Poor foot, advice please?

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Charlie007

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When my horse was very young he caught his foot in some wire which resulted in a smaller foot than the other. The foot also seems to be weak. I know the weather isn't helping but the shoe on this foot keeps coming loose and bits of hoof are breaking away with it. Is there anything I can use to strengthen this foot quickly? My worry is that there will soon be no hoof to nail to. Would a hoof harderner or filler work? Any ideas??
 
hi Charlie007, I got my horse as an ex racer - 4 years old and he had the most awful feet. Couldn't keep his shoes more than a couple of days, cracking hooves, He cost me a fortune in farrier bills and hoof products.
The only thing I found that worked was pulling his shoes and leaving him barefoot for several months and giving him a biotin supplement. I don't know how old the horse is but my horses hooves seem to get better with age, He never throws a shoe now and he has lovely feet.

Hope this helps!
 
My horse has poor feet and I have to work quite hard to keep them in good order. My farrier sometimes uses an acrylic filler when small areas of horn are missing. When larger chunks are missing and nailing on is going to be a problem he builds up the hoof wall with Kevlar. This works extremely well with shoes remaining stable for 4-5 weeks and I'm able to keep to light hacking which is all I do anyway. My horse's feet were quite bad over winter because it was so wet and this is when my farrier resorted to Kevlar. Feet are now looking very good, no filler. They did improve quite quickly after being so bad. They are better in drier conditions although I do hose them down if the weather gets very hot and dry.

I keep my horse on a biotin based supplement, presently Equimins Biotin Plus. I've tried a lot of the commonly used preparations like Cornucrescine Original rubbed on the coronary band to stimulate growth and Keratex Hardener. I think the Cornucrescine helped but the Keratex Hardener seemed to make the hoof brittle.

I've been using a product called Cut Hoof Hoof Heal for the past few months and have been very pleased with the results. It does seem to encourage horn growth in my horse and has good antibacterial/antifungal properties also. Feet are now a lot harder and farrier has noticed a big difference when nailing on.
 
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