Barefoot - nutrition, nutrition, nutrition and WORK

cptrayes said:
Chestnut cob I think they call a slope of 1 in 5 with a carpet on it an artificial ski slope :) :) :) ???
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The world's first skiing horses! You can make a fortune by showing them off! ;)


On the trimming issue, if you plan to do plenty of roadwork (brilliant idea, great for conditioning) the odds are that he will not need trimming at all, never mind more often.
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Shows how little I know about it all! I don't think I am going to be very good at this "horse having no shoes" lark!
 
cptrayes said:
Do his frogs touch the floor? I know of a TB who improved overnight when her underrun heels were brought back so her frog was in contact with the floor. She had been barefoot a year as well, and sounds very similar to yours.
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Now this has really caught my attention... the reason my farrier says my horse will never be sound in front without shoes is purely for the above reason, that his frogs touch the floor when he doesn't have shoes on. When I got him, he had wide feet that were too long with quite under-run heels - you know when people think a big horse should have huge feet as well? Moved him up here and started using my current farrier and his feet are a far better shape now but farrier is convinced that because his frogs touch the floor when he takes shoes off (to put a new set on), he is always going to be sore...

I would be really interested in opinions on this (and again, apologies for hijacking your post but I think people are bored of me starting my own threads to ask stupid questions about this topic! ;) ) :)
 
Its my tb mare that Cptrayes is refering to I think :) when her frogs were first lowered she walked off much more heel first than she had in a long time. To start with she did feel stones more but after about a week her frogs had started to calouse and thicken up more.
 
cptrayes said:
Do his frogs touch the floor? I know of a TB who improved overnight when her underrun heels were brought back so her frog was in contact with the floor. She had been barefoot a year as well, and sounds very similar to yours.

With a contracted heel and small frog it might be impossible to achieve that with your horse, and in that situation, though it's something I have never recommended before, I wonder if work in boots and pads would provide enough stimulation to the back of the foot to kick-start some improvement?
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He worked in boots and pads all last summer - he goes really well in them, but they didn't make any difference to his foot shape. I will have a good look at his frog/heel relationship. It used to be that when his heels were shortened, he went footsore on hard surfaces (the road), but perhaps with the 'new' hoof + thrush treatment I could lower the heels more now.... definitely food for thought!
 
cptrayes said:
I would never turn out in hoof boots, personally, due to the risk of severe rubbing. But like others, I have never had a horse unsound in boots and have been able to keep up a totally normal workload with horses who are still quite sensitive on concrete without them on.

Any movement seems to help, no matter what the surface. Even on squishy mud I guess the blood is still being stirred.

Chestnut cob I live at 1100 feet in the Peaks. My pea gravel arena was frozen solid. My wood fibre surface inside a barn was frozen solid. My whole world was frozen solid, including my fingers and toes most of the time :)

Catch 22 of course was that the lorry was impossible to take out on the hills so I didn't even have an option to drive him anywhere else. I have no idea what I'll do next time it happens :(
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Tbh, saying he is 'lame' probably overstates the problem - he is pretty ouchy when trotted up on concrete (which I would expect at this stage) and he is also not 100% in walk on a circle in the arena. And it is definitely just bruising, vet has confirmed. He is, however, uncomfortable - which is making him less inclined to move around his field. I have been leading him out on a woodchip track inhand, which he is ok with in his boots, so guess I will continue with this for a while and have to just do what he can manage. The farrier left his feet in such a state it is not surprising it's going to take a long time for them to recover.
 
soloequestrian said:
He worked in boots and pads all last summer - he goes really well in them, but they didn't make any difference to his foot shape. I will have a good look at his frog/heel relationship. It used to be that when his heels were shortened, he went footsore on hard surfaces (the road), but perhaps with the 'new' hoof + thrush treatment I could lower the heels more now.... definitely food for thought!
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My trimmer recommends Red Horse Products for thrush - they have worked wonders in clearing up my horse's deep central sulcus thrush and other people on my yard have started using them too with success. :)
 
soloequestrian said:
He worked in boots and pads all last summer - he goes really well in them, but they didn't make any difference to his foot shape. I will have a good look at his frog/heel relationship. It used to be that when his heels were shortened, he went footsore on hard surfaces (the road), but perhaps with the 'new' hoof + thrush treatment I could lower the heels more now.... definitely food for thought!
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Well you certainly have an interesting problem! I wonder what his issues are ....... Anyone else any more suggestions??

