Brittle feet, what to feed?

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Jasmine*

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My horse has really dry, brittle feet (also really flat) and is constantly throwing shoes. She has daily moisturizer of Kevin Bacon and has heart bar front shoes with quarter clips on the front to stop them twisting and normal quarter clip back shoes. Is there anything good i could try feeding to improve them? Have previously tried the NAF range and no improvement after a year and half
:)
 
Jasmine* said:
My horse has really dry, brittle feet (also really flat) and is constantly throwing shoes. She has daily moisturizer of Kevin Bacon and has heart bar front shoes with quarter clips on the front to stop them twisting and normal quarter clip back shoes. Is there anything good i could try feeding to improve them? Have previously tried the NAF range and no improvement after a year and half
:)
Click to expand...

Do you have some pics?
 
Lay off the kevin bacon/ other external 'moisturisers' as these do nothing except cause fungal infections.

Hoof health comes from diet - what is the horse currently eating?
 
she's on the kevin & bacon from my farriers orders and there has been an improvement just not as much as we'd have hoped. she is fed alfa a oil, baileys performance balancer and baileys competition mix :)
 
Jasmine* said:
she's on the kevin & bacon from my farriers orders and there has been an improvement just not as much as we'd have hoped. she is fed alfa a oil, baileys performance balancer and baileys competition mix :)
Click to expand...

Bailey's Performance Balancer - "Soya Bean Meal, Grassmeal, Micronised Soya Beans, Distillers’ Grains, Cooked Linseed, Dicalcium Phosphate, Vitamins and Minerals, Calcium Carbonate, Molasses, Sodium Chloride, ScFOS (Digest Plus prebiotic)"

Bailey's Competition Mix - "Oats (bruised), Micronised Wheat, Micronised Barley, Molasses, Wheatfeed, Oatfeed (by-product of the oat milling industry), Micronised Maize, Distillers’ Grains, Micronised Peas, Soya (Bean) Meal, Extracted Sunflower Meal, Soya Oil, Calcium Carbonate, Grassmeal, Dicalcium Phosphate, Vitamins and Minerals, Cooked Linseed, Soya (Bean) Hulls, Micronised Soya Beans, Sodium Chloride, Calcined Magnesite"

So that's a lot of grain and molasses to mess with the digestion, gut pH and thus the feet.

No mention of the combined starch or sugar content on the website....wonder why :D

Kevin Bacon seems to be the 'magic wand' to dry hooves and wet hooves. It's basically lard :rolleyes:
 
Oberon said:
Bailey's Performance Balancer - "Soya Bean Meal, Grassmeal, Micronised Soya Beans, Distillers’ Grains, Cooked Linseed, Dicalcium Phosphate, Vitamins and Minerals, Calcium Carbonate, Molasses, Sodium Chloride, ScFOS (Digest Plus prebiotic)"

Bailey's Competition Mix - "Oats (bruised), Micronised Wheat, Micronised Barley, Molasses, Wheatfeed, Oatfeed (by-product of the oat milling industry), Micronised Maize, Distillers’ Grains, Micronised Peas, Soya (Bean) Meal, Extracted Sunflower Meal, Soya Oil, Calcium Carbonate, Grassmeal, Dicalcium Phosphate, Vitamins and Minerals, Cooked Linseed, Soya (Bean) Hulls, Micronised Soya Beans, Sodium Chloride, Calcined Magnesite"

So that's a lot of grain and molasses to mess with the digestion, gut pH and thus the feet.
Click to expand...

Yikes thats a rather eye watering read :o

OP you would be better feeding straights, as then you know exactly what is in it and dont have the molasses, grains and by products to worry about. For e.g. if theyre in a lot of work to warrant a competition mix I'd be feeding micronised linseed, growing oats, small amount of bran and a non molassed chaff :)

Just because your farrier says its so - doest mean it is. The horses feet are in a mess to be needing all those clips and to be throwing them all the time so you need to start learning for yourself so you can get the horses feet right. This may mean contradicting your farrier.....

KB also contains formaldehyde - a drying agent........
 
I have a TB with rubbish feet, and i am lucky if she lasts longer than 4 weeks before she needs shoeing again!! But she has been on farriers formula for nearly 8 weeks. The results are amazing. Shame its so expensive but at least it works!!
 
My boy had very crumbly feet when he arrived 7 years ago - he's been on Farrier's Formula since and while he still doesn't grow foot fast, the quality is massively improved.

