Best Hoof Supplement?

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sz90168

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My Connemara seems to have quite brittle hooves, apparently this is common in Connemara’s? The shape of his hooves is good and he has a good heel but they just seem to be brittle and farrier had difficulties nailing one shoe on due to chunks missing. He recommended the Kevin Beacon Formula for Feet but are there any better and cheaper alternatives out there?

He is currently on Spillers Lite and Lean Balancer, Oats if competing and good quality grazing which will be difficult to restrict.
 
its my personal view that removing all sugar from the diet and feeding as much fibre as possible helps hoofs

I do need my thoroughbred biotin as well as the above diet as he has very thin soles. i also ensure iam dressing the hoofs every day with some thing suitable for the time of year and what the hoof needs daily
 
Progressive Earth, Forage Plus or Equimins Advance Complete instead of your balancer would be my suggestion plus a bit of micronised linseed and salt.
 
sz90168 said:
My Connemara seems to have quite brittle hooves, apparently this is common in Connemara’s? The shape of his hooves is good and he has a good heel but they just seem to be brittle and farrier had difficulties nailing one shoe on due to chunks missing. He recommended the Kevin Beacon Formula for Feet but are there any better and cheaper alternatives out there?

He is currently on Spillers Lite and Lean Balancer, Oats if competing and good quality grazing which will be difficult to restrict.
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1 . formula 4 feet
2. hoof mender by equimins
 
My Connie also has poor feet. He has hay, grass nuts (winter) or fast fibre (summer) with oat chaff, Equimins Hoof Mender, salt and a joint supplement. My farrier remarked last month how much better they are than when he arrived a year ago. DP on the other hand has fantastic looking barefoot feet and is on the same low sugar high fibre diet but has the thinnest soles on the planet and sadly no amount of supplements has made the slightest difference, it's just the way he is made.
 
Connies often have poor feet. You do need to know if he has HWSS - that is completely horrible. It is autosomal recessive so if you know sire or dam (and they are registered) then their status will be on the breed society page. If you don't know either, or if you know one and they are a known carrier - then you need to test. If it is HWSS then you have to treat differently.

Otherwise - I had magnificent results for my young connie on MaxVita Maxahoof. His feet now have improved massively. Part of that (and in fairness a large part) is the skill of my farriers. He came to us with massively overlong toes, chunks missing and the hoof wall peeling back (no - he does not have HWSS. Both sire & dam double negative). We had to build up sections of his hoof with resin in the early stages He was checked pretty much every week and shod every 2 - 3 in the early days. And even then we struggled to keep one particular shoe on. We used Keratex hoof hardener and fed Maxahoof. We saw some improvement fairly quickly - probably because of the attention and the keratex. He went back onto a normal shoeing cycle after probably 4 - 5 months or so. And after 8/9 months you would not know the hooves were on the same horse. We're now a year on and although we continue to be careful - and to feed maxahoof which he will probably always need - he hasn't pulled since the turn of the year and we can treat him just the same as we would treat anything. He's come a massive distance in the year. I really despaired of getting his feet sorted for a while there!
 
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