I'm not sure if you have said whether you are aware of any mineral imbalances in your area? My friend's horses never did as well as mine until I realised that she was on a deeper water source than me and that meant her horses had much greater exposure to the excess of manganese and iron there is in our area. She supplements now with a half dose of Copper Trition and her horses are rock crunching and the trickiest one is much better able to eat grass (copper is used for insulin regulation).
 
soloequestrian said:
I've been reading this with interest, and would really like some opinions:
I have three barefoot. One (TBxWelsh) has excellent feet - good frog, concavity, really strong digital cushion, would gallop over flints if he was allowed; one (TBxdraught I think) has good feet - similar to the first; the third (full TB) has been bare for seven years now, on exactly the same management as the other two, and while he has excellent back feet, his fronts are baffling me. They are pretty flat, the frog is small, the heels are contracted and will run-under if they're given the chance to, and his digital cushion is pathetic. He also has a broken-back hoof pastern axis. He has been on the barefoot mix for well over a year now, and also has copper and zinc supplementation in line with the forage analysis I had. His horn quality and the amount of flare have improved with the mix, and the hoof angle is slightly better, but he has a full 'new' hoof now and I was expecting more change. He is sound and happy, and actually hacked out for 90mins in the forest with no boots at the weekend, but he isn't as confident over stones as the other two, and I would love to get him as good as them but I'm running out of ideas. He has a heel first landing, he isn't stressed, he is on grass in the summer but shows no change summer to winter, and doesn't have any of the other symptoms that seem to be associated with grass intolerance. He is slim build and doesn't put weight on easily. He has been treated for thrush, which seemed to make him marginally more confident, but didn't result in any visible changes. I'm fairly sure there are no trimming issues.
Is there anything else anyone can think of that I can do, or do I just accept that he has rubbish feet and will probably need boots for some of his work forever?
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To answer your final paragraph I think the answer could be yes as I think it is going to take a while to work out the problem. I have been dealing with one of ours who has been in boots since 1994 as I struggle to find the answer. Only difference is that mine has a good size frog, is not underrun, the digital cushion is reasonable and he has no contraction. It is not easy! :D


The things that jump out from your post are you say the amount of flare has improved and the hoof angle is slightly better. That seems to suggest room for improvement. Also the thrush. Can you be absolutely positive about the sugar situation? That would be one of my starting points. If he was mine I would keep him completely off grass for 2 weeks and see if there was any improvement over stones.
The other thing I would do (which you might not think easy if the foot underuns) is to stop trimming. Just work on the thrush but leave the foot strictly alone for a couple of months and see what happens.
I have a pasture pet with feet exactly as you describe. I could never improve the feet (part of which is dietry) and I stopped trimming for a while. Suprisingly the feet did not go running off forward as I had feared and it improved his comfort levels considerably when he was able to do what he wanted with his feet.

Chestnut cob: how you considered reading www.hoofrehab.com? If you go on there and call up the articles you will find lots to keep you busy and there is in particular an article on frogs and ground contact. Enjoy :D
 
cptrayes said:
I'm not sure if you have said whether you are aware of any mineral imbalances in your area? My friend's horses never did as well as mine until I realised that she was on a deeper water source than me and that meant her horses had much greater exposure to the excess of manganese and iron there is in our area. She supplements now with a half dose of Copper Trition and her horses are rock crunching and the trickiest one is much better able to eat grass (copper is used for insulin regulation).
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I had mineral analyses done of both haylage and grass last year, and they all now get copper and zinc. They don't get seaweed as we have high iodine and iron. I didn't notice any difference when I started these mineral supplements, in contrast to when I started the mag ox etc. The other thing my problem boy gets is little scabby bits around the back of his coronets. I hoped the minerals might help with that, but no luck so far. He also had a liver function test last year because he has photosensitivity, but it came back all clear.

