How are your horse's hooves looking with all this wet and mud?

MDB

MDB

Well-Known Member
Joined
29 June 2014
Messages
955
Location
Spain.
Visit site
As title really. I have become somewhat hoof obsessed over the past few months treating one of my mares for thrush and contracted heels since October. The thrush is gone and heels are looking better each month, but with all this wet weather the frogs are starting to look a bit tatty. My two are out 24/7 with field shelter. We have had non stop rain pretty much for 10 days now and nearly 200mm rain in the past 36 hours. And this is Spain! It is supposed to be sunny! The field shelter has turned to mush inside and out - Note to self, must install hard standing - alhough we clean it out and put fresh straw down daily by the following morning it is just awful inside. Thankfully the paste I am using to stuff down sulci seems to be working a treat, and there are amazingly no signs of thrush returning, but the frogs themselves are needing constant attention and I just want the flipping rain to stop so they can dry out a little! How are your horses hooves holding up in all this mud?
 
The farrier came yesterday and it was my turn to be there. One owner has asked me to ask his opinion on removing her horse's shoes. He's been retired for a while but she's never plucked up the courage to take shoes off as his feet aren't great and he used to have wedges. He's not had the wedges for 6 months though so she's been thinking about it. I asked him and he said there's only one way to find out. I couldn't get hold of her to check so had to make the decision and off they came!

Then farrier thought the pony would be better off without hinds. He keeps pulling them off as he has very little muscle behind due to previous untreated hock problems (before he was with us) so is very close behind. He's also a pain to shoe behind as he's still expecting it to hurt and he has decent quality of hoof and should be fine, so off his came too! Again couldn't get hold of his owner (my best friend) but know she trusts the farrier's judgement and would be happy for me to make that decision.

I thought the very wet conditions meant it was a bad time to take shoes off, but farrier said it would be good as much softer for them. Hard, frozen ground would be worse. Terrified the weather will change now!
 
One of mine is great. The other needs sudocrem in his central sulcus on all four feet every two days, otherwise they go manky. In summer, his frogs are ground bearing but in winter they aren't, which is what the problem is,I think. He did the same last winter too.
 
Kezzabell2 said:
really really good! I am barefoot rehabbing my horse at the moment, so have quite a few piccies of his hooves but they are coping amazingly well with the wet!

Click to expand...

Well done! I must admit that although the frogs are a bit frayed round the edges of my two mares, I am really pleased there are no signs of thrush, especially in the one with contracted heels, so that is better than expected. Just needing to tidy up any loose bits of frog every few days.

To those of you whose hooves are doing well, are you guys in the 'trim the frog' or 'leave alone' camp??
 
MDB said:
Well done! I must admit that although the frogs are a bit frayed round the edges of my two mares, I am really pleased there are no signs of thrush, especially in the one with contracted heels, so that is better than expected. Just needing to tidy up any loose bits of frog every few days.

To those of you whose hooves are doing well, are you guys in the 'trim the frog' or 'leave alone' camp??
Click to expand...

I've not needed to trim his frogs yet! but I try to do a fair amount of road work, as the vet wants my horse to self trim his own hooves!! so guess the road must be doing that job for him?
 
MDB said:
Brilliant :) what do you feed them out of interest?
Click to expand...

Nothing other than the grass in the field unless they do more than an hours work, then they get a dinner - big square scoops alfa oil, small scoop (200g ish) baileys high fibre nuggets, cup linseed, scoops of sloppy alfa beet. When they are stabled overnight they get big nets with about 8kg of haylage. Basically absolutely minimal cereals.

As far as the frog goes, I leave well alone. The farrier doesn't rasp the outside of the hoof and they get done every 10 weeks in winter.

Will try and get some pics of their hooves
 
Great I would say.

AF41DBF9-4F3E-460C-BD51-A2DACF6F5CC0_zpsoj9x0swi.jpg


Both self trimming. On the left as you look at it hasn't been touched since June and on the right hasn't been touched for over a year. Left one had terrible feet when I got her and is almost rock crunching. Right one has always been a rock cruncher but just gets tougher and tougher.

Low sugar and starch diet, adlib hay, mineral lick. Job done.
 
Last edited:
Jay's feet are better than ever, with all the water they are cleaner than they ever have been. I will attach photos of the near fore, but they all look the same...

I do not trim the frog, he is walked out on the road, and they pretty much self trim, I just round the edges off. He is on Pro Hoof normally, but he is so fat he is no longer on hard feed, so he just has a handful of Formula 4 Feet as a hand treat, and dry hay.

