Hoof growth for shoes - dietary or topical recommendations

[maccachic]

Very impressive qualifications I am sure but forgive me for sticking with my vet, farrier and the evidence of my own eyes and over 50 years of personal experience.

The articles that you attached do not say 'not to feed seaweed' but as with all supplements do not overfeed anything. The third article did not open.

My own horse has improved hooves in a truly remarkable way after 4 months of seaweed and biotin. The farrier can actually feel the density of the hoof is vastly improved by the feel he gets as he is nailing in. We have kept two sets of front shoes on for 5 weeks each for the first time in four years. Same farrier all through. The hind feet are unshod and the soles have thickened considerably and the feet are no longer breaking up. The hard evidence is in front of our eyes. Prior to this, I have used Keratex Feed Supplement for two years (which has always given me excellent results over the years but not with this horse) and another well known hoof supplement that also failed to help.

Maybe my experience will help someone else maybe it wont - I hope that if someone is in trouble they may be open minded enough to try something that has worked for someone else. It is their choice.

The issue with seaweed (unless each batch is tested) is the widely varying levels of iodine. Both deficiency and excess present with similar symptoms.

In a study conducted in 2004 (Teas et al.) researchers found that the concentration of iodine in 12 different seaweeds varied from 16 mg/kg to 8165 mg/kg. They also found that within the same variety of seaweed, iodine concentration ranged from 514 mg/kg of iodine in the older sun‐bleached blades to 6571 mg/kg in the juvenile, fresh blades, demonstrating the highly variable concentrations of iodine that may be present in a seaweed product. Can Seaweed Cause Iodine Toxicity?

YES! Iodine toxicities can definitely occur when horses are fed too much seaweed. So, how much seaweed is too much? Well, that all depends on the concentration of iodine in the seaweed. Eighty grams of seaweed that contains 600 mg/kg of iodine will need to be fed to cause acute iodine toxicity in a 500 kg horse, while just 6 grams of seaweed containing 8000 mg of iodine/kg will cause acute toxicity in the same horse.

Chronic toxicity may also be a problem in horses. The effects of feeding relatively high concentrations of iodine to a horse over a long period of time (for example you may feed 20 grams per day of a 600 mg/kg iodine seaweed for 6 months, providing your horse that has a requirement of 2 mg of iodine/day with 12 mg of iodine per day) have never been studied in horses. Studies in humans however (Pearce et al. 2002; Mizukami et al. 1993) have shown that iodine toxicity can be precipitated through long term exposure to moderately high concentrations of dietary iodine. Thus the answer to the question 'how much is too much?' is 'we don't know', meaning seaweed must be fed with extreme caution, if it is to be fed at all. (Dr Richards - from Feed xl newletter)

 

[ester]

Excellent post maccachic, I admit to never having looked at it particularly closely.

 

[Brightbay]

Excellent post maccachic, I admit to never having looked at it particularly closely.

I never looked at it either, and the person I used to share the field with routinely fed seaweed.
When she left, for various reasons I got a forage analysis of the grazing done, and among other issues, it is very high in iodine. We are not particularly near the coast (40 minute drive) and there is nothing else about the field that would suggest it.

Since then, I have avoided seaweed since even the estimated lower amounts in the seaweed supplements would certainly cause problems longer term.

It's like Russian Roulette, adding something without knowing what else your horse is getting. Just like the poster above, our local feed store recommend seaweed highly as an answer to all ills.