paddy555 said:
The things that jump out from your post are you say the amount of flare has improved and the hoof angle is slightly better. That seems to suggest room for improvement. Also the thrush. Can you be absolutely positive about the sugar situation? That would be one of my starting points. If he was mine I would keep him completely off grass for 2 weeks and see if there was any improvement over stones.
The other thing I would do (which you might not think easy if the foot underuns) is to stop trimming. Just work on the thrush but leave the foot strictly alone for a couple of months and see what happens.
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He had about six weeks this winter when there was no grass at all as it was under several feet of snow, and there was no noticable difference between that and mid-summer. I do keep wondering about the sugar thing, but I would really expect a change in winter if it was that? He gets one feed a day of speedibeet, Alpha-A oil and a scoop of oats.
He doesn't actually have any symptoms of thrush, other than a narrow raggedy frog. I treated him anyway, and I think it made a slight difference to his stride, so there may have been something there, but it's not obvious. I can prod around the back of his frog with a hoof-pick or a horseshoe nail and it really doesn't bother him.

One other thing about him that I often think might be connected to the feet is that he has some muscle wastage in his wither area. I work with BALANCE, the saddle people, and he has had one of their saddles for the past seven years but hasn't shown a huge improvement there either. He's not uncomfortable, just doesn't seem to want to CHANGE! Drives me a bit nuts sometimes! The other two have lovely, rounded, healthy backs to go with their healthy feet!
 
cptrayes, thanks for the info, that's really interesting!

I would say I am still relatively new to owning a 'barefoot' horse, and since she is only 3 I obviously haven't yet seen what happens to her feet once she is in full work. I will keep this in mind when we start doing a bit more.

:-)

Vel xx
 
soloequestrian said:
I had mineral analyses done of both haylage and grass last year, and they all now get copper and zinc. They don't get seaweed as we have high iodine and iron. I didn't notice any difference when I started these mineral supplements, in contrast to when I started the mag ox etc. The other thing my problem boy gets is little scabby bits around the back of his coronets. I hoped the minerals might help with that, but no luck so far. He also had a liver function test last year because he has photosensitivity, but it came back all clear.



He had about six weeks this winter when there was no grass at all as it was under several feet of snow, and there was no noticable difference between that and mid-summer. I do keep wondering about the sugar thing, but I would really expect a change in winter if it was that? He gets one feed a day of speedibeet, Alpha-A oil and a scoop of oats.
He doesn't actually have any symptoms of thrush, other than a narrow raggedy frog. I treated him anyway, and I think it made a slight difference to his stride, so there may have been something there, but it's not obvious. I can prod around the back of his frog with a hoof-pick or a horseshoe nail and it really doesn't bother him.

One other thing about him that I often think might be connected to the feet is that he has some muscle wastage in his wither area. I work with BALANCE, the saddle people, and he has had one of their saddles for the past seven years but hasn't shown a huge improvement there either. He's not uncomfortable, just doesn't seem to want to CHANGE! Drives me a bit nuts sometimes! The other two have lovely, rounded, healthy backs to go with their healthy feet!
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by alpha a oil I presume you mean bags of dengie alfalfa (not bottles of oil) in which case I can only say that alfalfa has caused footiness in some horses and is worth testing for by elimination etc if you have not already tried. Alfalfa pellets don't seem to cause as much trouble.
Presumably under several feet of snow he ate something else? hay? horsehage?
have you considered a chiropractor? A friend's horse had a front foot that continually ran forward. Strangely since the chiro treatment it has improved by a good 50/60%. The problems the chiro found were minor compared to the apparent improvement to the foot and the horse didn't appear uncomfortable. Just a thought
 
