Contemplating putting front shoes back on!

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Jingleballs

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Casper has been barefoot for 2 years now and has always coped well. There was a brief spell last summer during the dry weather when his feet were chipping easily but that soon stopped.

This summer has been awful - his feet are really chipped and ragged and I'm getting the farrier out to tidy them ever 2 - 4 weeks which is costing a fortune.

He gets biotin every day, I rub cornucrescine on to his coronet band and hooves regularly and apply Kevin Bacon hoof dressing also to keep the hooves moist.

It hasn't helped and after a hack during the week his fronts are badly chipped again and wearing at the outside.

Farrier seems to think that they'll improve in the wetter weather of the winter and that there is no point shoeing him now. His feet look awful though - doesn't seem to bother him but I worry that the excessive trimming will cause problems - there was a period in the summer where we could only hack with hoof boots on and I do notice that he is more tentative over stoney ground or concrete now so I do always hack out in boots for road work.

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on what would be best?
 
I would listen to your farrier, I'm sure he would say to shoe if he thought your horse needed them. If your horse has been footy then I'd be looking at the diet and trying to reduce the sugars to see if that helps; the chipping wouldn't worry me if it is purely cosmetic providing the horse is comfortable. If his feet are growing faster and chipping due to longer walls then trimming more regularly to tidy them shouldn't hurt. You could always run a rasp over them yourself to tidy up chips in between farrier visits which would cost less.
 
Um ok - to be honest, if they are chipping you have two main causes

1) badly trimmed in the first place
2) poor quality horn

If he has been footy it does suggest that diet is an issue, but actually the two things are not necessarily related.

Footiness can be from excess sugar (if you want more info on why this is then this can be provided)

Excess sugar on its own doesn't cause poor horn quality

But a high sugar diet can be unbalanced in other ways, or be continued for so long that it impacts on the horse's ability to grow a good foot.

To be honest I most often see chipping in a foot where the wall has been allowed to grow too long or has been left horribly unbalanced.
 
posie_honey - farrier did give me a rasp and a brief lesson on tidying them up myself but I don't feel confident enought to do it.

LucyPriory - horse is a good doer, kept on limited grazing and only fed hifi light and pony nuts in small amounts to mix with biotin and general supplement so no excess sugar in the feed.

He's had the same farrier for over a year and a half and this is the first time we've had real problems - it's also only the fronts that cause the problem never the backs.

Horse is slightly pidgeon toed and his movement/general way of going means the outsides always wear more than the insides - the outside and front is where the majority of the chips are.
 
How long has be been on the biotin etc?
How about if you ask your farrier to come over and instead of doing the job himself get him to supervise you say, every other time, until you are confident enough to do it yourself?
 
Babybear said:
posie_honey - farrier did give me a rasp and a brief lesson on tidying them up myself but I don't feel confident enought to do it.

LucyPriory - horse is a good doer, kept on limited grazing and only fed hifi light and pony nuts in small amounts to mix with biotin and general supplement so no excess sugar in the feed.

Horse is slightly pidgeon toed and his movement/general way of going means the outsides always wear more than the insides - the outside and front is where the majority of the chips are.
Click to expand...

Oh I feel a photo opportunity coming on. Please post if you have pics. Solar view as well as side and front. Re diet HiFi lite is too much for some. Despite the marketing claims it does have molasses in it (just with a fancy name) and pony nuts are usually full of cheap fillers such as wheat feed or similar which also cause problems. Does your horse have event lines?

Personally never found any strange way of going to be a good reason for chipping..... regardless of conformation.

My mantra is 'hooves don't lie'. So although you are a good horse owner, doing your best, as we all are, the hooves are a window to health, so something somewhere needs a tweak.

