't seem to stride out. We often get left behind on hacks with horses of the same size but keep up with ponies! Not sure if this is a schooling thing or would be helped with changing diet. If we trot she is sound and keeps up with the others so perhaps she just doesn't have a faster walk!

People have suggested putting front shoes on her but I am reluctant to try it as she does not appear to be sore and the farrier commented on how strong her hooves are and that he was happy to leave her barefoot. Wondering whether to try hoofboots to see if that's the problem or whether changing her diet to a barefoot friendly one would help.

Thank you
 
Cutting out as much sugar as you can from her diet is a good place to start. What chaff are you using? Is it molassed? Does it contain alfalfa? Alfalfa can make some horses footy and molasses should be avoided. Timothy chaff or oat straw chaff is fine, if your horse is OK with alfalfa, then Hi Fi Molasses free is a good option. I also feed oats, micronised linseed and unmolassed sugar beet (eg speedi beet).

Well thought of Vit&min supplements include Pro Earth's 'pro balance' and 'pro hoof' and the Forage Plus supplements.

Have you increased her work quickly? I have found that I needed to increase the distances of my hacks slowly.

You could try hoofboots, I've not used them myself but lots of people on here have with a lot of success, so they are definitely an option. :
 
It's not molassed oat straw and alfalfa. She isn't footy so should be ok with alfalfa then?
Thank you, will look at the supplements.
Hacks have probably been introduced a little quickly but she was working in the school fine. Hadn't thought of that so will reduce the length and allow her chance to adapt.
Thank you Faracat.
 
Check out your hay/haylage too and your grazing...these can all contribute to how well (or not) your hrse manages unshod.
 
The ginge in my pic is barefoot and has been so for about 6 years and I'm just transitioning my new horse at the moment. They are both fed speedibeet, hifi light and a mug of micronised linseed. I started with the new horse just walking in hand or under saddle 15 / 20 mins couple of times of week on flat tarmac and will build from there. Road work is fab for hardening their feet but you dont want to do too much too soon or they will get sore.
 
stilltrying said:
The ginge in my pic is barefoot and has been so for about 6 years and I'm just transitioning my new horse at the moment. They are both fed speedibeet, hifi light and a mug of micronised linseed. I started with the new horse just walking in hand or under saddle 15 / 20 mins couple of times of week on flat tarmac and will build from there. Road work is fab for hardening their feet but you dont want to do too much too soon or they will get sore.
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^this is good advice, you need to build up exercise with most horses, I would also add a tablespoon of salt per day.
 
The first thing is: you will constantly have other people telling you to put shoes on, ignore their advice and tell them the farrier is happy, you are happy and the horse is happy.

Second thing is: she may be unfit, or lazy, or dead slow and stop [her nature/ability], or lacking in dietary energy, less likely is that she has a veterinary issue.

Make sure she is getting enough food for the work she is doing and have a lesson with an instructor, if you have a light schooling whip you may need to train her to respond to your aids with this, nag nag nag with your legs will end up with her expecting this nag nag nag and she will appear lazy, she may be lazy, but if you can get her out of this habit you will both have more fun.

To explain diet: the horse needs fibre, this is the bulk of the stuff that goes through the gut, in UK it is hay or haylage and whatever is available in the field that provides most of the fibre. Hay/haylage and grass is known as forage.

The hard feed is the small feed we usually give our horses to give them a bit more energy, this is the opportunity to add vitamins and minerals because we will be asking them to do a bit more work than if they were wandering about in a field.

Now there are several ways to provide energy, and the most obvious is sugar/molasses, this is not good for your horse, so you must examine every feed to cut down sugars [chaff often has molasses, so find one that does not have any, if you want to feed it]. Chaff makes a pony slow down his eating and adds fibre.

Non molassed sugar beet needs to be soaked for about 15 mins and is a good source of fibre. The molassed sugar beet nuts are cheaper, but don't feed them to your pony!

Micronised Linseed meal is great for barefoot horses, it helps to improve skin, hoof and also provides energy which is slow release energy [unlike molasses]. It is cheap[ish] if you buy a sack, and it contains some fibre.