paddy555 said:
by alpha a oil I presume you mean bags of dengie alfalfa (not bottles of oil) in which case I can only say that alfalfa has caused footiness in some horses and is worth testing for by elimination etc if you have not already tried. Alfalfa pellets don't seem to cause as much trouble.
Presumably under several feet of snow he ate something else? hay? horsehage?
have you considered a chiropractor? A friend's horse had a front foot that continually ran forward. Strangely since the chiro treatment it has improved by a good 50/60%. The problems the chiro found were minor compared to the apparent improvement to the foot and the horse didn't appear uncomfortable. Just a thought
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I'm reasonably confident that the problems aren't food based - having had him for seven years, and known him for about four before that, he has had a variety of different things to eat and has never shown any particular reaction to any of them. He is on haylage at the moment, which in theory has all the soluable carbohydrate fermented out of it.
I'll have a think about bodywork too - it's been at the back of my mind for a while, but I keep coming up with other things to fix first. This time I might try aggressively treating for thrush while lowering his heels and see if stimulation of the frog helps things.
 
chestnut cob said:
So if I take the backs off in Feb and leave him shod in front, should I be considering boots for the backs? The majority of our hacking is on smooth tarmac roads so I am hoping he will be OK more or less immediately without shoes behind. Most off road hacking I have access to is on grass or tracks and I'd be unlikely to do those straight away as I have to hack for about 1hr 15 mins to even get to a 1 mile stretch of bridleway. My Welsh cob went without shoes behind for a long time and I never even thought about it, just cracked on as normal. I am hoping this horse will be the same - very much hoping!!




I have been told to expect my horse will need to be trimmed more regularly than he would need to be shod, if he's working without shoes, because the hoof should grow more. I find it fascinating to see photos of how horse's feet change when they come out of shoes, or in a situation like you describe. The difficult thing for me will be balancing work to stimulate the hoof growth with not working him too much so he is sore - I'm so used to him being shod and being able to do whatever I like that it will be a steep learning curve for definite for me! On a slightly different note, I think MrDarcy that you are in my area... I don't suppose you can recommend a farrier in this area by any chance? Feel free to PM if you prefer :) I currently have to use a farrier (not a trimmer) because of my insurance policy so if things don't work out with my current farrier/taking shoes off then I will have to look for someone else locally.

Sorry to hijack your post CPTrayes but hopefully it isn't too far off topic :)
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Re hind boots - if he's comfortable without then start without them. If you get too much wear then you might need to stick boots on every so often. There's a time lag between starting to work the hooves and the growth starting up and keeping up with wear. If you imagine growth has been stunted by shoes it doesn't restart overnight and needs time to catch up.

The balance can be difficult between amount of work and growth at the beginning. Slow work on roads is excellent to stimulate the feet without being over challenging.

Being a trimmer I don't use a farrier (Obviously!) and I don't know any of the farriers round here well enough to know if they are barefoot friendly. I believe Matthew Price who shoes Matt Ryan's eventers is pro barefoot but I'm not sure he'd come up this far.

Good luck and feel to free to PM me with any questions.
 
soloequestrian said:
I had mineral analyses done of both haylage and grass last year, and they all now get copper and zinc. They don't get seaweed as we have high iodine and iron. I didn't notice any difference when I started these mineral supplements, in contrast to when I started the mag ox etc. The other thing my problem boy gets is little scabby bits around the back of his coronets. I hoped the minerals might help with that, but no luck so far. He also had a liver function test last year because he has photosensitivity, but it came back all clear.



The other two have lovely, rounded, healthy backs to go with their healthy feet!
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As well as the other suggestions made perhaps he needs less grass and no haylage? My tb mare is quite sensitive to grass and her feet can go from nice concavity to pancake flat in a couple of days on grass at times. They revert quite quickly when she is taken off the grass. It's amazing how quickly and how much hooves respond to diet and movement.
I also recently produced an attack of laminitis in one pony trying to introduce haylage. The others seemed fine on it but it made me wonder enough to stop giving it to all of them. I stick with hay and soaked hay as my main forage.
 
