What does everyone feed their ''barefooters''

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NeedNewHorse

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Hi,

So there is alot imortance on the horses diet when it comes to having/keeping a barefoot horse at it's best.

So everyone who has a barefoot horse, what do you feet it? And have you changed anything to see a good difference (or bad and changed back?) Or changed grazing patterns?

Do you feed specific supplements? Are their some that are more important than others for barefooters? (and when I say supplements, I mean vits/mins too)

Just wondering what works for everyone? (My horse has not had shoes for well over a year now and just trying to make sure i am doing the best for the situation)

Thanks if anyone can let me know
x
 
I have both shod and nonshod horses.
The nonshods are all given TopSpec AntiLam as a balancer on top of their feed (which I try to keep fibre based for all my horses, shod and nonshod). Was recommended to me a few years ago and I am so impressed with the hoof quality.
 
Mine are fed:

Allen & Paige Fast Fibre
Speedibeet
Micronised Linseed
Seaweed (broad spectrum mineral supplement)
Brewers yeast (vit, mins)
Magnesium Oxide (minerals)

I ocassionally add Alfa-A oil for my oldie when he needs chubbing up a bit.

I try and avoid commercial feeds, basically you want to avoid feeding sugar and alot of the commercial feeds have added sugar (even when stated they don't:mad:).

Be careful of the grass at times of high sugar too (but then I've always had to do this as all my lot prefer to be on the round side if left to it:rolleyes:)

check out the Feet First book, it's full of great info and www.uknhcp.com forum, some very knowledgable folk on there.
 
Mine are all barefoot (10 of them). All fed various combinations of things but in my feedroom are:

Dodson and Horrell Build Up Mix
Spillers Competition Mix
Alfa A
Alfa A Oil
Regular molassed Sugar Beet
Mollichaff
Topspec feed balancer
Feedmark Benevit
Extruded Linseed meal

They come in during the day out of the flies and are out over night cross grazed on 20 acres with cattle and sheep ATM. In the winter they are fed ad-lib haylage which is a 50:50 mix of ryegrass and lucerne

I personally have little problem with the diet and find most problems are to do with conditioning the feet in my experience apart from the obvious metabolic horses I come across which are few.
 
I feed Fast Fibre, Speedibeet, Thirds with limestone flour, Coolstance Copra, brewers yeast, micronised linseed, seaweed, yea-sacc, mint, magnesium oxide to my old boy. He looks as good at 24 as he did at 6.

My younger one gets brewers yeast, micronised linseed, magnesium oxide, seaweed, Speedibeet and Fast Fibre.
 
kibob said:
Mine are fed:

Allen & Paige Fast Fibre
Speedibeet
Micronised Linseed
Seaweed (broad spectrum mineral supplement)
Brewers yeast (vit, mins)
Magnesium Oxide (minerals)

I ocassionally add Alfa-A oil for my oldie when he needs chubbing up a bit.

I try and avoid commercial feeds, basically you want to avoid feeding sugar and alot of the commercial feeds have added sugar (even when stated they don't:mad:).

Be careful of the grass at times of high sugar too (but then I've always had to do this as all my lot prefer to be on the round side if left to it:rolleyes:)

check out the Feet First book, it's full of great info and www.uknhcp.com forum, some very knowledgable folk on there.
Click to expand...

Exactly the same :D
 
Mine gets:-

Restricted grazing
Hay
Fast Fibre
Naf Slimline

In winter I usually feed Speedibeet and Hi Fi Lite but might stick to Fast Fibre this year.
 
Mine get 50g brewers yeast and 25g magnesium oxide daily. Ad lib haylage in winter. Own brand horse and pony cubes and molassed sugar beet. The ones I have here get copper because we are high in manganese and iron and it prevents copper absorption. One has to be restricted from grazing midday to 7pm or he feels stones.

One out on loan is a metabolic nighmare. He has no grazing because it ruins his health, even the barest of paddocks. He gets manic eating issues, sweet itch which disappeared when he came off grass, panic attacks disappeared ditto, paper thin feet turned into rocks, cellulite fat deposits disappeared and a few other changes too. He is fed soaked hay, unmolassed beet, 500ml of oil, 2000 iu of vitamin E in addition to BY and MgO. And oats when he needs more energy.
 
