What's the best supplement for brittle hoof walls?

[sandi_84]

My mum's horse keeps loosing his shoes because his hoof walls are brittle. A chunk of wall came off the time before this and this time his hoof looks pretty smashed up

What would you reccomend?

 

[Horses24-7]

I tried everything on the market for my lad, eventually put him on lo cal balancer and his feet look the best they have!

 

[Birker2020]

You could really do with putting a hoof moisturiser on his feet. I use one with a red tin and black lid and the stuff is like a white cream but as it sinks into the feet you can't see it anymore, its really good stuff. Think its a carr, lincoln and day or whatever the manufacturer is called.

 

[winchester]

I was always advised the best thing is..... water!

Lotions and positions are supposed to clog up the holes in the hooves so was always advised just dampen them down with water & make the area where the water trough is damp so they are standing in slush when they go to get a drink!

 

[vicky_sut]

Equimins Hoof mender supplement is pretty good stuff. It improved my old horses hooves also along the diet route taking my horse off alfa a and putting her on fast fibre helped.

 

[Carmen1]

The mistake people make is to try and get the hoof hard by applying Keretex etc. The hoof will still break if hard, it needs to be strong instead.
What diet is he on? You need less sugars, eg no molassis etc.
Water is the best bet, if not Kevin Bacons Animal Fat.

If you took the shoes off and changed to diet then the feet will naturally become strong. Shoes make them weak anyway as you're putting holes in the hoof.

Good luck

 

[Birker2020]

there are a lot of misconceptions about feet. Like for instance the idea that mud will pull off a shoe. No, not unless you are in quicksand! Mud contains water, and like us, if we stood in water for long enough our toe nails would go soft. Therefore the horn on a hoof gets weak with constant mud, and the shoe works itself loose, and then comes off. Nothing to do with the suction of mud, more like the holes getting bigger and the horn swelling! Hoof hardener is good for horses that lose shoes in the winter or in wet conditions. Likewise, hoof moisturiser is good for horses in dry conditions. But the best thing that research found is to feed a decent supplement as only that will really change the molecular structure of a hoof, but this will take a good many months to achieve and won't happen overnight.

And of course regular shoeing from a decent farrier, the words regular and decent being most important lol!