Notes on other feeds which sound great: Pasture Mix ........... usually not ideal when horse is at pasture! Happy/Healthy names, look at the ingredients before deciding. Competition mix ......... will not make your horse any better in competitions!

If you have the facility, you can walk for 15 mins on the road before schooling, and 15 mins walking on the road to cool down after exercise in the school. This will help fitness and strengthen limbs.

When hacking always walk out for ten mins and walk the last ten minutes. You need to make sure she is "striding out" as much as she can. Some horses prefer to slop along at the rear, so try her upfront and see how she goes, even if you have to put in a short trot when others are walking.
 
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If she isn't sore I would just suggest she is a slow walker, I have one ;). He is better when fitter/hunting/oated up ;).

Which balancer are you currently feeding, some are ok for barefooters, others aren't so optimal. I feed equimins advanced complete pellets which seem to work well for a few barefooters and works well if you don't want to feed a powder, have something a bit fussy (they stink but they seem to like them!) or want to bulk up feed to disguise a powder.

A lot of barefooters tend to feed straights. I stick to unmolassed sugar beet and then as required D+H just grass (mixed grass chop with no coating/preservatives) and rolled oats plus the obligatory linseed :).
 
ester said:
If she isn't sore I would just suggest she is a slow walker, I have one ;). He is better when fitter/hunting/oated up ;).

Which balancer are you currently feeding, some are ok for barefooters, others aren't so optimal. I feed equimins advanced complete pellets which seem to work well for a few barefooters and works well if you don't want to feed a powder, have something a bit fussy (they stink but they seem to like them!) or want to bulk up feed to disguise a powder.

A lot of barefooters tend to feed straights. I stick to unmolassed sugar beet and then as required D+H just grass (mixed grass chop with no coating/preservatives) and rolled oats plus the obligatory linseed :).
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Regarding the walking, the horse should not be footy on smooth tarmac with no gravel, therefore she should be walking at her "normal" pace. From what you have said, I don't think she is footy which would make her her slow, you would notice footiness if she suddenly slowed down when on hard/stone tracks.
Once you have determined her optimum feed, if you are doing a lot of work, ie over 7-10 hours per week, and she is short of energy, you can consider oats, these are the best cereal for barefoot horses, others are not advised.
If in doubt about footiness, having cut out molasses, cut out alfa.
 
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See, I was told a myth that when people took shoes off their horse was suddenly striding forwards with the new found freedom of barefoot.

My horse is as lazy as ever with no shoes on. Sometimes its hard to tell if he's footy all round all lazy! :rolleyes3:

Looking forward to competing this year properly barefoot, fingers crossed if his limbs stay in one piece, oh, and if I ahve time!
 
stencilface said:
See, I was told a myth that when people took shoes off their horse was suddenly striding forwards with the new found freedom of barefoot.

My horse is as lazy as ever with no shoes on. Sometimes its hard to tell if he's footy all round all lazy! :rolleyes3:

Looking forward to competing this year properly barefoot, fingers crossed if his limbs stay in one piece, oh, and if I ahve time!
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Also the horse may adjust itself, I know a horse that was barefoot and then shod [working in a trekking centre] she was what I would call "overconfident" striding out downhill on tarmac more than a normal horse. My own boy took quite a while to walk out on tarmac, seeming to find every piece of gravel [he had been ill though], after the second year he was totally rock crunching, though I had despaired of this happening and allowed him to pick his own track.
 
Oh yes, he's always been great going uphill - downhill less so. I think he got a bit of thrush recently too, so I'm cleaning as often as possible and he seems to be sound and happy again.

He's not keen on trotting downhill (if a cars coming etc and I want to give us more space to be seen) but then he's not keen on moving out of 'amble' anyway! :D
 
When we were transitioning I used to find a bit of grass verge/discover he walked slightly faster on the way home to check.

Frank certainly trots on the road a bit more 'protectively' than he did in shoes but that is fine by me (same if downhill). I had a lovely 5 mile hack back from hunting the other week - I wished he walked like that on the way there/the rest of the time. It is why I find him infuriating as he can, he just prefers not to!
 
