Fast fibre & poor hooves

loz9

loz9

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I'm not certain if it is connected, but having been battling seedy toe in my mare for the past 18-24mths I'm now starting to wonder if it really could be the fast fibre I'm feeding (probably should have crossed my mind much sooner!!). It seems every time we get it almost grown out her hoof splits again & hey presto back to square one. Aside from this one hoof, which has no cracks/crumbling/splits otherwise, she has brilliant rock crunching feet.

So has anybody experienced this? & not necessarily a seedy toe problem, maybe just bad feet whilst on fast fibre.

Thank you!
 
I've not had any problems. In fact managed to take my boy to unshod on it. And he was the one with such rubbish feet, shoes would fall off after a couple of weeks as his hooves would "crumble" and he'd be foot sore even on grass when they came off. My farrier is pretty impressed with him now, and I've used him for 9 years (best farrier in the world in my view!). He's trimmed every 6 weeks, has lovely strong hooves that can withstand road work and stony tracks without him becoming footy and he's never worn boots. He also has such a high growth rate, he's never got to self trimming.
Could be different for your girl but I've never heard of any problems with fast fibre, I swear by the stuff, and I think a fair few people use it as a base for their supplements for their barefoot horses -I could be completely wrong though. Has anything else changed- different pasture, different bedding, even have you started using a hoof oil or dressing of some description different to "pre seedy toe" times? I hope you find out the cause as it must be pretty frustrating!
 
Thanks for your reply. I use it for a base for my supps along with plain oat straw chaff, & chose it because of its lack of molasses & being good for the barefooters! Absolutely nothing else has changed, & tbh I can't actually remember when I changed onto fast fibre as I have been on it a fair while now, but running out of thing that may be contributing to the seedy toe :( Even my farrier is baffled as to why we can't seem to get on top of it as she has such lovely feet otherwise (she's 8 & has never worn shoes)
Ho hum back to the drawing board :(
 
Nothing to offer but watching thread with interest. I started my boy on Pro Hoof last year in an effort to improve his feet. Fast fibre was what they recommend to feed it with. So he literally has Pro Hoof and Fast Fibre. His feet improved after about 6/7 months on this regime but have now begun to split and crumble again! Very frustrating. Hadn't thought about the Fast Fibre being the culprit...
 
I don't know but I'd be interested in knowing if anyone else has noticed a problem. I've been using Fast fibre as a base feed for a couple of years and both horses have had problems. One gets thrush that flares up intermittently and the other has had 2 abscesses and a few episodes of mud fever. It is probably coincidental, but having tried everything else, I'm at a loss now.

Might try omitting it for the summer and see if it makes a difference.
 
Interesting to read that other's are having problems - mine's been on it for 2 years and for the first time in 9 years with him he's NOT had mud fever since being on it and he's not had as many bouts of thrush (he used to get it a lot but has definitely been a lot less frequent over the past couple of years, as in a couple of times a year max now from literally at least 6 times a year). Have you tried switching to happy hoof or hi fi mollases free to try and rule out fast fibre as the culprit for a couple of months?
 
Not had any problems with it, one came to me with the most awful feet within 2 months of having just FF they had improved beyond recognition and are now in great condition despite now being on a very high energy diet that is not ideal for the feet, having become tough they seem to be remaining so now that he is in shoes and very hard work once again.
 
Some interesting replies, thank you everyone!! Definitely feeling like I might not be looking in the wrong direction after all!
I was thinking of trying an alternative feed to be honest, but will have to do a bit of research as I try to avoid molasses/soya oil/alfalfa for this particular horse. Hoping that I might be able to get some speedibeet or ideally unmolassed beet pulp so I know that there definitely isn't any hidden extras in it. Just when I thought I'd finally got her diet right!
 
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Abscesses , mud fever, rain scald , and seedy toe , are all as far as I know caused by a deficiency ,if you Google copper deficiency in horses there is some good information on there. I feed Baileys Lo CAL balancer and a small amount of chaff,the horse has great hooves barefoot and a beautiful coat .
 
If you want to try beet pulp but not Speedibeet, how about Purabeet?
I feed Speedibeet and Lucie Fibre Cubes at the moment, as a base for the minerals.
 
shergar said:
Abscesses , mud fever, rain scald , and seedy toe , are all as far as I know caused by a deficiency ,if you Google copper deficiency in horses there is some good information on there. I feed Baileys Lo CAL balancer and a small amount of chaff,the horse has great hooves barefoot and a beautiful coat .
Click to expand...

I fed mine on Bailey's LoCal and a handful of unmollassed chaff for years and had no problems. It's since I started messing about with expensive hoof friendly balancers etc, that there's been a problem.

Current feeds have nearly finished so will go back to the tried and tested Lo Cal and see if it makes a difference. Interesting.
 
I've had two ponies that had trouble on Fast Fibre, while my big mare had no trouble with it at all. The first pony always had a soft spot on her sole near her frog and we never quite got to the bottom of it. The next pony came with front shoes on and was perfectly happy when we took his shoes off, however he also developed soft spots on his soles. We thought it was the haylage, so changed him onto soaked hay and upped his FF. Hey presto, even more soft spots developed. We stopped the FF and his soles hardened off again - it was very strange and we came to the conclusion that it must have been the FF causing the problem. We now feed Fibre Beet which (touch wood!) hasn't caused any problem at all.
 
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