Kevin Bacon or Keratex??

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pipper

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I have just taken a little sec A pony who has dreadful dry cracked hooves, with a few chunks missing. I am going to go down the 'feed for better hoof quality' but wondered which one of these products are the best to use alongside. Farrier said Keratex but when I googled it the results were saying that the Kevin Bacon is best. Whats HHO's verdict please? :cool:
 
My farrier prefers Keratex which I use on my mare and has been brilliant. Others on the yard all swear by Kevin Bacon though but as not my horses couldn't tell you if it's made an improvement or not.
Keratex is like a varnish (smells just like nail varnish) and makes a seal as opposed to adding moisture if that makes sense?
 
Neither - you can't turn poor horn into good horn by painting something on it.

You need to feed a good diet and grow out the crappy horn and grow down good horn.
 
Whilst Faracat is right & horn quality can actually only be improved by good diet I've always found that using Kevin Bacon helps to keep the moisture balance of the horn good. When a horse has brittle feet which are prone to chipping, cracking and/or loosing shoes this can really help.
 
Faracat said:
Neither - you can't turn poor horn into good horn by painting something on it.

You need to feed a good diet and grow out the crappy horn and grow down good horn.
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Exactly that and putting on oil just seals the hoof, nothing will help dead horn. It's like putting conditioner on hair, pointless cos it's dead and you're usually just adding silicone to make it smooth.
 
cinnamontoast said:
Exactly that and putting on oil just seals the hoof, nothing will help dead horn. It's like putting conditioner on hair, pointless cos it's dead and you're usually just adding silicone to make it smooth.
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Yet so many farriers are saying its great, mine included. (the Kevin Bacon one) I haven't tried it yet, I've been using a Lidl horse hoof grease that someone gave me, and that is doing a good job too.

I don't think hoof oil or grease seals the hoof at all, not for more than half an hour anyway. Over the years I've seen feet that haven't had hoof oil on dry out much quicker in hot weather.
 
I have a book called 'No Foot No Horse', I haven't read it for ages (and I'm not going to dig it out now), but I remember reading that horses hooves are designed to be bone dry and cope with dry/harsh/even stony conditions. The problem is generally that the weather is often wet in the UK/Ireland and conditions underfoot means the hoof is often wet and readily absorbs moisture (I'd love to know what hoof conditions are in arid regions). Then, you get dry periods and the hoof is contracting and drying out quickly and this causes cracks and poor hoof quality, then it's wet again and so on. So, my thought is that if there is some way of sealing the hoof against this cycle (it's keratin like hair isn't it), that should help? Does a hoof need to breathe? I can't remember, I'd have to dig the book out. So surely a moisture barrier is beneficial?
 
doriangrey said:
I have a book called 'No Foot No Horse', I haven't read it for ages (and I'm not going to dig it out now), but I remember reading that horses hooves are designed to be bone dry and cope with dry/harsh/even stony conditions. The problem is generally that the weather is often wet in the UK/Ireland and conditions underfoot means the hoof is often wet and readily absorbs moisture (I'd love to know what hoof conditions are in arid regions). Then, you get dry periods and the hoof is contracting and drying out quickly and this causes cracks and poor hoof quality, then it's wet again and so on. So, my thought is that if there is some way of sealing the hoof against this cycle (it's keratin like hair isn't it), that should help? Does a hoof need to breathe? I can't remember, I'd have to dig the book out. So surely a moisture barrier is beneficial?
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This is spot on there was an article in horse and ride last week about it said For hoove cracks apply a hoof hardner I would go with keratex with a bit of conucresin rubbed in at the coranry band for growth and leave the packed mud in the feet as it moderates the hydration and stops shrinkage !
 
Has everyone forgotten that Keratex contains carcinogenic chemicals?

As I said, I don't use either (or any other hoof oil/balsam/whatever) but I have improved the horses' diets and their hooves coped brilliantly with that awful wet summer and the endless snowy winter.
 
Faracat said:
Has everyone forgotten that Keratex contains carcinogenic chemicals?

