TB type horse going barefoot in 6 weeks - stories please!

Sasana Skye

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My horse has had her final set of shoes on today and the 12th July is ‘D day’ when they come off for good and I’m determined to make this work.

Said horse is a 15 year old Irish Sports Horse who takes more of the TB blood than anything else and she has been fully shod since a 5.5yo.

She has fantastic quality hoof horn but typical TB feet - thin soles, low heels and long toes. We xrayed the hocks, hooves, fetlocks and back last year (all relatively clear with some very, extremely mild age related wear and tear) we consequently did remedial shoeing, took the toes right back and put extra support on the heel under advice from the vets.

She is 100% sound and honestly the best she’s been for years. I just want to know that the shoes aren’t masking anything, also my farrier thinks it’s a great idea to whip off the shoes and so do I.

I’m taking this 6 weeks to ‘prep’ her for life without shoes. Diet changes are in full swing, lots and lots of red horse products are being used religiously and I measured her up today for some scoot boots.

I guess I’m just looking for people’s stories of their horses going BF - particularly TB types. Any advice? Tricks that worked for you? How long it took for them to become somewhat comfortable? Pictures would be AMAZING!
I know it’s going to be tough for both of us but my gut is telling me this is the right thing to do.

Some pictures so you know what we are dealing with. X ray images show her feet BEFORE remedial shoeing took place so I know they aren’t 100%. I will try and upload some more hoof pictures but apparently they are too large to upload :rolleyes:
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Sasana Skye

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Letting me attach these now but not the under side ones unfortunately :)
 

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Tihamandturkey

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Watching with interest - my TB ex racer couldn't even stand in a field without shoes 😳 mind you that was decades ago 🤔
 

Sasana Skye

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I did try taking the hinds off last year and she did really struggle but I didn’t do anything bar pull the shoes off and gave in after 2 months but I’m going to persevere this time and make other lifestyle changes
 

ester

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I was lucky as the summer we did it (started April) was the wettest summer in a while, if the ground is anything like last summer I'd be inclined to wait for the end of summer if that were doable.
 

Pearlsasinger

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Sadly it takes a lot longer than 6 weeks for dietary changes to have an effect on the hoof, so you might have to use hoof boots for quite a while.
 

Sasana Skye

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Of course it will take longer than 6 weeks! But this is a lifestyle change we are going through so we need to get used to it :). My aim is to be able to hack out without boots in a years time so fully prepared to have her in them long term. Not to mention gradually starting a new diet as it means changing the feed she’s been on for 7+ years as the starch/sugar levels are astronomical.

I did think that Ester but I’ve been warned about wet ground causing the feet to go soft so they go more footy, while others prefer the soft ground to hard. Guess it’s a case of horses for courses :confused: Farrier and I agree now is the best time while she is living out so she can keep moving and encourage more growth
 

ester

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You might just need to be prepared with different boots (or to poss get some at short notice) you can't pad much in the scoots like you can some others.

Mines a welsh cob, he has structurally solid feet but flat soles even when fully transitioned years down the line likely due to the position of his pedal bone. I spent all last summer waiting for it to rain for him. I'm not trying to put you off but if they do struggle with the hard ground it can make it doubly difficult and you absolutely need to keep up their bodywork too then as they can get quite muscularly sore.
 

Orchard14

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I have pure thoroughbreds and sport horses at home that are barefoot now though the ones we bought in were previously shod and we transitioned them. What type of hacking do you have? A short hand walk on smooth tarmac a couple of times a week worked wonders for ours. I never used boots on any of them. Frog quality is really important too so I would have been interested to see pictures of the sole and frogs. Ask your farrier to leave a bit more foot on when he takes the shoes off and don’t trim the soles or frogs. Treat for thrush and pick out frog clefts thoroughly even if you don’t see anything I imagine all that time in shoes would constrict the frogs. Blue spray from the vets works well. I agree I find some of our horses can get flappy soft soles and frogs in the winter and we have to be more careful with what we do with them but the hard summer ground is a pain too so I don’t think anytime is the right time tbh. Give plenty of time and be patient and your horse will thank you for it. Don’t expect to be out riding as you were straight away you can do real damage to the structures of a horses foot by doing too much before they’re ready. Good luck
 

ycbm

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My ex racer TB with terrible front feet came out of shoes in mid January and did a six mile farm ride with bare feet yesterday without a blink. He hacks regularly on roads and he is no more than 'careful' on bigger stones and improving constantly.

A year is a good objective.

This is the fourth, I think full TB I've taken out of shoes. There's no doubt that on the whole TBs are the most difficult to take barefoot but they can usually still do it.

..
 

ycbm

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Sadly it takes a lot longer than 6 weeks for dietary changes to have an effect on the hoof, so you might have to use hoof boots for quite a while.


You're referring to structural changes I think, PaS, and of course you are absolutely right about that. Some sole sensitivity, though, is more of a metabolic issue and the change to minerals balanced for optimum foot structure can sometimes be almost like magic in their rapid effect on foot sensivity.


S are you using a no iron, no manganese, high copper high zinc supplement? I wouldn't try to barefoot a TB without it. I also swear by yeast as a gut balancer. I have had horses go footie when I was sent a batch they wouldn't eat and recover as soon as it was replaced with stuff they would.
 

Sasana Skye

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S are you using a no iron, no manganese, high copper high zinc supplement?