amandap said:
As well as the other suggestions made perhaps he needs less grass and no haylage? My tb mare is quite sensitive to grass and her feet can go from nice concavity to pancake flat in a couple of days on grass at times. They revert quite quickly when she is taken off the grass. It's amazing how quickly and how much hooves respond to diet and movement.
I also recently produced an attack of laminitis in one pony trying to introduce haylage. The others seemed fine on it but it made me wonder enough to stop giving it to all of them. I stick with hay and soaked hay as my main forage.
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He was on hay for several years, before I acquired the one with RAO, and his feet were no different. Thanks for the suggestion though!
 
soloequestrian said:
He was on hay for several years, before I acquired the one with RAO, and his feet were no different. Thanks for the suggestion though!
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Well hats off to you, you win my prize for the most difficult case I've heard of so far Solo. Your perseverence does you credit! Whereabouts are you, I'd love to see him!?
 
soloequestrian said:
He was on hay for several years, before I acquired the one with RAO, and his feet were no different. Thanks for the suggestion though!
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Oh heck. I wonder if it would be worth testing your water supply and possibly him for any specific deficiencies or toxicities? Not easy I know, hair sampling and bloods can get expensive.
 
cptrayes said:
Well hats off to you, you win my prize for the most difficult case I've heard of so far Solo. Your perseverence does you credit! Whereabouts are you, I'd love to see him!?
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Not really perseverence, I just hate shoeing and up until fairly recently I just went along with the common belief that TB feet are rubbish. Now I've read all the new barefoot stuff, I'm questioning that and getting frustrated that I can't get his feet right. It's quite reassuring to think that maybe he is difficult and it's not just me being hopeless! Anyone is very welcome to come and see him, but we are in NE Scotland, so a bit off the beaten track for most! He is on YouTube, but there are no shots of his feet:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzlA5PFuhuw
 
Shucks, I have wet string as a broadband line and your vid won't load... Can't we have some pics? Taken from the side on hard ground, with the camera down touching the floor. And sole shots from on top looking down. There are a few experienced contributors to this thread who might be able to spot something, though it is difficult from photos.
 
Do any of you "bed" your horses on pea gravel or have an area outside with pea gravel where they spend time?

I'm told this stimulates foot circulation, and have been wondering about giving it a try.......it would save on bedding too.
 
Spook said:
Do any of you "bed" your horses on pea gravel or have an area outside with pea gravel where they spend time?

I'm told this stimulates foot circulation, and have been wondering about giving it a try.......it would save on bedding too.
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On my old track I had field shelter into which the local spring drained (landowner not that blessed with land management skills)

So having put in drainage I then dug out the base of the field shelter and put in mixed aggregate/sand, nothing bigger than 20mm. It worked really well. Any pee drained away and the droppings dried off nicely and were easily to pick out. I think over time it would have needed topping up with more sand.

I found it a useful addition to general hoof conditioning, but not a replacement for hours and hours of road work, which managed properly is brilliant. (managed badly is another story).
 
Pea rock for a track is brilliant stuff - for a shelter area it can get a bit "organic"

Been there and tried it! It does need topping up. And it needs the rain running though it to keep it clean.
 
Have been failing miserably to get any photos - daylight and an extra pair of hands are not appearing at the same time....
I have been thinking though, and wonder if it could be linked to the Fe/Cu/Zn thing after all. I have been balancing his feed so that he has the NRC recommended amount of Cu (200mg/day) and Zn (400mg/day) BUT the forage analysis I had done said that he is getting around 2300mg Fe per day, when the NRC requirements say 400mg per day. I'm basing all this on a forage intake of 15kg/day, but even if he eats a bit less than that, the Fe is high. I remember cptrayes talking about Fe and Cu relationships in another post - what was the solution to the problem? The analysis also says he will be getting around 14mg Mo per day, but the NRC don't seem to have a figure for that.
Any thoughts?
 
Iron inhibits uptake of copper and zinc. So you will either need to reduce the amount of iron ingested or compensate with additional copper and zinc supplementation. As you know Copper in excess can be toxic as well.

