Best diet for healthy hooves!!...

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SammyDingle

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I have a 10 year old TB with HORRENDOUS feet :( He is shod every 5weeks with egg bar shoes to hold his feet together (words of the farrier,not me!) I am very careful with the kind of ground i ride on and dont do fast work on hard ground, this is again advice from the farrier.

He is currently fed ad-lib haylage and goes out every other day.. He also has happy hoof and pasture mix for breakfast and tea.

Are there any changes i can make to his diet help his feet improve?

Any advice would be greatly appriciated :D
 
My Tb had very poor feet and also has egg bars, the only things I found that improved his feet were limestone powder and Biotin X, you won't see any immediate improvement but it will over time.
 
My tb mare had terrible feet and was always losing shoes so when she strained her suspensory ligament I decided to overhaul her feet at the same time (poor love also got her sarcoids treated!). She had been on most of the good hoof supplements out there and although they had made some difference it wasn't enough.

First thing I did was to get our forage analysed for mineral content then get a supplement made up to match the deficiencies present (they also did a full diet plan for me :) ) i got her shoes taken off, bought a pair of hoof boots and when (after 3 months) i was allowed to start working her i started by walking her in had wearing front boots and gradually increasing the time. She has only been walking out a couple of weeks but already she is comfortable on grass and smooth tarmac without boots. Also she is growing much thicker, stronger hoof horn and soles, her heels are coming off the floor and her frogs are getting bigger. I never would have beleived it possible but I am now thinking I will be leaving her barefoot :eek: when my original intention was to just grow the nail holes out!!
 
Theres so many products out there and alot of horses have formula for feet on my yard which is highly recommended. I use equimins advance concentrate which is a balancer and has 10.5g of biotin per 60g feed. I also add biotin and feed dried rosehips and already i can see a huge difference in my mares feet around the correnet band.

Equimins hoof mender comes with a full money back warranty so thats worth taking a look.
 
SammyDingle said:
I have a 10 year old TB with HORRENDOUS feet :( He is shod every 5weeks with egg bar shoes to hold his feet together (words of the farrier,not me!) I am very careful with the kind of ground i ride on and dont do fast work on hard ground, this is again advice from the farrier.

He is currently fed ad-lib haylage and goes out every other day.. He also has happy hoof and pasture mix for breakfast and tea.

Are there any changes i can make to his diet help his feet improve?

Any advice would be greatly appriciated :D
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I have a tb with a history of the worst feet imaginable. This spring her feet 'collapsed' after a period of turnout and I took her completely off grass, have yarded her and fed soaked hay since. I have seen a huge improvement in her hoof shape and the cracks have nearly grown out. I give speedibeet to carry, brewers yeast, magnesium, iodised salt, ground linseed. I have recently started adding biotin, copper and zinc as well as activated charcoal. I do need to get forage test but funds are tight so I'm working a bit in the dark regarding minerals.
I'm planning to switch brewers yeast to yea sacc when my stock is finished.

Forgot the point I was making. I think low sugar high fibre with supplemantation according to what is deficient in the diet along with gut support is the way to go. So it does depend on what else the horse is eating and their mineral status.
 
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If possible I would try to cut out grass during the day as sugars are the worst thing for feet, have a talk with Feedmark/Equimins/natural horse supplies, I think it might pay to go for speedy beet plus vits and minerals, you can soak hay and haylage to remove sugars, see how you get on with this for three weeks, and exercise regularly, but only in order to give the hooves a chance. I found Feet First [Barker and Braithwaite] to be very interesting, it is about barefoot horses but has lots of interesting ideas and good illustrations.
No carrots, sugar lumps or or Polos!
 
I fed seaweed to mine when his feet were particularly bad. It made a massive improvement. He is a TB and is now barefoot behind and perfectly happy. As he is getting arthritic and difficult to shoe, I am considering barefoot in front as well with hoof boots.
 
Be careful about F4F... I had mine on it for years and I thought he was doing really well but got lami.. on routine blood test from vet, showed up abnormal levels and his liver was quite toxic. Was fine after we took him off it, not so bloated & puffy.

Nowadays, I'm really careful not to supplement too many vits & mins unless absolutely needed. You don't know if you're overdosing as they are standard measures for all horses regardless of what the horse already has. Some vitamins have harmful effects when combined with others have very different actions.