I have just started her on pro minerals from progressive earth and introducing it slowly (very fussy eater) is there another supplement out there with higher levels of zinc and copper than pro minerals? She has that with flexability professional from science supplements, Charnwood micronised linseed and soaked grass nuts at the moment but open to other suggestions. She was previously on Baileys number 4 and Baileys stud balancer which was recommended by a dietitian (from Baileys obviously...) but we’re cutting this out.

Our hacking is mostly smooth concrete and tarmac lanes with the odd area which is a little stoney so I can definitely do small walk outs if she’s up for it. I just started using field paste from red horse on my other horse, who is barefoot and what many would describe as a rock cruncher but she gets a bit thrushy, following a friends advice who has taken her horse through a successful BF transition. Her frogs are actually pretty decent, quite big and thick and no deep crevices.
 

ycbm

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That's a good supplement. I don't think it has yeast? If not, I would add yeast. Either 50g of brewers or 15g of yeasacc.


If you need a bigger quantity of food to get her to eat it, but don't need more calories, then I'm having success with Spillers Speedy Mash. Palatable with very low calories.
 
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Sasana Skye

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I can introduce yeast, she also has mild sweet itch and I’ve heard people use it for that too so why not kill two birds with one stone.
She can drop weight when in full work so always fed high calories but she’s obviously going to be taking it easy going forwards so yes low calorie is important - I will read up on Spillers mash thank you! :)
 

bonny

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My tb has just had shoes put back on after nearly a year without them as he’s going to do some upcoming common rides. Just took his shoes off and after a couple of weeks he was fine although footy on stones. After maybe a month he is fine anywhere, never fed anything special for his feet but he has good feet for an exracehorse which is the main requirement in my opinion. His big tb field mate could no more go shoeless than win the grand national ....
 

AandK

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Interested re the comment about yeast, I think I may try this with my exracer!
We’re now 10.5 weeks into barefoot. I’d had him 5 days when his last shoe was taken off (he took 3 off himself in the first 2 days of owning him, hence trying barefoot!), trimmed (or rather tidied up) by farrier after 6 weeks, a bit sore after that so had a trimmer out to him today to try a different approach. Quite interesting and have some useful tips to help improve his feet, but he’s doing really well so far. Fine on grass, road and arena, feels big stones but much better than he was at the start. Interesting to see the changes to his feet already, and what is to come! He has boots for hacking, but hope to not need these unless up on the downs (lots of stony tracks) in the future.
 

Sasana Skye

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Update: Aaaanddd they're off..... I managed to snap these quick pictures straight after the shoes came off so this is our start point. First is a hind, second is a fore hoof. She strolled straight out quite confidently back down to the field which is quite a stoney track but she does have the option of walking on the grass verge. I'm expecting her to get more sore as the days go on but I'm planning on just leaving her out in the field for at least a week where we have some grass cover. She has had a busy summer so she is due a holiday anyway. So here we go then.... transition day 1.
 

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ycbm

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Good luck on the journey. My racing TB is in front boots at four months after shoes-off. I'm waiting now for a full foot to have grown in to see what difference that makes. Meanwhile, he's now a size two boot on one foot and a three on the other, and it looks like I'm going to be forced to buy a new pair earlier than I wanted to, and risk them not fitting a-gain in a few more weeks.
 

Brownmare

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Good luck! My new horse TB x WB had her shoes pulled on Wednesday and is already sooo much happier. Despite being footy on the hardcore between barn and field she immediately switched from a toe first to a heel first landing and our first barefoot (booted) ride was the first time her head didn't fling up when I picked up the reins 🙂
 

Sasana Skye

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Amazing for you Brownmare! That gets me really excited and I hope I start to see little changes in my mare over the next few months. She immediately seemed so much sturdier walking on the smooth concrete in and around our barn. One of the reasons I decided to go BF was because even with road nails she was constantly slipping on concrete and walking like she didn't trust the ground but her grip is 10x better.
I haven't taken a slo-mo video yet of her walking so I can see what her landings are like but I will do that over the next week as soon as I can get a volunteer to help me.
 

Sasana Skye

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Sharing some more pictures all from today...sorry!

So far I'm pleased with how she is going. Much less footy than I anticipated but she is slower moving when walking around the yard and I let her go at her own pace. On grass she is running around without a care in the world. I took a slo-mo video of her hoof landings today and she is landing heel first on both feet - hooray!

Another plus is that after spending weeks turning her nose up at her feed which has her powder hoof supplements/balancer in, I finally managed to get her to finish it today.

I haven't been riding her yet, just leading along the road in hand, we have smooth tarmac roads around us so she's fine on them, but struggles to get out of the yard where the car park is very stony. I'm quite keen to get her ridden again so I bought some front boots - Cavallo Trek in the end but I had to send them back because despite measuring her feet precisely and following the sizing chart, they are far too big around the coronet :rolleyes:

My friend has very kindly offered to come to us with her scoot boot fit kit so I will try them and see how we go :) It's just been one problem after another with trying to find some boots that will work for us. Anybody know if a hoof boot fitter exists? If not there is definitely an opening for someone to start a business.

In the meantime Brieze is thoroughly enjoying her extended holiday.
 

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alibali

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Well I'm no expert but to me they look miles better already 😁

I found Liz at the Hoofbootique very helpful, sent her photos and measurements and now have boots that stay on and have never rubbed. Generally it's worth paying extra for more top of the range boots, I can gallop and jump in mine without worry.
 
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