Thanks everyone.
Bonkers, your first piece of advise is the reassurance I needed! Thank you, all your advice is very helpful.
Whenever I give her a nudge she goes straight into trot so perhaps she just hasn't found a faster walk when hacking so hopefully a schooling issue and not soreness. The chaff is topspecs topchop lite which is supposedly unmollassed and she needs something to slow her down eating. I will definitely do some road work before and after schooling as she gets bored warming up/cooling down in the school as she has the attention span of a gnat at a push!
Hacks are pretty much all walk work at the minute apart from when she thinks I'm asking for a trot so she gets a few strides in. I tried her at the front yesterday for a little bit and she did pick up speed slightly so interesting that you say that too.

Maybe she is just a slow walker Ester, it's just a little frustrating when she has such long legs but walks at snail pace! She is on the topspec balancer, not sure if that's good for barefooters but it contains biotin which I believe is good for hoof health? Thanks, so many brands to look at here! Think sugar beet is popular though and a pure grass chop sounds ideal.
 
Frank is better in front too :) he shuts off a bit behind. I think the topspec lite is probably fine - I think anecdotally people have found that their horses sometimes are a bit footy on topspec stuff but if she isn't struggling ;). Biotin is important for feet but I think not as important as it was perhaps previously thought.

A grass chop is higher in energy than a straw mix one but I feed very little by weight so don't worry too much and obviously have a horse currently in pretty hard work (for the middle of winter anyway!)
 
I suspect she has been allowed to amble along previously, but if you "ride" her rather than sit as a passenger she will probably get the message, she actually sounds rather nice.
I think biotin is manufactured in the gut of the horse provided he has a good diet, [ minerals and linseed again]
Re walking faster, try using a verbal command, "walk on", light squeeze, don't gather reins, don't let her trot, "walk on", give her a pat when she does it, she has probably learned bad habits previously.
 
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I can fully recommend the pro balance from progressive earth, mine seems to go footy without it now! They also send you chocolate bars in the delivery, which never fails to cheer me up! I just spent £150 with them, probalance, yea sacc and spearmint and that should nearly last me til christmas :)
 
Ok so if I carry on with the chop she has for now, running low on balancer anyway and start introducing microninised linseed and a supplement, possibly the pro balance. Should I give her the sugar beet too? She's only really in light work at the moment so that's possibly a little excessive?

Will keep trying to encourage her to walk on but will feel better asking for this when her diet is better and hopefully she's comfier, if that's the problem. She is a good horse and very willing but wouldn't want to push her if she is a little sore.

Apparently there was a little bit of heat in one hoof this morning but no lameness, the farrier is coming soon though so hopefully it's nothing sinister and maybe just because of the frozen ground and her galloping on it :/
 
Yes, give her a bit of soaked non molassed beet, she will need this to carry the minerals [introduce over a week] and the linseed, it is fairly inexpensive and will give her another source of fibre, I also used chaff [non molassed] for this reason too.
The non molassed sugar beet is not going to put weight on or anything, it is fairly plain.
 
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It sounds like she might be landing toe first if she is short striding. If she is, I would try boots and pads and check there isn't any thrush (you can spray some purple spray or iodine in the central sulcus if it's black or smelly or suspiciously deep). Her heels will need time to strengthen if she has been in shoes for a while.
You are right that she might be a bit sore, either in her feet or in her muscles if she is holding herself differently. Horses will tend to land more toe first going uphill and more heel first going downhill so better to check on a flat surface.
I would say there is no need for beet if she eats the minerals with the chaff alone.
 
I will have a look how she walks tonight. Her frog seems healthy and normal with no smell. She hasn't been shod for a long time, think she had fronts on once, not last summer the summer before and has been barefoot since but I have just taken her on after a period of little work.

The farrier is coming next week to trim her hooves so will ask his opinion. The hoof pastern angle is still fine but would like him just to check and then get a vet if he is uncertain of anything.
 
I found that after a while I did not need any trimming, but I manged the feet, with plenty of waliking on tarmac in winter.
One reason I kept to several feeds was variety for horse, but if I ran out of one, he could still get his feed every day.
 
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