If a horse out 24/7, a mineral lick like Laminshield is more than adequate but speedibeet & happy hoof is good +/- some herbs.
 
tallyho! said:
Be careful about F4F... I had mine on it for years and I thought he was doing really well but got lami.. on routine blood test from vet, showed up abnormal levels and his liver was quite toxic. Was fine after we took him off it, not so bloated & puffy.

Nowadays, I'm really careful not to supplement too many vits & mins unless absolutely needed. You don't know if you're overdosing as they are standard measures for all horses regardless of what the horse already has. Some vitamins have harmful effects when combined with others have very different actions.

If a horse out 24/7, a mineral lick like Laminshield is more than adequate but speedibeet & happy hoof is good +/- some herbs.
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Very strange, didn't Laminitis Truts formulate FFF ? My horse was on it for ages, I'm now using equivite due to cost and I find being on the Alfa A Lite has made a difference to his feet, as I said in my other post, they've never been better, my farrier commented on it as my horse as soon as the summer comes and the hard ground his hooves normally crack etc but they haven't done that the last 2 summers
 
Anything good for coat condition is good for feet. Baileys Outshine works brilliantly and Seaweed.
I used the Outshine right throught the winter with her (TB) and then once feet were stronger I just kept up with the Seaweed and the Outshine is expensive but works great. Farrier really pleased with her feet now.
 
Alfalfa and a drop of linseed oil are very good for their feet and as others have mentioned a high fibre, high oil, low starch diet is good- and saves wasting money on expensive hoof supplements- if you do have to feed a hoof supp just go for the cheapest biotin/zinc product you can get! or feed a general vitamin supp instead , combined with quality hay/haylage- and good shoeing! also water is good for the feet, as is a water based hoof dressing.

My horses feet were a mess last summer, he was losing shoes every 2 weeks, were full of filler, they look loads better now that i've had to change Farrier's and he puts very lightweight (almost aluminium shoes) on shod long and wide at heels, trimmed them properly to get rid of the cracks and hey-presto no more cracked feet! i was pleased with how they've held up with all the hot dry weather we had too. I think the shoes he was wearing were too heavy for his feet.
 
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I have had my TB for two years and he had pretty terrible hooves when I first got him. My farrier say's that he could have pushed nails into his hooves they were so soft.
It has been a long road and I have tried several different approaches including hoof sups and different lotions and potions. Then on recommendation of my farrier I changed his feed over to a balancer. Initially top spec and more recently Spillers original balancer. His feet have never been better.
Most telling is the fact that when he first came to me he would go easily 8 weeks between shoeing and if he lost a shoe (frequently) It would take a couple of farrier visits for the damage to his foot to grow out. This summer he is needing farrier visits every 6 weeks and when he last ripped a shoe off by over-reaching leaving a large chunk of foot missing I thought it would take forever to grow back. Wrong....in six weeks his foot had grown enough to look perfect after his latest set of new shoes.
I'm not daft enough to think that the balancer is the only reason his hooves have improved so much. He has a much more natural lifestyle than he had as a racehorse, lots of time out grazing on reasonable pasture, a high fibre diet with lots of hay and low sugar, high quality chaff and also regular visits from an excellent farrier all help too. But George is looking so good on his new feed that two other liveries at my yard have both switched to the spillers balancer in the last month and their horses both look fab too.
 
A good balancer was my first improver along with salt and magnesium. I used Top spec.
Since I moved I've had more grass problems so have been forced to look more closely. :(
 
Well, my Tb had HORRENDOUS feet when I got him - they were so split that he looked like a cloven hoofed cow...

So the obvious thing for me...take his shoes off! let them breathe and let the blood circulate! that and putting him on a detox, feeding him a high fibre low sugar diet, and balancing minerals against his forage. They are now super duper and rock cruching. they will split now and then as he has a weakness running the whole way up right in to his coronet band, but no where near as bad as they were :)
 
Supahoof by Global Herbs along with Blue Chip lami light balancer ( full vits and mins, plus specifics for hoof quality.Plus Healthy Hoof if not a good doer.) Very important is restricted grazing, even if not a lami..the sugars in pasture don't do poor hooves any good. Basically I feed my mare as if she is recovering from laminitis...even though she has never had full blown lami in her life, there is a theory that there is such a thing as 'low grade' lami...not enough to cause visible classic lami symptoms...but enough to affect quality of the hooves internally and externally, and make a horse 'footy'. So I feed for hoof integrity. Also use Naf Hoof Rub daily.Her shelly, white , flat footed hooves have 'knit together' visibly in the couple of months I've been trying this regime, coronet band never looked stronger either. So fingers crossed I've at last found the answer after years of her being slightly 'footy' with brittle hooves, especially in summer. She looks in overall great condition too, shine on her silvery coat like I've never seen :)