Oh wouldn't it be bliss if we could all feed decent unfertilized forage
 
LucyPriory said:
As you know Copper in excess can be toxic as well.

Oh wouldn't it be bliss if we could all feed decent unfertilized forage
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Do you know what the maximum safe upper limit for Cu is for horses? I can't find a figure for it, and I have a vague feeling that there wasn't one last time I looked properly (which is a while ago now!). I've found one paper that fed 300mg/day to pregnant mares, but I could only get the abstract, and that didn't mention whether this was a safe amount or not.
I think it's our soil that's high in Fe - the land has had a small amount of P&K, and horse manure, in the last six years. The haylage is local, and has a very similar mineral profile to my grass. Ho hum.
 
Well its all a bit squirrelly - there are courses you can take which are quite prescriptive - but the truth is - according to someone I liaise with who used to run the bloods - that no one really really knows. Too much data is based on two year old TBs in training and this can not be applied to out of work TB's let alone the fat pony in a paddock with high iron.

This is backed up by my incredibly honest vet. He ran some bloods for me and when I asked the question 'well what should it be?' he was honest enough to say he didn't know and neither did the labs he asked.

I have a couple of people I trust that I take advice from and tend to go somewhere in the middle.

There is a product called Coppertrition which I am considering trying because we have high iron. You could try talking to the supplier, but of course they have a product to sell.
 
LucyPriory said:
Well its all a bit squirrelly - there are courses you can take which are quite prescriptive - but the truth is - according to someone I liaise with who used to run the bloods - that no one really really knows. Too much data is based on two year old TBs in training and this can not be applied to out of work TB's let alone the fat pony in a paddock with high iron.

This is backed up by my incredibly honest vet. He ran some bloods for me and when I asked the question 'well what should it be?' he was honest enough to say he didn't know and neither did the labs he asked.

I have a couple of people I trust that I take advice from and tend to go somewhere in the middle.

There is a product called Coppertrition which I am considering trying because we have high iron. You could try talking to the supplier, but of course they have a product to sell.
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I've looked at the Copper Trition, but at the recommended dosage it actually gives less copper than I'm giving at the moment, just to get the levels up to those recommended (I think as a minimum) by NRC! I've found figures of between 800 and 1200mg/day cited as showing no toxicity, but as you say, they're not from particularly relevant studies. I've also had someone on another forum say that the sulphates aren't a good way to feed Cu and Zn.
Basically getting more confused and fed-up by the minute!! How can feet be this complicated!!
 
Solo I have been feeding copper sulphate for more than a year with great results. I even buy it from a garden shop, sold as a fungicide. Of course my horses might be about to drop dead with arsenic poisoning or something but it doesn't look like it. If in doubt the person on UKNHCP who told you not to use sulphates has a company that sells copper proteinate instead. The person who said they use sulphates, though, is a qualified nutritionist whose advice we have all been following for some time!

I do believe it is possible to get TOO worried about mineral balances. I can't, for example, accept that any minerals are required in an absolutely perfect ratio (1.5 to 1 for example) and no other ratio will do. Horses must, to an extent, be self-balancing because their nutrients differ from one day to the next, depending on the weather or which bale of hay from what corner of the field you split today, for example.

Copper is stored in the liver and variations from one day to the next will be evened out by using that store. As you say, you need someone to tell you the safe maximum dose. I am feeding the equivalent of a 1/2 dose of Copper Trition, so I can't help you there I'm afraid.


Lucy a 1/2 dose of Copper Trition has made the most enormous difference to my friend's mare, who was footie all the time. She can now tolerate a lot more grazing. Her water and land are high in both manganese and iron and in theory the CT won't correctly balance that problem. No-one's told the mare though, and she is, after four years not quite right, absolutely bouncing :)
 
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Big hugs and smiley thank yous CPtrayes. That is good to know.

As you have probably guessed I am always anxious about Grace who was on a knife edge for so long that I am seriously over cautious about trying stuff.

That and our unhappy experiments with various guaranteed safe products........
 
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