IMG_20151219_084832_zpsb9quy0ae.jpg


IMG_20151219_084932_zpspvgnugnz.jpg


IMG_20151219_084951_zpspnomhe2g.jpg


He is walked on pea gravel daily, and also scrubbed clean and has fancy French Hoof ointment. He is also turned on an arena, but there is standing water. Last year he was newly barefoot and much more vulnerable to water making him soft. These days in the morning when he has been on all night his feet are clean and hard.
 
My old mare has quite bad thrush, but I don't want to blame that entirely on the wet weather as her field is in very good nick and apart from having to wade through the gateway, the rest of it looks more or less pristine. In fact, her field companion's feet look pretty good, so I'm inclined to think that other factors might be at play and am having her ACTH levels retested (she has cushings) next week to see if she needs to go up from the 1/2 tablet that has suited her well for the past few years. I've also started to feed Formula 4 Feet to see if adding in some minerals might help. She's a very fussy eater so I normally keep things very simple, so Formula 4 Feet is the only one I think she might eat. She's never had thrush like this before, but I don't think it is just the weather.
 
Red-1 said:
Jay's feet are better than ever, with all the water they are cleaner than they ever have been. I will attach photos of the near fore, but they all look the same...

I do not trim the frog, he is walked out on the road, and they pretty much self trim, I just round the edges off. He is on Pro Hoof normally, but he is so fat he is no longer on hard feed, so he just has a handful of Formula 4 Feet as a hand treat, and dry hay.

IMG_20151219_084832_zpsb9quy0ae.jpg


IMG_20151219_084932_zpspvgnugnz.jpg


IMG_20151219_084951_zpspnomhe2g.jpg


He is walked on pea gravel daily, and also scrubbed clean and has fancy French Hoof ointment. He is also turned on an arena, but there is standing water. Last year he was newly barefoot and much more vulnerable to water making him soft. These days in the morning when he has been on all night his feet are clean and hard.
Click to expand...

Beautiful looking feet Red1 :)
 
Surprisingly well, the heels are a little soft when she comes in and the frog needs a tidy but all good. The farrier is coming next thurs so he can have a good look. Mostly, though, they're full of mud.
 
ycbm said:
One of mine is great. The other needs sudocrem in his central sulcus on all four feet every two days, otherwise they go manky. In summer, his frogs are ground bearing but in winter they aren't, which is what the problem is,I think. He did the same last winter too.
Click to expand...

My horse is the same. I have been using zinc and castor oil cream as it is so much cheaper and I have found it just as good.
 
Last edited:
I'm so envious of everyone who can avoid supplements, but my land is so high in iron and manganese that my horses still blood test over normal in spite of supplementing copper and zinc to control it. I also have to add selenium and like a lot of barefoot peeps I feed magnesium and salt, but I'm not sure if they are really necessary. I've also found that without yeast, about half my horses would go footie in summer, so everyone gets brewer's yeast too.

To cap it off, both are EPSM, and get vitamin e and acetyl l carnetine and one is just being weaned off sarc-ex. My feed room resembles a chemistry lab!

One gets that lot in unmolassed chaff and the other has a kilo of basic cubes too. Both get ad lib ryegrass/timothy mix haylage overnight and are on old grass during the day.
 
Last edited:
ycbm said:
I'm so envious of everyone who can avoid supplements, but my land is so high in iron and manganese that my horses still blood test over normal in spite of supplementing copper and zinc to control it. I also have to add selenium and like a lot of barefoot peeps I feed magnesium and salt, but I'm not sure if they are really necessary. I've also found that without yeast, about half my horses would go footie in summer, so everyone gets brewer's yeast too.

To cap it off, both are EPSM, and get vitamin e and acetyl l carnetine and one is just being weaned off sarc-ex. My feed room resembles a chemistry lab!

One gets that lot in unmolassed chaff and the other has a kilo of basic cubes too. Both get ad lib ryegrass/timothy mix haylage overnight and are on old grass during the day.
Click to expand...


If your Brewers yeast has chromium in it, this is an issue for PSSM horses.

I forgot about all the things mine gets re the PSSM as after a year of doing it it seems normal! However the other one just gets the mag (because she was a lunatic rather than for her feet). Maybe I should feed more salt to her too as she isn't as good as my PSSM horse, who gets mag, salt, alcar and vit e.
 
They look fine. He gets a biotin supplement everyday though as I worry about his hooves and joints even though he has only just turned 7 but better be paranoid I guess. A horse without his hooves is not good.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top