Oh my goodness'! Formula 4 feet...

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LankyDoodle

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So I've been feeding G F4F since we lost our mare to lami. Partly paranoia on my part; however, he does get very slightly cracked hooves which I seem to keep on top of and have never been a problem in the 6 years I have had him.

I have just bought a new horse who has worse feet than G and can throw shoes/shoes become loose, mainly in summer due to him scratching (sweet itch).

Now I am cynical and don't believe these hoof moisturisers do a great deal, so I rather foolishly, probably, thought F4F would help the new boy. Thinking it would help him is not the issue, but thinking I could afford to feed F4F to an 800kg horse as well as a 500kg horse WAS foolish!

As it's time for the crunch, I've been totting up all our outgoings and where we can cut back. I calculate that we will probably spend in the region of £100 a year on hifi, £80ish on garlic and probably about £80 on speedibeet. I am also buying naked oats for when they do hard work, but I don't envisage spending more than about £20 a year on that. So we are up to about £300, and as an approximation I put into excel that we spend about £500 a year on feed for the horses, then got working it out for real. If I go ahead with feeding BOTH horses F4F then it's going to be costing me £900 a year
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While I want them to have good strong feet, and to feel healthy, I don't think my bank balance can take nearly £1000 a year on one foodstuff (that's more than a third of our own food bill!).

So is there something else I can feed? I am thinking of just going onto a simple balancer or equivit as even though it doesn't have everything F4F has, it will surely go some way towards helping them. Then I'll just have to use Kevin Bacon. Cannot believe the cost!!
 
When I only had about 20 horses here I used to feed Farriers Formula. I found it was wonderful and was happy feeding it. Then I got more horses and simply had to find something else more cost-effective. I did a lot of research and found a tonne of information on black oil sunflower seeds. So I started feeding these with the feeds every day and it did exactly as was stated in the many sites I researched. All of the horses feet were kept in great condition; their coats shone and the overall appearance of all the horses, was very pleasing.

Many people on here have tried them; some have seen improvements, some haven't; as would be expected, no one feed suits all horses, however it is worth a try as the cost is minimal in England. Over here 1 bag of BOSS costs the same as 2 bags of hard feed
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Carrie, have you tried feeding just plain biotin. You can get the refill bags for around £10,( NAF) one small scoop a day each. As you know, mine's had laminitis and his feet are fantastic, no chips splits or anything!
The bag lasts about 6 weeks.
 
I use to feed Farriers Formula and was advised to try Topspec instead. So I did and after 5 years on FF with OK ish feet within a few months he had fab feet!!!!!

Works out cheaper than FF so i would guess cheaper than F4F and adds condition as well!
 
Farriers Formula worked on my rescue mare when I first had her. Both mine are now fed black sun flower seeds but have only been fed them for 6 weeks so haven't seen a difference yet. I also feed Baileys Lo-cal. (Plus Happy Hoof and Speedibeet in the winter). Both have good feet and shiny coats
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My friend used gelatine for her horse's lousy feet and the improvement was noticeable pretty quickly. She put it in his feed for about a month.

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Gelatine is an animal based product, wouldn't recommend feeding that to a herbivore.
 
Hi and thanks everyone! So many good suggestions.

I like the sound of the sunflower seeds so will look into it; but I also like the sound of the biotin as that's what's in F4F so should actually work, and I'd feed it alongside lo-cal.

Thank you all.x
 
A cheaper alternative to biotin is wheat germ which you can buy from health food shops. When the old Appy came to us (over 20 years ago) with awful feet, we fed biotin for about six months and then used wheat germ for about 18 months. Eventually her feet were fine without any supplements.
 
formula 4 feet is also a balancer. So it may not just be the biotin that is having an effect. I had one on F4F but then when I got the 2nd swopped them onto topspec comprehensive and saw the same effects
 
I used to feed mine garlic and biotin on top of cool mix and chaff, cost a fortune. Now I feed Baileys No 4 and Dodson & Horrell Safe and Sound and no suppliments. Both the girls look fab and have great feet.
 
I don't think your calculations are right!

You can buy a 20kg sack of F4F from eBay for £77 delivered.

I'll assume your horses are big, so lets say 7kg = 5 week supply. So one 20kg sack is 14 weeks. 3.7 sacks per year per horse. So for two 7.5 sacks per year = £578 per annum.
 
Dengie healthy hoof and spillers happy hoof both have added biotin in them. Also limestone flour is also good as has a lot of calcium and its really cheap!
I am feeding that to my chap but also feeding F4F too as after about 9 months the farrier has said he is starting to see a difference, we certainly have the nail holes in the normal place now... not 2 or 3" up the foot to avoid the cracks like they were!!
My chaps feet grow very slowly so the foot that was growing when I started the F4F is only just coming down to the point that the nails are!!
 
