Brittle feet

[NiftDisy]

Wondering if anyone has any suggestions or positive/negative experiences with different hoof supplements for brittle feet?
Had my boy for roughly 6 months and he’s got pretty shocking feet and is constantly pulling his shoes off and tearing big chunks out of his feet ?
Does anyone have any suggestions for good feeds/ supplements they’ve had success with?

He’s currently on half a scoop of alpha a original and pony nuts only when he comes in, but is not fed every day
Also gets cornucrescine rubbed into his coronets every day but have not seen any improvement yet

 

[Pearlsacarolsinger]

I would feed him every day equine guts benefit from consistency and their hooves benefit from healthy guts. I would swap the pony nuts for good quality grassnuts e.g. Emerald Green, remembering that it will take months/years to grow out his horn. I am a recent convert to ForagePlus balancer. My cob has always had good hard feet but the balancer has sorted out her skin problem, so I would expect it to help poor feet.

 

[Highmileagecob]

Any chance of leaving him without shoes for six months or so? Take a look at Pete Ramey's 'Hoof Rehab' site. Loads of useful information on there. If you go down the unshod/barefoot route, then a simple pair of Cavallo boots with gel pads will keep him comfortable enough to hack out. Good luck, it is very rewarding when things start to improve and a set of lovely hard hooves emerge!

 

[black and brown]

I had similar problems with keeping shoes on, so made the decision to go barefoot. One of the best decisions I think I've made! I used Equimins Hoof Mender 75 a few weeks prior to taking off the fronts and kept using it for at least a year. Going barefoot requires patience, care and determination but is so worth it!

 

[Gloi]

I like progressive earth pro hoof supplement

 

[PeterNatt]

Put him on a daily portion of Formula4Feet for at least the next year. That should help to improve the quality of the horn on his feet.

 

[Shooting Star]

I’ve had good results for poor horn quality using progressive earth pro hoof too but actually currently seem to now be getting even better results with equinatural equivita which also works out cheaper ?

 

[NiftDisy]

Any chance of leaving him without shoes for six months or so? Take a look at Pete Ramey's 'Hoof Rehab' site. Loads of useful information on there. If you go down the unshod/barefoot route, then a simple pair of Cavallo boots with gel pads will keep him comfortable enough to hack out. Good luck, it is very rewarding when things start to improve and a set of lovely hard hooves emerge!

Thanks I’ll definitely check that out
He spends most of time barefoot (not usually by my choice ?) as he rarely keeps his shoes on for more than 2 weeks before he pulls them off
I’ve had him without shoes for a couple months at a time and he’s always been pretty foot sore even out in the field
I got him a pair of cavallo boots a couple months ago and he went well in them out hacking for a good few weeks, before he snapped off more of his front right foot and went lame again
If I could eventually get him comfortable on his bare feet that would be ideal

 

[Highmileagecob]

As long as he is not breaking off hoof inside the white line, he is possibly beginning to self trim. A barefoot horse wears the hoof back to the white line, and should be weighting his heels enough to build a good heel bulb and a wide frog. Dr. Robert Bowker at Maryland University has also done a lot of research on barefoot vs shod, and his articles are worth a look. I do wish our UK farrier teaching would accept the research instead of leaning towards shoeing, and help to keep a horse comfortable and sound.

 

[ILuvCowparsely]

Wondering if anyone has any suggestions or positive/negative experiences with different hoof supplements for brittle feet?
Had my boy for roughly 6 months and he’s got pretty shocking feet and is constantly pulling his shoes off and tearing big chunks out of his feet ?
Does anyone have any suggestions for good feeds/ supplements they’ve had success with?

He’s currently on half a scoop of alpha a original and pony nuts only when he comes in, but is not fed every day
Also gets cornucrescine rubbed into his coronets every day but have not seen any improvement yet

Best I found is Formula4 feet and Hood mender by Equimins

 

[Birker2020]

Wondering if anyone has any suggestions or positive/negative experiences with different hoof supplements for brittle feet?
Had my boy for roughly 6 months and he’s got pretty shocking feet and is constantly pulling his shoes off and tearing big chunks out of his feet ?
Does anyone have any suggestions for good feeds/ supplements they’ve had success with?

He’s currently on half a scoop of alpha a original and pony nuts only when he comes in, but is not fed every day
Also gets cornucrescine rubbed into his coronets every day but have not seen any improvement yet

I feed my horse Healthy Hooves but sometimes Happy Hoof if I can't get the first one. He's been on it for 4 months with me and 12 months with his previous owner and the farrier is pleased with his hooves and has said they are quite strong, although he said the one has sustained quite bad damage previous to me having him and the damage is now growing out.

He has Premier Equine over reach boots on 24/7 with some long rubber ones over the top. I then dry another pair of PE over reach boots overnight ready for the next evening, so he always has fresh boots and I have a further two pairs for riding/lunging in. Its a right pain having to have these on him all the time as they collect a good inch of mud behind them, but they keep his shoes on. He's managing okay and has only lost one shoe since I've had him. The reason for the long rubber boots are because he half sprung a shoe a couple of weeks ago and the farrier said the rubber ones are longer and therefore better. But when I first had him he got through 2 pairs in six weeks as he was catching the back foot on the boots on both fronts and there were big bits missing from them and he went on to lose a shoe in the rubber boot because of that, whereas the PE boots he's not lost a shoe as they are tougher and don't lose chunks out of them. When he's ridden he rarely over reaches, its just when he's lazy and trundling along in the field.

I have a mixture of iodine and eucalyptus from the vet that I use to treat his frog/sole once a week and keratex hoof hardener on the outside to prevent the nail holes becoming larger in the wet thus causing loose shoes.