Hoof experts - concave soles

Meowy Catkin

Meowy Catkin

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My chestnut mare's hooves have improved so much, but her soles are still very flat. Is there anything that I can do to help her develop concave soles or is it just a matter of time?
 
They have a vit & mineral block in the field (high magnesium one). She never had hoof problems until I unfortuantely hired a bad farrier (he was highly recommended). By the time I sacked him, her hooves had changed shape alot. The new farrier has worked wonders in getting them back to how they should be, but her soles haven't recovered as fast as I would like.
 
If you aren't currently feeding minerals it would definitely be worth a try. A lot of barefoot people get their forage analysed and then have a mineral mix made up to balance what they are deficient in. I didn't go down this route as I'm on livery and our hay comes from various places so I went for a high quality vit and min instead. I've been feeding Equimins MetaBalance for a few months now and my farrier is very impressed with my boy's feet. Other options for vit supplements would be ProHoof or Forage Plus do one I think.

Do you feed Alfafa? I don't feed it as have a good but know it doesn't agree with some horse's hooves.
 
Salt is the other thing worth adding. Most horses won't take enough on a free choice lick alone. Apparently it makes them drink more which will help flush out any excess potassium and improve hoof quality.
 
One of mine did not concave up in summer until I fed him additional copper. My land is high in manganese and iron which prevent copper absorption.
 
I tried adding salt to her diet a few years ago (before the hoof problems) but after she had a mysterious filling of all four legs, the Vet said to not suppliment it anymore. The filling went away after I stopped all hard feeds, suppliments and restricted grass intake as the Vet advised.

Up untill last month, they all had NAF vit & min suppliment in their feeds, but I stopped giving them hard feeds because they were getting porky (this is why I got the mineral blocks).

The Farrier wants me to walk her out in-hand but she's still not sound enough to do that (she's still on field rest). I will walk her out as soon as she can cope with it.


ETA. It seems that a mineral analysis of the grass would be helpful, is there a particular company that is good?
 
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Tricky one then if you can't feed her anything. Not even plain unmollassed beet or a straw chaff?

My only other thought would be to try some hoof boots in front as a temporary measure?
 
She had speedi beet, oats and chaff over the winter, plus the vit & min suppliment.

ETA. The other three horses have lovely concave soles.
 
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***Disclaimer : I'm not a hoof expert***

I would say stick with your new farrier and follow his advice. Good farriers are hard to come by. Your horse's feet will improve even more over the next few months.

If you're not feeding hard feed to your horse at the moment (only grass/hay) - then one option is to feed Formula4Feet. Have a look on their (good) website. It's improved TB's poor horn quality tremendously. It's not one of the cheapest hoof supplements (around £76 for a 20kg sack from Prequestrian on eBay) but it lasts my horse 4 months. It's such a tasty supplement that you can feed it from the hand and your horse will love it so much, he'll carry on licking your hand for ages after the actual stuff has been eaten - just in case more of it appears somehow... The ingredients in Formula4Feet is so comprehensive that you wouldn't need a second general vitamin/mineral supllement too. (If you want to, in winter you can add loads of Speedibeet/Purabeet to the Formula4Feet and the rest of his diet would then be grass/hay/haylage etc.)

Simple System Horse feeds have excellent, natural type feeds for horses - incl a massive tubtrug filled with hard salt - this could possible be put out in the field, if your horses are turned out 24/7? (They have also got an excellent website and telephone helpline service.)
 
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You can get a field or forage analysis done here http://www.forageplus.com/

I would probably go with giving her a minimal handful of feed with one of the specialist vit and min supplements in it. If it helps her hooves then you'll be able to work her a little more so she'll burn the extra off.

All this said, I'm still relatively new to the complexities of barefoot and diet. For some really expert advice try http://phoenixhorse.myfastforum.org/
 
faracat, forageplus have recently done an analysis for me and although others (dodson and horrell off top of head) do them I think the spec is different re quantities of minerals. We decided to do it as our fields form pretty much all of the forage that ours get over the year and that we would feed both of them according to the results, despite only Frank having had his shoes off (and being much fussy about the grub.. eww I don't like salt, eww I don't like yeast :p, despite quantities of cider vinegar!) As he is out of work he has just been having it in fast fibre which is pretty low energy wise (I think about 8MJ now) although I have given in and am seeing if he finds speedibeet anymore palatable (poss not so we won't throw the pony nuts out just yet!)
 
Hi, walking out in hand will help a lot. Try her in boots (and pads) if she is uncomfortable barefoot. The sole takes about 3 months to grow from heel to toe. Tge concavaty happens wen all tge structures in tge foot r working proprly because the foot us balanced and landing slightly heel first. So in theory it will take at least 3 months from tge foot becoming propely balanced and her been sound enough to use her foot correctly before good concavaty will occur.
Diet is also v important. High fibre low sugar low starch.
If u would like any specific adivice feel free to pm me. I am a trained barefoot trimmer and behaviourist with a working knowledge if nutrition. Happy to help if I can :-s
Best wishes. X
 
Hoof boots are no good. :( She rubs so easily that I couldn't ride her in my Ariat boots or put over-reach boots on her anymore (I had tried the sheepskin lined ones and they still rubbed).

