Barefoot help

BDyasmine

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2 June 2011
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on vets advice my horse is being turned away for the summer due to an arthroscopy she had earlier in the year. for a variety of reasons we had her shoes taken off, and she has always had very good feet and the farrier said there should be no problem. she doesnt seem at all foot sore, however her front feet in particular have become very cracked, and I was wondering what people with barefoot horses do to maintain hoof health?
she is an incredibly fussy eater and as of yet I have never been able to get her to eat any supplement or medication, so perhaps ointments etc would be more useful?
thanks :)
 
ditto the above. You will probably find that being barefoot, her feet grow far quicker than they do when they are shod. I feed micronized linseed and non-mollassed grass chaff together with various supplements but keeping the sugar and starch levels down is key to good hoof health.
 
For want of a better way to put it, I take the edges off so they stay tidy and do not spread the cracks.

A hoof supplemt is good, I use Pro Hoof, but when my horse is really fat and not on hard feed we switch to Farrier's Formula or similar they are like pony nuts and are fed as a hand treat ;-)
 
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