Biotin only works if it's fed alongside zinc as the zine helps it to be absorbed. I *think* NAF biotin also has zinc sulphate included in and I also *think* you need to feed more than 1 scoop a day and it can take up to 8wks to show any effect. I'm happy to be proven wrong.

I've recently spoken to an Equine Podiatrist re going barefoot with one of mine and she recommended Equimins Hoof Mender. Apparently it has the best nutrional content and in their experience has given the best results compared to Farriers Forumla and F4F; it's also cheaper which is a bonus!

I've never used it so just going on the recommendation from the EP

Good luck whatever you decide
 
Thank you all. Lots of food for thought I think
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Sounds like people have had great results.

Cotswold, I'm not sure about my calculations: they might be wrong as I think I was doing them at about midnight!

I have a 500kg cob and an 800kg warmblood. I thought one scopp of the F4F was 250g. A 500kg horse has to have 1 scoop and so the 800kg would need a scoop and a half (375g). So that's 2.5 scoops a day (625g or thereabouts), which means I would get around 11 days' supply. I also looked on the F4F website which said that the 7kg tub would last a 6 week shoeing cycle for one horse, so that's more likely to be 2.5-3 weeks for 2 horses. However, having fed this for the last few months, I can't see how I'd only get 11 days' supply for 2 horses from that tub - I'd expect double that at least, thinking about it.

Does anyone know for sure how heavy the ration is for one scoop of F4F? George looks fab on it and I can really see a difference. Baileys Lo-cal is going to cost me £500 a year, based on their dosage recommendations, so I'd say I'd stick with F4F if it's viable.
 
I have started using BSS ... its week 1 so I dont expect results yet but it was £15 for a 15kg bag from the pet shop and I put about a cup in per day. I didnt previously feed anything for their feet but _SN_ and Theresa_F both swear by BSS.

Just on your other costs ... £80 a year on garlic is a lot! I get mine online from mile end supplies and a large bag of garlic powder was only about £30 when I bought it and it has lasted for ages - obviously the flakes are more expensive but if you want to make some further savings you may consider switching to the powder? Or a friend of mine convinced her husband to grow some (they are really easy to grow) so hers just get a couple of cloves a day and I think it costs a couple of pounds a year to grow them.
 
Just looking at the F4F website and it looks like I was a bit out. I should be giving G about 170g (more or less) of F4F per day, and L will need about 300g (approx), so that's around 500g a day, so about 183kg a year, which is 9-10 sacks at £77 = £693-770 a year. Ouchies.
 
That sounds fab, CBAnglo! I have to admit to the garlic cost being an estimate as we buy it in bulk each year from the Equine Fair, and yes we do buy the flakes. We have recently (accidentally) started growing maize (our rabbit eats corn on the cob and drops a few!), so I don't see why I can't grow some garlic. I am almost convinced to feed the BOSS as I have been reading about it this morning. I think I could cut back on carrots (which I add into their feed in winter).

I am just undecided now between sticking with F4F or going with Bailey's Lo-cal. I can't get my head round the costing of the F4F.
 
Do what I do when I am looking for supplements - I just google them and find the cheapest supplier.

On the whole though, I find mile end the cheapest and they dont charge delivery on orders over £60 - some charge by weight which is ridiculous when you are ordering 15kgs of something. I bulk order lots of stuff from them maybe 3 times a year and I find their wormers are probably the cheapest around. When I was on a DIY yard I used to order them from mile end for everyone to get the bigger saving. I also found a website called horse health - I havent ordered anything from there but they look pretty good as well but a lot of their stuff is own brand.

aww, you cant cut back on their carrots ... they look forward to them so much! you could try growing your own though (I have no idea how well this works but I do know that garlic is easy!)
 
Do not feed GARLIC - was informed by my farrier that Garlic counteracts the active ingrediant in farriers formula and such like supplements. I have stopped and H feet are making an improvement after only 6 weeks
 
I have used BSS since Tia posted about them - on Cairo, Chancer and now Farra.

I can say for my hairy horses they have made a huge improvement, poor old Happy Tony has to have his sharpest tools and groans their feet are so tough.

Apart from the rare chip, their feet are great - very strong and grow quickly.

I don't do tons of roadwork or have stoney tracks to ride on, so for me the BSS helped with them being barefoot.

They also give a great coat and are good for keeping black horses black. I have noticed the bay areas on Chancer are a much nicer dark and rich colour. Like all these things, it took a good six months or so to really notice the feet change, but the coat was silky soft within a few weeks.
 
Theresa, do you give a balancer alongside that? I am thinking chaff, speedibeet, the BOSS and a balancer (and was going to feed garlic). I am trying to cut back as much as possible. They are wintering out this year, I think.
 
OK googled them :

The relatively thin seed coat allows birds easy access to the oil-rich kernel, and this makes them a first choice for many species. They can be fed all year round and are a lower cost alternative to peanuts.


So do you need to feed anything alongside to compensate for anything they contain? (i.e limestone with oats for phosphorus)
 
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