rock crunching help required

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JACQSZOO

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Help from the barefooters please.

My 8 year old cob has never been shod. Ive had her a year. Im new to this barefoot thing so need all the advice I can get.

She self trims pretty well but sees a barefoot enlightened farrier ever few months to check her balance etc.
Diet wise,
Soaked hay overnight, handful of soaked grass nuts and a a handful of happy hoof to carry her general vit and min supplement. Out in the day with a grazing muzzle for approx 6 hours.
Im very lucky to have access to a small all weather turn out area the rest of the time, so she is only stabled overnight in winter.
She is, and always has been footy on stones. Tarmac is fine. I woukd like to get her rock crunching but not sure where I should start. I wouldnt say grass has a huge effect on her feet as she is the same winter and summer. However, she is a greedy cob prone to gaining weight hence I manage her with the muzzle and soaked hay. I have also purchased her hoof boots for the front to help with some of the tracks, but she still feels them behind.

I tried mag ox end of last summer for 2 months but didnt notice any difference. I cannot get my hay analysed as I have to buy in from several suppliers.

There is obviousky somethung missing from her diet and tips, recommendations of what supplements coukd help woukd be appreciated.
 
I could have written that post 10 years ago. I never found the magic bullet that made my horse rock crunching in all conditions. We'd have better phases and worse ones, and grass didn't really play a big factor as far as I could tell. Tried forage analysis and strict mineral balancing, as well as phases entirely off grass, with limited success.
I think in our case, factors that make it more difficult to succeed were that he has very slow hoof growth (I marked his hoof walls one year and measured growth, and I think he managed all of about 2.5cm over 6 months), and that virtually all our hacking is on abrasive gravel. Maybe our type of grazing and his genes also play a role (very good doer).
After over a year of trying to wean him off boots, I gave up. I rode him for 5 years or so booted, then started to shoe in summer, and use boots in winter. I found we were both much happier once I stopped playing the guessing game "is he footy today?" and just put boots on all around. Trying shoes was for my own convenience mostly (no more booting up and cleaning boots in wet, muddy conditions), but also for the horse's (break from occasional gaiter rubs, better grip in slick mud). I still like to give him a good break out of shoes though every year.
In your place, I would get a set of hind boots and crack on. Maybe you'll pick up more tips on what else to try, but in the meantime go out and enjoy your horse in comfort. I am not convinced that all horses will eventually become rock crunching, if only you do "everything right". And even if that were true, life puts constraints on how we can keep our horses, and it may simply not be feasible to provide optimum conditions all the time. Bare and booted is the next best thing (if you can get a set of boots that works well for you).
 
Sympathy from me. Mine is barefoot (and has been for some years) and copes fairly well in the winter when our hacks are shorter but definitely "feels" stony ground in the summer so wears front boots. Our bridlepaths are stony and I know at times he "feels" with his back feet so we may crab on to any nearby grass but generally he copes fine with just fronts.

His fieldmate, who has been barefoot for about 18 months, is a much more delicate soul. He also copes well in the winter but in the summer he needs his front boots on even to come from the field into the yard (road scalpings in the gateways) and wears boots all round to hack. They both get a handful of Happy Hoof to carry their supplement (salt for mine, devil's claw for the old chap) and nothing else except grass and haylage.

I'd say it would be worth using boots as you may find you don't need them all the time. Ours are certainly both very happy on grass or tarmac without.
 
I found boots were a blimming nuisance! My Draft mare had very big, very round feet, so the choice of boots was very limited and the one kind that did fit her spun round, no matter what I did!


If I were you I would swap the Happy Hoof for a good quality grass chaff or oat straw chaff. HH contains molasses and alfalfa, both are less than wonderful for hoof condition.
 
Some horses soles are too thin ever to cope well on stony ground. No matter what you feed them, if its their conformation theres not a lot you can do.
 
Use one of the high copper, no iron, no manganese supplements from Progressive Earth, Forage plus, or Equimins and see if that makes a difference.
 
A trick taught me by an old vet:

Hold up the foot and pour on a small amount of Epsom Salts, just enough to cover the sole. Cover with cotton wool and gaffer tape. Leave on for up to 24-48 hours. Et voila....hard as rock soles.

Can't tell you why it works but as we all know Epsom Salts are actual magic! ;)
 
I went to a clinic a couple of weeks ago run by Nic of Rockley farm. It was mainly about looking at heel first landing, but we got some handouts about general care, you can have a copy of them if you like?
 
ycbm said:
Use one of the high copper, no iron, no manganese supplements from Progressive Earth, Forage plus, or Equimins and see if that makes a difference.
Click to expand...

Thank you. Just had a quick look on their websites but got a tad confused. Which ones should I be looking at please?
 
Frank was never rock crunching, his soles remained too flat to really give him the chance to. Had had very thick but flexible soles (the vet was surprised how thick they were given how bendy). He was better the more mileage and the more varied terrain he did - he would happily go over short bits of stony track but not to do any major distance on. He did a bit more/got more blase when hunting but he would be sore for a day or two after as a result.

Interestingly a know a few with opposite sort of feet, very concave, little frog to speak off and great over everything because their soles are essentially higher up.
 
I'd also vote for Pro Hoof or suchlike from Progressive Earth. Not cheap, but the only supplement with enough zinc and copper to 'cancel out' our iron rich grazing, and the only thing that has made my barefoot mare stop being footy.
 
Hooves adapt to the environment, and as uk horses tend to spend the majority of their time on mud fields, their hooves are adapted to that. My own cob, barefoot almost all his life and now 20, has never been rock crunching, though he manages perfectly well as long as I respect the fact that he spends most of his life on grass.
In order to get real rock crunchers, I suspect you would need to keep your horse on a variety of different terrains, including rocky, stoney, tarmac etc, which I believe they do at Rockley?
Alternatively, you could spend many hours adapting the hooves by taking you horse on the different surfaces, but personally, I’ve never had the time to do this.
Feeding, mineral balance and a good trimmer are important of course, but even with all these in place, I think it’s quite a big ask to expect a field living horse to go over rocky/stoney ground without issue.
Boots have been the way to go for me, all the protection of shoes, with none of the damaging side effects..
 
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