I'll look at F4F and I'll talk to my farrier about nutrition. I don't want to hinder her recovery by not doing something right. I'll take some new hoof photos tomorrow, so that you can see how far she's come. She really looks like a different horse now, but the journey isn't over yet.

ETA. Will also look at forageplus.
 
re hoof boots Frank has easyboot gloves, am sure that as we are only doing road walking the gaiters are doing nothing! The shells fit feet only so perhaps they might be a non rubbing option (you can buy the shells separately)

I'm surprised they haven't rubbed him at all tbh, sensitive chestnut flower (cough cob!) he is!
 
Faracat said:
ETA. It seems that a mineral analysis of the grass would be helpful, is there a particular company that is good?
Click to expand...

Forage Plus does the whole thing
Dodson and Horrell and Simple Systems do the analysis, but you have to get someone to inteperet the results - I had Mel Barker from Progressive Earth do mine.

My old boy had concavity (finally) in Dec 2009. Then in Feb 2010, he had an abscess and osteomylitis and his hooves went splat (interestingly, 10 days after he had vaccinations).

It took ages for him to get over it all. He just wasn't 'well' for months after.

Then he developed a salivary gland infection and his teeth were bad and he needed to go on a forage replacer diet.

So I did my research and fed him a good diet as recommended by a nutritionist I trusted.

He was well and then he had an episode of cellulitis (this is a horse who has never been sick before, all his life).

I started feeding herbs and he was fine.

But he never got that concavity back, like he'd had a year before.

Then I had an analysis done and starting feeding the minerals.

You can see the results here
http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=498827&highlight=mineral+results

Suddenly - he had the concavity back!

It wasn't so much about what I started feeding - it was also what I found I SHOULDN'T feed. What doesn't work with my land.

So the alfalfa pellets had to go. The wheat feed had to go. Anything with high iron had to go. Seaweed had to go.....
 
OK, she's still not using her hooves properly with a heel first landing, but she is getting there.

The starting point (just horrific).

NFhoof2011.jpg


About three months ago (the abscess hole has now fully grown out, I will take new up to date photos tomorrow).

100_2169.jpg
 
OMG!!.they were not great were they. It's hard to change farriers, so good on ya!! They do look improved but like u say long way to go. Don't rush things tho, this will b a long job, no instant fix I'm afraid. Keep doing what ur doing. X
 
No, this is the anglo-arab. I don't have photos, but he also put a twist into her off-hind which has now straightened up alot. The hinds do have some concavity but the fronts (especially the near-fore in the photos) is very flat still sole wise.
 
I just wanted to add that she can have all the time she needs. She's been on field rest for over a year because of this, I just want to get her sorted.
 
Some more recent pics would be great. Side view, front and solar.

Did she come to you like that - or am I mixing the hooves up with another horse?
 
No. I moved and had to change farrier. It's actually shocking how quickly her hooves 'slipped' (for want of a better term). For a while they just looked slightly long in the toes and I did raise the issue. Unfortunately I was very ignorant about hooves and basically his excuses sounded logical and I believed them. She started to pull shoes off, so he shod shorter. I wasn't happy as the toes were getting longer. Got a Vet to look, who said that 'horses losing shoes is not a sign of a bad farrier, give him a chance.' I still wasn't happy and now wouldn't ride her as she wasn't right. Got another Vet to look, they were wishy washy about it. I raised the issue with the farrier again, he said 'that's just her' (blamed the horse). I knew that wasn't right, so get Vet three to look who said 'holy hell' so I sacked the farrier. I then found a new farrier who is a level higher of training. He did his first trim just after the before photos in this post. Within half an hour he had brought that toe back by over an inch and she ( the mare) was much happier.
 
Good grief! Talk about getting the run around:(

Sorry you had to work so hard to get some answers :(
 
And yes, im mixing her up with another horse in my mind.
Sadly those hooves arent so uncommon....
 
I'll do the photos you want first thing.


ETA. Yes, now I'm aware of the problem of long toes and under-run heels - I see the same thing (often to a lesser degree than my mare had) again and again.
 
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Oh my GOD! I've never seen hooves like it!! No wonder she's struggled!

I would highly recomend a forrage analysis from forrage plus.

That said, I noticed a dramatic improvement in my boys feet after I started supplementing with Magnesium, brewers yeast and biotin. so that might be worth a shot in a small handful of un-mollassed chaff?
 
I remember some of your posts, dreadful story. :( Hooves can change frighteningly quickly, they are very dynamic and responsive.
I would drop the lick myself, they are often packed with iron and have mollasses as a 'sweetner'.

Perhaps give a good mineral mix in a token feed? Also keep an eye on potential high sugar levels in diet, this means in grass and hay/haylage.
 
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