As I said, I don't use either (or any other hoof oil/balsam/whatever) but I have improved the horses' diets and their hooves coped brilliantly with that awful wet summer and the endless snowy winter.
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Well, tbh I don't but my mare is retired and has a concrete yard (aside from her barn and field) which she ambles on in winter for her haylage - she rarely needs her hooves trimmed. I'm not going to say she's on a barefoot diet - she just eats what a horse was designed to eat. Just wondering though as quite a fair few people think that Kevin Bacon (isn't he an actor?!) is beneficial to hooves. I wonder if they are stabled more and so their hooves are drier or the land is drier, how much work they do and on what terrain - or if the product actually works.
 
glamourpuss said:
Whilst Faracat is right & horn quality can actually only be improved by good diet I've always found that using Kevin Bacon helps to keep the moisture balance of the horn good. When a horse has brittle feet which are prone to chipping, cracking and/or loosing shoes this can really help.
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^5 This, you can't change the horn that is there only improve the new horn and do something to prevent the already formed hoof worsening.

Dew is good for the hooves when they dry out, my boy is footy and has been shod this morning and has had a few large chunks missing. I use keratex on the sole to harden and kevin bacon on the hoof wall and beneath to as moisture and improvement.
 
It all depends on the nature of the problem - there is no one size fits all. If they have dry cracking walls, moisture is the answer, so tub and THEN oil or treat. If the soles are thin and sensitive you need a hardener to allow them to be able to walk over stony surfaces to callous them. If the hoof capsule is damaged and cracking, Cornucrescene stimulates growth from the coronary band, (although both my farrier and I reckon it is nowhere near as good as it used to be) but the thing to remember is that any improvements will take time - the time it takes for new hoof to grow, up to 6 months, and maybe you need to manage it for that time in some way.
 
doriangrey said:
Just wondering though as quite a fair few people think that Kevin Bacon (isn't he an actor?!) is beneficial to hooves. I wonder if they are stabled more and so their hooves are drier or the land is drier, how much work they do and on what terrain - or if the product actually works.
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There IS an actor called Kevin Bacon - but THE Kevin Bacon was a top Australian showjumper for MANY years and toured Europe for nearly as long. The two products are, IMHO, totally different - and for different problems. If I have a horse with thin soles who bruises easily, I use Keratex on the soles only. Dry, cracked feet - Kevin Bacon's is definitely best!
 
I've noticed a difference in my boys feet since I started using Kevin Bacon. I agree it can only really be fixed with feeding but for maintaining what he already has its great! His feet are no longer crumbly at the bottom and although it sounds silly, they "look" much better!
 
I've noticed a big difference since I started using Kevin Bacon (keratex before) on my barefoot boy. He is currently the only barefoot horse at the yard, and all the hacking is rough, stony forest track terrain, which we do 5 or 6 days a week for roughly 2 hours a time.
I use it every other day, his feet are in great condition, the farriers can't believe he copes so well on the rough ground with no shoes - and he eats solely grass in the summer, no hard feed and no added vits/mins - there's plenty in the grass at this time of year.
 
JanetGeorge said:
There IS an actor called Kevin Bacon - but THE Kevin Bacon was a top Australian showjumper for MANY years and toured Europe for nearly as long. The two products are, IMHO, totally different - and for different problems. If I have a horse with thin soles who bruises easily, I use Keratex on the soles only. Dry, cracked feet - Kevin Bacon's is definitely best!
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Following on from this - my new horse apparently has "very thin walls and soles and also has flat feet which make them very sensitive"

Which one would benefit us?

He's just been shod on all 4 so hopefully see an improvement, as he was unshod on the back before.

Looking in biotin supplements also - any advice would be great :)
 
Last year I used Kevin Bacon (red top)... thought it was great, but by chance, slathered horses hooves in vaseline ( going to a show and forgot oil), and was so pleased that it stayed on till the following day that have been using that instead... havent had any problems with dry, cracking hooves, but may well just be a coincidence!
 
I was always of the camp that to not put anything on them was better but I actually found that those with shod hooves are much more able to keep shoes on and less lickely to develop splits or crumble if I put Kevin bacon on regularly in dry weather. It doesn't make any difference to the unshod feet though.
 
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