To be honest, generally the only horse I do that gets much in the way of chips is my own - and that is because I never get round to doing her in time. I do another which has some horn breaking away - it is in recovery from a shockingly bad shoeing job and we are growing out very poor wall. I do a horse that used to have chips - while shod. It is laminitic. It doesn't chip any more http://barefoothorseblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/lameness-case-study-8-weeks-6-days.html

For this one we have dramatically changed the diet which has improved the horn quality, but also it is exercised regularly which helps wear the feet down in between trims.

And that is what most of my clients do. When the horse comes sound it can exercise over rough enough ground to do the bulk of the trimming itself. Then it just needs a touch up :-)
 
That's very interesting LucyPriory - can I ask, what feeds would you recommend to reduce sugars but still palatable enough to mix with vitamins?

He's been on biotin since he went bare foot - it's just the equimins stuff - I wonder if there is a better product out there?

His general health seems good - bright eye's, shiny coat but his feet do look awful. Will attempt to get some pictures tonight.

It was the farrier who gave the reason for his uneven wear and my Y/O who is an Equine Body Worker and trained to carry out gait analysis agreed with his conclusion.

I'd love to get my farrier to oversee me triming him but often he comes during the day and I'm at work and can't get away :(
 
Hi BabyBear - I feel your pain I really do - everytime I ride I think right I am calling the farrier because she still feels footy and then I look how good and strong her feet are and cant bare myself to put a shoe on her so I am in slightly different place to you in that her feet look great but she is obviously feeling the stonier ground but I guess the principles for making the hoof strong will be the same.

Regarding the no sugar diet etc after some research, I recently swapped to TopSpec TopChop Lite (half a scoop daily) with seaweed, brewyers yeast, linseed and MagOx which I believe is very good at tightening up the hoof wall and feeding 24hr soaked hay (stabled during the day plus nighttime turnout in a bare paddock (7pm - 8am))

I think that if this doesnt help then I will have to always ride her in boots.

Apparently this wet / dry weather is very hard on the hooves so you amost need to go back to reconditioning the hooves with in hand road work.

My farrier also recommends Keratex hoof hardener.
 
doing a roll on the hoof is really easy - you are not affecting the hoof balance etc at all - that can be left to the farrier - but it should stop the chips :)
have a google - mustang roll or wildhorse roll - there are some fab websites out there :) i was self taught with HRH but had a an EP check my work and she was happy with it :)
 
Diet - this is what I feed and what many of my clients move to. It is high quality, cost effective and can be easily modified to suit individual requirements

low sugar base - Kwik Beet 100g before soaking. More for big horses or those that need a hay replacer
herbs for flavour - nettles, rosehips, burdock, mint, milk thistle are favourites. Either pick your own or buy dried. Expensive but convenient are D&H Stand Free or Mobility.
Supplement - Naf Pink Powder or D&H surelimb, but any good quality one will do.

For some extra magnesium will be required. I use calmag, but some prefer a pharmaceutical grade equivalent. It is non toxic but in excess will cause a runny tum. Needs to be balanced against calcium, Kwik Beet is a source of calcium.

Prefer not to use seaweed, very high in iodine and to get levels of copper and zinc my horse needs would be toxic iodine wise.

For hard workers, poor doers or those that need extra protein or oil add Micronised Linseed from Charnwood (if you local feed shop stocks charnwood products it is less than £1kg) do not feed linseed lozenges as these have had the oil extracted and sugar added.

If in doubt consult a qualified but independent equine nutritionist.

Oh - thought I ought to point out that horses which are 'addicted' to a high sugar diet will initially probably reject the low sugar version. Grace used to literally throw her bucket at me. She got over it. Eventually. Now she gets very excited about her herby mix and soft head that I am I often will offer her the various 'choices' to see which one she fancies and that one (or several) gets to go in the mix. Current favourites are nettles, burdock leaves and milk thistles.

The above diet took her from http://danceswithgrace.blogspot.com/2009/07/introduction-to-grace.html

to

http://danceswithgrace.blogspot.com/2010/07/joie-de-vivre-at-f.html

with just a few tantrums along the way :-)
 
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