Christ, is all this lot supposed to be "natural"? No wonder so many horses have problems these days. My pony is barefoot and is on fresh air during the summer, and in the autumn he'll start having hay and during the window some low sugar hard feed. That's it. Fantastic feet.
 
I feed Charlie a very simple diet of as much grass he can eat, baileys no 17 and apple or cherry chaff. Nothing else he thrives very well on this. I avoid the beets as these can send him loopy.
 
My three are on grass 24/7 but get some hay in the evening which they seem to enjoy. They get speedibeet and some alfalfa (can't remember the brand but it's got oil added) to carry their supplements. I didn't feed supplements until I discovered all the performance barefoot stuff, but since they they've all had mag ox, and more recently linseed and brewers yeast too. One won't eat seaweed but the others get it. They also have spearmint because it seems to make the whole mixture more palatable. Their feet have improved on the supplementation - the one who has the worst feet is growing a much tighter hoof capsule and I'm confident he will finally have a good hoof pastern axis by the end of the year. He gets biotin in his mix too. The others have less flare then they've had previously.
In the winter they will get the same but with haylage and a small amount of oats if necessary. They are all TB or TB cross.

Some previous posts don't include info about forage, which would be interesting.
 
My old pony has 5x Dodson and Horrell Equibites and a double handful of Healthy Hooves.

Her 3 year old filly has the same chaff with Dodson and Horrell Surelimb (M.Vit supplement)

Ive tryed the old mare on a diet of rosehips, seaweed,brewers and mint, but she refuses to eat it, no matter how much I try to disguise it!

Over winter they get fed according to their condition. Last winter they had loads of late cut hay in the fields, hi-fi lite and replaced the equibites with pink powder, and the Surelimb with Suregrow. They lived out un-rugged with plenty of hair and bodyweight.

The previous winter, they both lost lots of weight, so plenty of Kwikbeet, Alpha-A-Oil and Fibre Nuts added to the diet and rugs on their backs.
 
soloequestrian said:
My three are on grass 24/7 but get some hay in the evening which they seem to enjoy. They get speedibeet and some alfalfa (can't remember the brand but it's got oil added) to carry their supplements. I didn't feed supplements until I discovered all the performance barefoot stuff, but since they they've all had mag ox, and more recently linseed and brewers yeast too. One won't eat seaweed but the others get it. They also have spearmint because it seems to make the whole mixture more palatable. Their feet have improved on the supplementation - the one who has the worst feet is growing a much tighter hoof capsule and I'm confident he will finally have a good hoof pastern axis by the end of the year. He gets biotin in his mix too. The others have less flare then they've had previously.
In the winter they will get the same but with haylage and a small amount of oats if necessary. They are all TB or TB cross.

Some previous posts don't include info about forage, which would be interesting.​
Click to expand...
​

To add, out for the summer 24/7, if short of grass some hay too. And from 7.30 or 9.00am till 2.30ish in the Wintertime. She has haylage in adlib
 
Mine is out 24/7, but since he's been having some issues with footiness and, er, inflation this summer, he's now off grass entirely. He currently gets hay, Top-Spec Anti-Lam as a general supplement, and magnesium. From his moodiness and interest in licking stone walls and dirt, I thought he might be lacking something in the hay! When neither he nor I is injured, he is ridden most days, in a mixture of schooling and hacking. Since taking him off the grass, he seems much brighter, and his hooves are tightening up again to the great shape they were all winter.
 
My Mares on; Just grass, handfull of molassed chaff, spearmint, brewers yeast, mag ox and a healthy hooves herbal type one, plus I will be adding garlic and a possible joint supplement (and possibly bioton and seaweed too!!) Gosh that's alot isn't it when it write it down.. the molassed chaff will go, that's more to make her eat it and will be replaced with some garlic...

Grazing, is out 24/7 on limited grazing and comes in for a few hours and also has haylage.

Can I ask, what's the benefit with the linseed?? And I have heard this can have a bit of an effect with temperament, is this true?

I was going to also forget the joint supplement and just get pure MSN and glucosamine, but now *apparently* it must has chondtroitin in, so may have to use suppleaze gold as cannot afford what vet recommended.

x
 
kibob said:
Mine are fed:

Allen & Paige Fast Fibre
Speedibeet
Micronised Linseed
Seaweed (broad spectrum mineral supplement)
Brewers yeast (vit, mins)
Magnesium Oxide (minerals)

I ocassionally add Alfa-A oil for my oldie when he needs chubbing up a bit.

