Gravel in hooves

[bambar]

My little section A keeps collecting little bits of gravel in her hooves which has now resulted in them embedding and pushing the inner wall away from the outer and leaving a crevice.

I've been digging them out everyday but obviously i cant be there 24/7 to keep picking them out.

Unfortunatley there isnt any way of preventing her standing on gravel as the entrance to the shelter contains fine stone dust which is where she is getting it from.

I'm thinking hoof putty or something else to prevent it but i can see this coming straight off in the field.

Any idea what i can do? Shes barefoot btw as she is a companion pony.

 

[Gloi]

This is probably happening the other way round. She has a stretched white line which is allowing the gravel to collect. This is most likely to have dietary origin and if she is at grass all the time will probably be better on a lower sugar diet.
If she is fed something liked soaked hay instead of the grass and a mineral supplement such as pro hoof you should start getting a better hoof wall connection. Her feet will also need trimming in a way to reduce the amount of stress where her hoof wall reaches the ground to help stop leverage on the wall. If you do these things she should grow down a more connected hoof which can't pick up gravel.

 

[Exploding Chestnuts]

^^^ once you have diet sorted make sure the hooves are trimmed often as needed, you can ask farrier to tell you how the feet are looking.

 

[bambar]

^^^ once you have diet sorted make sure the hooves are trimmed often as needed, you can ask farrier to tell you how the feet are looking.

Thanks - she is trimmed regularly by an EP but he didnt pick up anything about her diet - just started to notice gravel embedding and told me to make sure i cleaned it out every day....

as for her diet - she is in during hte day and out at night on strip grazing. SHe absolutely refuses to eat soaked hay so i have just been feeding her lesser quality older hay so not sure what else i can do....

 

[Exploding Chestnuts]

Thanks - she is trimmed regularly by an EP but he didnt pick up anything about her diet - just started to notice gravel embedding and told me to make sure i cleaned it out every day....

as for her diet - she is in during hte day and out at night on strip grazing. SHe absolutely refuses to eat soaked hay so i have just been feeding her lesser quality older hay so not sure what else i can do....

Its minerals that you need, try pro earth or forageplus , equimins or feedmark original [they will advise amount] no pony cubes which usually have molasses or moglo, try Fast Fibre from Allen and Page [mash] or even some damped Dengie nonmolassed chaff [very tasty] to carry minerals.
Try soaking for just an hour or less, she may be fine with that, it will remove dust and some sugar [the water is coloured]. I would not feed less hay, I would feed more [within reason], so she is not hungry when put out, for same reason a tiny feed at that time. Old hay will have less sugars than fresh grass, almost certainly.