Help needed from the bare foot brigade! Pretty please!

Ginger Bear

Ginger Bear

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I have a lovely tb, good doer, steeple chase build, not a spindly legged thin type.

His feet have always been ok-ish, but they don't grow a lot & they do sometimes break away. I keep reading that if you feed properly you can get some lovely strong foot growth. I'm not wanting him to go bare foot as we do a lot of hacking & road work but I do need his feet to start to improve.

He's fed Hi-if original, basic pony cubes, speedi-beet, 365 complete vitamin from equine answers. Is out grazing all day, stabled at night.

Thanks in advance.
 
I found that my horses hooves improved when I switched to a non-molassed chaff. You could see the line on all four hooves of each horse where above it was the non-m chaff and below was the molassed chaff.

So the first step is to cut sugar from the diet and go for high fibre options. Don't trust the adverts - read the ingredient list. ;)

A good quality vit and min supplement is helpful too. a lot of people on here like pro hoof.

Just a quick note, just for information - I only hack, and I find that I struggle to to enough roadwork with my ridden mare as working on tarmac is really good for unshod hooves. She still needs trimming as I've never reached the point where we wear enough away to self trim.
 
Thanks for the info.. Have just switch other pony to hifi lite due to digestion problems/low grade colic so horsey can try that too? Farrier said today he could go bare foot but might take a while to get him to that point. Planning on going bare foot with the pony end of summer x
 
Hi Fi light is quite sticky IIRC? It might be mollased or covered in soya or other oil. Check the ingredients, any molasses or molglo (sp?) and it's no good. I use Hi Fi Molasses free, but it does have some alfalfa, which doesn't suit all horses.

Honey chop does a straw only chaff and I'm considering swapping to it myself.

It's actually flipping hard to find molasses free chaff (I have to order it in) and yet it would be much better for every horse shod or unshod.

I would say that high fibre, low sugar diet would also suit the pony who had colic.
 
RE Chaff- I've been on a similar journey with chaff- Hi Fi lite has loads of sugar in still! (who knew?!!) I have been reccomended Halleys Timothy chop (google it) basically its just timothy hay chopped up- no additives- no sugar/ molasses/ crap! :)
 
I found that I saw a change in about 2 to 3 weeks, when I reduced the sugar load and fed magnesium. Still was a long haul though
 
Hi Fi Lite does still have molasses in it - you could try swapping to Hi Fi Unmollassed as its the same mix of ingredients but without the molasses.

I'd also look into the ingredients of the pony nuts, they might be full of rubbish too...!

My guys are all barefoot (all Tb's and all doing roadwork among other stuff ;) ) and I feed 365 and it really did help them grow lovely feet so I would keep that going and maybe remove the pony nuts and add micronised linseed instead.
 
In that case Scarlett, as a tb owner can I send you the ingredients of my pony cubes? What do you feed yours?.. If he could go bare foot my farrier would be happy to try it.. He's a remedial farrier and said this morning that feet are always stronger & healthier without shoes if a horse can cope. I'll just grab the ingredients..
 
Ingredients are oatfeed, wheatfeed, improved straw, the dreaded molasses, sunflower meal extract, calcium carb, sodium chloride, calcined magnesite, & vits & mins.

Can I swap to unmolassed hifi straight away or gradual? Is speedi-beet still ok?
 
Speedi beet is fine. :)

I would just stop the pony nuts, but i only feed a token feed, if you are feeding large quantities you might want to go 50/50 for a bit.
 
I have forwarded you a pm I got as a result of asking this question recently.
The original pmer might send it to you as well, but it was just in case it is useful.
 
As a general rule, those of us who feed cubes, which includes me, seem to have little trouble with them even though they have some sugar in. We think that may be because they are so well cooked that they are easy to digest, but we don't really know. I have one very sensitive one, who cannot manage without yeast, but he has no problem with cubes.
 
Ginger Bear said:
Thank you clodagh, are u trying this or have u tried this & was was the outcome?
Click to expand...

I only got that pm about a week ago so haven't tried it yet. Horse is currently on seaweed and biotin so I decided he could finish those up and then I will get the pro hoof. I seem to remember that their feet grow a lot more with spring grass and mine live out so I am hoping next time he is due for shoes he will have grown some horn. I thought I would get linseed in the autumn/winter, unless my farrier says there is no improvement this time in which case I will get it sooner.
 
My barefoot tb as a starting point has as much forage as he will eat.

For feeds but not in huge quantities I started with Speedibeet (or other unmolassed sugarbeet) and Linseed.
If i need extra calories I add Copra and I have fed dengie alfalfa pellets with no problems.
If I was going to feed alfalfa I would feed in that format as you have less additives.

To that I add a scoop of brewers yeast and minerals.
Progressive earth on ebay and forageplus do good pre mixed minerals that are very barefoot friendly.
 
criso said:
My barefoot tb as a starting point has as much forage as he will eat.

For feeds but not in huge quantities I started with Speedibeet (or other unmolassed sugarbeet) and Linseed.
If i need extra calories I add Copra and I have fed dengie alfalfa pellets with no problems.
If I was going to feed alfalfa I would feed in that format as you have less additives.

To that I add a scoop of brewers yeast and minerals.
Progressive earth on ebay and forageplus do good pre mixed minerals that are very barefoot friendly.
Click to expand...

How long has you tb been bare foot & what was the transition from shoes to no shoes like?
 
Mine went barefoot because he was lame and had terrible foot problems so he went to Rockley farm to be rehabbed there.

You can search for Frankie on the blog to find his story.

I got him back after 3 months careful over very stony surfaces but perfectly happy over everything else. He continued to improve and got to the point where he would stomp over everything.


Unfortunately he's now turned away as he decided to injure his shoulder which just goes to show you can't keep a self harming tb and his favourite vet apart for long.
 
Well the annoying thing for me is.. He had an operation for ringbone 3 years ago, had his shoes off for the op & vets need them kept off after while on 6 months box rest, due to the stabling, antibiotics, huge amounts of bite etc.. His feet suffered.. & to be honest my farrier has done everything to correct them but they just don't grow! But apart from that he doesn't injure himself regularly and isn't in & out of the vets.. I will have a read up on Frankie x
 
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