As an aside..bar shoes may 'hold the foot together' but I would only use them as a temporary measure to keep him pain free...the hoof capsule can't flex at all with these on, and the concussion from them long term could possibly cause more permanent problems in future. They won't improve the feet on their own, just manage the worst symptoms.A few weeks off work,shoes off, box rest , deep bed, hoof boots if needed if feet are painful.. restricted grazing and feed for hooves as above..then hoof boots to get him moving again on hopefully healthier feet. Hoof should grow in much stronger , then decide wether to shoe in normal shoes , depending on his work and quality of new hoof etc...Treat as a prone to laminitis for the forseeable future.Good luck all those with poor feet.
 
Leah3horses said:
Supahoof by Global Herbs along with Blue Chip lami light balancer ( full vits and mins, plus specifics for hoof quality.Plus Healthy Hoof if not a good doer.) Very important is restricted grazing, even if not a lami..the sugars in pasture don't do poor hooves any good. Basically I feed my mare as if she is recovering from laminitis...even though she has never had full blown lami in her life, there is a theory that there is such a thing as 'low grade' lami...not enough to cause visible classic lami symptoms...but enough to affect quality of the hooves internally and externally, and make a horse 'footy'. So I feed for hoof integrity. Also use Naf Hoof Rub daily.Her shelly, white , flat footed hooves have 'knit together' visibly in the couple of months I've been trying this regime, coronet band never looked stronger either. So fingers crossed I've at last found the answer after years of her being slightly 'footy' with brittle hooves, especially in summer. She looks in overall great condition too, shine on her silvery coat like I've never seen :)

As an aside..bar shoes may 'hold the foot together' but I would only use them as a temporary measure to keep him pain free...the hoof capsule can't flex at all with these on, and the concussion from them long term could possibly cause more permanent problems in future. They won't improve the feet on their own, just manage the worst symptoms.A few weeks off work,shoes off, box rest , deep bed, hoof boots if needed if feet are painful.. restricted grazing and feed for hooves as above..then hoof boots to get him moving again on hopefully healthier feet. Hoof should grow in much stronger , then decide wether to shoe in normal shoes , depending on his work and quality of new hoof etc...Treat as a prone to laminitis for the forseeable future.Good luck all those with poor feet.
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^^^^this is a good posting, well thought out and well argued by someone who has experienced the same problem as faced by OP
 
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My TB ex-racer with rotten feet is now barefoot and sound with strong and fast-growing feet. Even if I had a shod horse, or decided to put my boy back in shoes (though I can't see it somehow...) I would keep the diet the same.

Basically 'barefoot' advice is no sugar, low starch, no cereals (except oats) or lucerne (which includes Alfalfa - though some barefoot people seem to think it's ok). Organic where possible, absolutely nothing with wheetfeed or oatfeed it - it's the rubbish that gets swept-up off the floor, and as it's the outer husks, it's the bit that's most concentrated in pesticides...

In real terms, Debbie Carley at Thunderbrook has been a godsend. www.thunderbrook.co.uk/

There's also Simple Systems and Pure Feeds which follow a similar low-sugar, low starch mantra though I think both use Alfalfa in their feeds.

I feed Thunderbrook Base Mix (two coffee mugs a day, so while it looks expensive, it lasts forever) plus organic bran (two mugs) and germinating oats (two cups). I also feed Gut Restore, healthy gut = healthy feet in my short experience, I've been doing this a year and he looks so much better, all over, not just in his feet.

He's out on limited grass at night, with 4kg haylage, and in his yard / stable during the day with ad-lib haylage. Being able to move around is key, so if you limit grazing, try and do a long skinny strip or lane, rather than a tiny square. Plenty of exercise too, the more blood flow to the foot the better.

Finally, one tip Debbie gave me, is to add an egg yolk to his feed a couple of times a week - use the white to paint over the periople. Egg yolk is a very rich, very cheap, bio-available source of B vitamins - ie Biotin. My horse will eat eggs on the farm when he finds them, so while it's a bit weird, I don't feel it's totally unnatural!

Sorry about the essay, I tried loads of other 'hoof supplements' and nothing worked till I made the more extreme change in his diet / management.
 
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