Barefoot horse doing more hacking

[PonyIAmNotFood]

Just a quick one, in people's experiences how long did it take for your horses hoof growth to catch up with an increase in hacking work load?

Horse in question has only really been properly working since last August and with the winter we've had and my working hours, she's not hacked much at all. Now it's lighter and I have a loaner, she's hacking more. All our routes have quite a bit of road work. She's generally rock crunching but does have pretty rubbishy hoof wall quality (which is improving with diet changes since I've had her, but obviously that still has to grow down from the top and we're currently on the rubbish wall at the moment).
So far no issues with the increased road work, however I have noticed the hoof wearing back. How long before her body clicks onto her increase of wear and compensates for it with increased growth?

 

[ponyparty]

I'm no expert but my understanding is that you're meant to build up time spent hacking on roads gradually - to go from not doing much, to doing lots, without a gradual increase over a few weeks, may result in soreness. Boot her up if necessary, for some of the hacks, until you're confident growth is matching wear?

 

[ester]

Is she doing more work or just more hacking because all work does tend to stimulate growth.

The thing with road wear is that often it is just wearing to where it should be but this might not be the case if your current hoof wall (ie what is hitting the ground) is poor. If she is comfortable though I wouldn't worry.

Regarding growth changes, I have more noticed them the other way round and it took about 3/4 months for them to slow down. When in work 6 days a week and hacking 20-30 miles a week I was trimming every 2-3 weeks. Now he hacks twice a week they go 6 weeks quite easily .

 

[PonyIAmNotFood]

Ponyparty, thanks, I was half thinking of boots, she's still comfortable at the moment though so don't know whether to go there just yet? The loaner took her for a 2 hour one the other day which once the road work was out of the way is on forgiving ground, but does take about 20 mins of road work there and back. I've been having her round the local estates for 30 mins to an hour once or twice a week for the past month or so, trying to build her up slowly ish within the limitations of the hacking round me.

Ester, she's had a general increase to about 6 days a week from about 4 days of a mix of schooling, lunging and jumping on a surface over winter (but periods of no work at all when everything was frozen), good to know that it all helps! She is fine at the mo, I think it's just worried me seeing her wearing them 😂 I like worrying 🙄 how interesting about what you found with the growth rate tho, I'll be happy if that happens after another month or so cause it will stop me fretting about wearing her away 🙊 my farrier is very pro barefoot, wouldn't shoe her the other week when I was worried about a crack that is growing down and asked about putting fronts on, so I'm sure he will keep an eye as well.

 

[ester]

We all are very good at worrying!

I would just pay attention to how she is the day after any longer hacks but if they aren't all on tarmac (much of mine were like that, lots of mixed surfaces) she may well cope fine. And if she doesn't get some boots . I have boots for Frank we used them for the first 6 months of transition because he was very flat soled and is still quite flat soled. Then we did a year without, then I moved him to wilts with much more challenging terrain, stoney tracks etc and would use them for some hacks, particularly if we had to keep up with someone else (he is slow anyway, and I like him to be able to take his time and pick around the worst bits) and after about 6 months we stopped using them again for the next 3 years other than if he was ridden the day after hunting (because he was much less careful about tough tracks when hunting) and when we went on holiday and I knew he'd have to do fair mileage on consecutive days. They are useful to have about .

 

[Boulty]

Not sure it has a set / specific timeframe but as long as you don't go from 4 or 5 miles a week to suddenly doing 30 or 40 or something ridiculous then you should be fine. I've had mine doing up to about 50 miles a week (mix of roads, tracks and grass... he likely could do further if I had the time to ride enough to make that happen) and never had issues as long as I built up to it over a few months (I tend to hang around 10-20 miles a week most of the year anyway aside from in horrendous weather). Mine does seem to have less excess wall when he's doing more miles but tbh his feet generally tend to look healthier for it and it's probably more where it needs to be. If you find you are having big increases in distance that aren't consistent then you could get some boots for just in case but if the horse is sound and coping then you likely won't need them and may as well let the roadwork do some trimming for you!

 

[PonyIAmNotFood]

Thank you all, reassuring!!

 

[Hack4fun]

I would ask your farrier/trimmer's opinion when they are next there.