I have also found that Kevin Bacon works very well to keep hooves free from cracks and have never seen anyone (most of the yard use it) have a problem with fungal infection.
 
100 -200 gms micronised linseed
Non molassed Dengie Chaff [lo or hi alfalfa available]
Equimins Hoof builder
Bruised oats
Non molassed sugar beet pulp
Tsp salt
Might be a place to start.
Racehorses get a big scoop of oats once they start cantering, but they need to be balanced with hi fibre and mins and vits.
 
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Balanced diet - which will include sufficient vits and mins hooves are the first thing to suffer if vits and mins are incorrect as the body concentrates on the important elments heart brain etc. www.feedxl.com (easy to use) or http://nrc88.nas.edu/nrh/ (bit more fiddly as you have to enter all the feed values yourself) are good places to start to find out if you are meeting your horses requirements and where / what is missing.
 
My farrier's wisdom is that basically because it takes some 9 months for a hoof to grow down from the coronary band to the level of the shoe, you have to take a long-term view. The wet summer hasn't helped anyone one jot - hooves get water-saturated and then fungal infections set in, and horses are then tramping around in a wet field and the shoe gets pulled around a bit, and hey presto you'll start casting shoes.

So whilst you might not be able to do much about the horn at the shoe level, you can start improving the place where the hoof grows from i.e. the coronary band. My farrier recommended me to rub some Cornucrescene (dunno if I spelt it right) into the coronary band area and really to massage it well in.

Also he suggested, with mine, was to spray purple spray all over the foot, making sure it goes paraticularly into the nail-holes plus any decayed/fungal areas, AND do the sole & frog, and heels area too. THEN get some Vaseline (or Cornucrescene) and put on over the top of the purple sprayed feet. Your horse's feet will be bright purple and look quite odd! (create a new fashion!!), but this really helped my traddie's feet back in the "summer" when he was casting shoes like crazy. You need to do this on clean dry feet tho' or else you're just sealing in all the gunk.

I'm also feeding Farriers Formula - not a quick fix here, but hopefully mine will have better feet this winter.
 
I had trouble with my horses feet over summer I have fed naf biotin ( needs to contain zinc ) and used purple spray and his feet are on the mend hope this helps x:)
 
The hooves are most likely brittle due to a lack of inner wall and too much outer wall. The horse already shows hoof issues and poor structure as you are also using egg bar shoes. The kb is unlikely to help this I am afraid. You need to look at the root cause of the issues. :(
 
In answer to your question I'm afraid your mare's diet needs a complete overhaul.

The Sugar and Starch content of what you are currently feeding is way too high for happy feet and her feet are telling you exactly this.

The alfa-a is highly mollassed and is often too rich for many horses
Balancers are only balanced to themselves and so are a complete load of balls if you feed your horse anything else at all (including hay and grass)
Mixes are highly mollassed and full of cereals which should be avoided at all costs.

So, in answer to your question I would feed:

Alan and Page fast fibre
Micronised linseed
and either forage plus's winter balancer (I know I contradict myself here but this one is different as it has been created with average grazing nutritional values in mind) http://shop.forageplus.com/epages/es137718.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es137718/Products/FPW Or another of the supplements mentioned on the barefoot threads on here.

The KB and any other ointment will not encourage healthier hoof growth... this has to come from within. I haven't used anything topical on my boy's feet for well over a year and they look fabulous. No splits of cracks... just rock hard feet with walls at least 6mm thick!!
 
Another vote for farriers formula having been on a very healthy BF diet since October last year I saw great improvement in the quality of the hoof growing in from the top of my six year old TB's feet eight weeks ago I swopped his supplement to farriers formula wow better again it's a big visible difference.
 
I too would say to look at your horses diet. High fibre / low sugar/ low starch is definately the way to go for better feet. I have changed mine onto this type of diet and her feet have improved dramatically. I started feeding speedy beet, high fibre nuts and her feet were great then she went off her food for a wee while as she is very fussy so I added pasture mix and cut back the beet and nuts and her feet got worse again so I am now in the process of reducing the pasture mix again and hope to see improvement again. If I were you I would feed unmollased beet, high fibre nuts and micronised linseed if required. If your mare really needs more energy I would use straight oats rather than using a prepared mix and add a vitamin / mineral supplement if required. Also I dont use any foot dressings or give any hoof supplements as I think over the years I have tried them all and none of them have helped!
 
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