Shallow feet? Risky/How do you cope?

[FFF]

We have just seen a lovely 5yo horse, who could be perfect, but one thing that is worrying us is that he has quite shallow feet.

He has never been shod so would be shod and would help a lot? Looking on the internet it seems that navicular can be brought on by shallow feet. Could this be possible?

We will be getting him vetted and aksing the vet/farrier, but can anyone help?!


Does anyone have a horse with shallow feet? Is it a problem and what do you do?

 

[cptrayes]

Your horse is more likely to have a sensitivity to too much spring grass or a mineral imbalance that is causing shallow feet. Shallow feet are not natural, they are generally created by a diet that is lacking somewhere. In my own horses, barefoot, they were created by an inadequate supply of copper due to my grazing and water being high in manganese and iron. In many, many horses it is caused by grass sugars. It is very likely that if you were to balance this horse's diet better he would not even need shoes. But if you do shoe him, be sure to sort out whatever caused the flat feet in the first place, otherwise it is possible that his feet will be made weaker by shoes, and then he would be a candidate for navicular syndrome in a few years time.

There is no reason not to buy him, the feet are almost certainly man-made, not what he was born with. Is he out at grass 24/7? the first thing to try will be to keep him off the grass during the hours when grass sugars are highest, mid morning to mid evening. I have one who also needs to be muzzled at night, but that is less common. You might strip graze instead, but beware of "starvation paddocks" as they often grow more grass than people think they do, and what it does grow is stressed and short and contains a higher sugar content than taller thicker grass.

 

[jm2k]

i have a very large 18.2hh+ MW CBxTB with 'flat feet' and dry hooves. he cant bare to walk on anything other than grass due to being so tender. i only shoe him if riding, lightwork fronts only.
you can get hoof-boots instead of shoes and as these are becoming more readily available and popular, there are different types and inserts specifically for issues with different types of horses and hoof.

apart from the tenderness side of things, i have had no problem what-so-ever apart from thrush in winter. ive owned him since he was a yearling and that was nearly 20 yrs

try trelawn equine for a lot of info on boots,although they dont stock all the ranges available,there is good hoof information available to you.

 

[AndySpooner]

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that this sort of foot problem is a combination of diet and exercise or rather the lack of.

With enough exercise horses can cope with any sort of high value feed, providing they can use it up, when they can't it's then that that the foot problems arise.

The poor foot condition of most horses that are field ornaments is lack of exercise, even though they may not be getting supplimentary hard feed.

Peoples perception of exercise or 'work' is a bit strange, a bit of schooling or a hack out is not enough for any horse, yet these are the ones on lots of extra hard feed, to compound the problem.

Keeping horses properly barefoot is not easy and takes a much higher level of management than most horse owners exhibit so it's much easier just to shoe, this then negates the problems of poor hoof condition.

 

[Tiny Fluffy Coblet]

To be honest one of the biggest factors in overweight ponies in the UK (my dissertation topic) that I found was that it is not common knowledge what constitutes maintenance, light, medium and hard work. A lot of people feed for medium work because they have a lesson twice a week and hack once.

Most amateur owned horses who do not compete are in maintenance. Showing at lower levels, (long distance) hacking, regular (as in daily) schooling ect all count as light. Heavily used riding school ponies, lower lever eventers, dressage horses, show jumpers lower level endurance horses are in medium work. Only racehorses, polo ponies, serious endurance and three day eventers are in heavy work.

I am sure that this confusion helps the horses feet as little as it helps their weight.

I have worked a fair few riding schools where many of the ponies who did a minimum of a lesson a day and often 2 or 3 at the weekend still only had turnout and hay, those who were harder keepers got haylage and very very few got hard feed and they looked great. Our biggest problem was keeping weight off.

 

[AndySpooner]

To be honest one of the biggest factors in overweight ponies in the UK (my dissertation topic) that I found was that it is not common knowledge what constitutes maintenance, light, medium and hard work. A lot of people feed for medium work because they have a lesson twice a week and hack once.

Most amateur owned horses who do not compete are in maintenance. Showing at lower levels, (long distance) hacking, regular (as in daily) schooling ect all count as light. Heavily used riding school ponies, lower lever eventers, dressage horses, show jumpers lower level endurance horses are in medium work. Only racehorses, polo ponies, serious endurance and three day eventers are in heavy work.

I am sure that this confusion helps the horses feet as little as it helps their weight.

I have worked a fair few riding schools where many of the ponies who did a minimum of a lesson a day and often 2 or 3 at the weekend still only had turnout and hay, those who were harder keepers got haylage and very very few got hard feed and they looked great. Our biggest problem was keeping weight off.

^^agree^^,

My horses were used to doing 25 miles per day over 6 days, at all paces, they were fit and well muscled, all a pleasure to ride, I wouldn't have called this 'heavy' work, as it was well within the horses natural ability, and basically what they were designed for, they weren't over fed either which helped maintain good all round health.