I try and avoid commercial feeds, basically you want to avoid feeding sugar and alot of the commercial feeds have added sugar (even when stated they don't:mad:).

Be careful of the grass at times of high sugar too (but then I've always had to do this as all my lot prefer to be on the round side if left to it:rolleyes:)

check out the Feet First book, it's full of great info and www.uknhcp.com forum, some very knowledgable folk on there.
Click to expand...

Am definitely going to get that book (assume amazon will do it) - and the forum too.
x
 
At the mo, nowt as living out, just gets handful of hifi with pink powder.

In winter:
Hifi lite
Speedibeet
Oil
Pink powder
 
Fast Fibre and in Spring Hilton Herbs hoof supplement (seaweed, rosehip and magnesium are some of the ingredients). My shod horse gets the same.
 
Have to agree with the earlier comment. Why so many supplements? There is no evidence for the majority that they actually do what they say on the tin.

Our barefooter - for the last 4 years - gets grass in summer; hay in winter with a couple of handfuls of spillers horse and pony nuts, and has access to a high Mag sheep and cattle lick in the field and stable.

Her feet get trimmed probably once a year by the farrier (a tidy up more than a trim). I prefer to leave her to wear her feet naturally as it suits her way of going (no stumbling or tripping).
 
Hurrah! - other horses that don't get masses of supplements.
We have one shod and one unshod - both get same basic food; hayledge and whatever they graze on an old ley full of herbs and bushes. Pony cubes and/or oats for workload and the oldie gets Pink Powder after Christmas as she has a tendency to get flanky. Both have good feet.
 
This time of year - nothing. Only the low quality grazing they're currently on (and one of them is competing in endurance up to 80km - he gets unmolassed beet during and after a ride, but that's all). In the winter, ad lib hay and if I feel they are dropping off, then unmolassed beet. That's all they get, they've got brilliant feet, work regularly and easily over the flinty ground where I am, and completely bootless too.

The only exception is the 29yo pasture ornament. As she has hardly any teeth (although somehow she still manages, slowly, some hay) she is fed unmolassed beet all year round, plus oil, plus Pink Powder.

They all have permanent access to Himalayan salt lick too.

I'm very much a believer in KISS (Keep it simple, stupid!)
 
cptrayes said:
Because we don't all have the luxury of grazing our horses on:
Click to expand...
old ley full of herbs and bushes

Absolutely agree

It may not look smart or modern but the old pasture and the herbs and stuff are IMHO the single biggest thing in keeping the horses well - it's interesting to watch them choosing different things to eat at different times of the year. It also seems to suit lots of different types of horses from big TBs to fatty natives.
(I do know I'm lucky to have it)
 
catkin said:
old ley full of herbs and bushes

Absolutely agree

It may not look smart or modern but the old pasture and the herbs and stuff are IMHO the single biggest thing in keeping the horses well - it's interesting to watch them choosing different things to eat at different times of the year. It also seems to suit lots of different types of horses from big TBs to fatty natives.
(I do know I'm lucky to have it)
Click to expand...

You are lucky to have access to that! Definitely the prefered sort of grazing but most of us have to make do with cultivated fields.

I also like to keep things simple. Not convinced by the MBP or the diet in Feet First. How do you know what specific minerals your horse needs unless you know what they are deficient in? This obsession with mag ox in particular. Yes some horses will need it supplementing but certainly not all.

I feed completly unmolassed sugar beet pulp (the white stuff you have to order specially from Dodson & Horrall), unmolassed chop and micronised linseed to the ones in work or need a bit of extra weight. I add an all round vit & mineral supplement (D&H Surelimb) and they have free access to a mineral block (Rockies Red Block). As they are on a starvation paddock they also get haylage morning and evening - I'd rather feed hay but you just can't get decent hay in Lancashire.
 
Not sure about all the other supplements; but I do know that magnesium oxide has helped my ponies feet grow really good and strong; he had been shod for 16 years, and within 6 months he is walking across most terrain ( sharp stones are a bit ouchy!)
 
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