What do I feed my barefoot pregnant mare?

Iwantcandy

Iwantcandy

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My mare has only ever been previously shod in front and had no problems until we moved to our new place. Last spring time she was really struggling to keep the shoes on, often pulling them off and sometimes with a sizeable chunk of hoof wall aswell. :( My farrier suggested we tried her without shoes to see if she could manage, so having never really thought about this before I started looking into trying to make this as successful for her as possible.

I changed her diet to Simple Systems, (although I'm wondering if I should continue with this as I've read it isn't always ideal for barefooters because of the alfalfa) and has their broad mineral supplement. She is on restricted grazing as she is a very good doer and half of her haynets are soaked.

When her shoes were first taken off she coped well although after the second trim she had (not my usual farrier - someone he'd sent in his place, and I won't let him do her again) she was a little footsore over stoney ground as he had trimed her sole. I bought her some hoof boots and is great in these.

So I was wondering what I can feed her, bearing in mind she is pregnant and I know for instance she can't have seaweed. I'm especially interested in which vitimins/minerals she can have.

I was also wondering the best way to transition her from wearing boots on the stoney ground to trying to see if she can manage without.

Sorry for the essay!
 
As she is pregnant - I would get specialist advice.
Sarah at ForagePlus
Roger Hatch of Trinity Consultants
Steve at Equimins
are all barefoot savvy and safe to speak to for free :)
 
I'll let you know! It's a massive learning curve for me and the more I read and learn the more it makes sense - but I think I've a long way to go! :rolleyes:
 
None of our broodmares (Tb and Sport horses) are shod and are fed as normal broodmares with stud balancers for the fatties and stud cubes/mixes for those with normal figures. They receive these in the last 3 months of pregnancy and the rest of the time their feed depends on weather and grass availability, and of course whether or not they have foals at foot, with mineral licks available at all times. Once they retire to stud their shoes come off and trimming is done by our normal farrier when necessary.
 
There is no real reason to feed extra until the last three months, even then not too much dependant of condition, but I now feed a small feed of Fast Fibre, micronised linseed meal, chaff, mins and vits all year round, to provide the basic mins and vits.
Any of the top class mineral mixes will do, though I fed Mare and Youngstock after foaling.
When I worked at a TB stud, they were all barefoot, regularly trimmed and fed stud cubes in last three months
 
The main thing with brood areas is to prevent them getting fat and give them a good general mineral and vit supplement.
 
Thanks for all your replies.

On Oberon's advice I contacted Equimins, Trinity Consultants and Forageplus -they advised as follows:

Equimins - recommended their Advanced Concentrate

Trinity Consultants - recommended their Steel Force Minerals

Forageplus - after quite a few emails back and forth, recommended their Winter Equine Balancer along with extra micronised linseed, lysine, calcium carbonate, mono-sodium phosphate and salt.

I decided to go with Forageplus' advice as they looked at my mare's requirements and with the extra items tailored their Winter Balancer to be suitable for her pregnancy needs.

I must add though, I got great advice from all! :)

As I understand it, it seems that as far as alfalfa is concerned, some horse manage fine on it, but others struggle to process it properly thus leaving toxins in their system which possibly results in footiness.
 
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