cracked feet

[katymay]

As you can see from the photo I am struggling with my boys feet.
He is a 14 year old Dales x, the picture shows him at five weeks shod and the shoe is ready to come off taking his hoof wall with it, for some reason the fronts always cracking around the nails and farrier has to nail fairly high to get them to hold.
He is on plenty of 24-7 turnout with limited grass, handful of molasses free chaff twice a day with top spec light balancer and mah mag supplement, currently in light roadwork hacking with a small amount of trot, no schooling on hard ground. I have been putting Kevin bacon on daily but don't think the hot dry weather then rain has helped, anything else I could try? Was considering barefoot with boots to give his feet a break? The backs hold shoes really well.
He tends to pull himself along from the front and we are working on impulsive from behind. Thank you in advance

 

[ester]

Anecdotally barefooters have struggled with top spec so it might be worth looking at changing that? There are other pelleted options - I use equimins advanced complete pellets.

I would give his feet a break if you can, atm it just looks like you are going to continue putting high nails into already compromised horn which is a bit of a vicious circle. If he isn't comfortable enough to hack bare then you could boot reasonably cheaply .

 

[Traveller59]

I would definitely recommend trying barefoot if thats how he looks after 5 weeks and feed a low starch diet.
Hoof health comes from within as I'm sure you know.

 

[katymay]

Thanks both, I've posted an update in the tack room by error the shoe has fallen off, would you mind having a look?