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I had a horse with soft feet. He also damaged his coronet band, which grew
down in a crack clear thru the wall to the white line.
I started him on biotin and methionine at the rate of 15 mg a day. I had
an increase of hoof integrity as the wall was much nicer and had shime as
it started to grow. I did alot of thinking about the problem, and decided
to try some more food suppliments. I added dairy milk replacer at the rate
of approximately 1 cup per day. It was impossible for me to see any
improvement at this point as the feet had not grown down yet.
A friend who's gelding was having feet problems also, and had been feeding
biotin for over a year, and was not having much success, also added the
milk replacer to her horses ration. She had marked improvement in the
quality of her horses feet over just the biotin. Since this, several more
friends have added the milk replacer to their feed, and have seem
improvement. It also improves the coat.
When the feet grew down, my horse was able to hold shoes without the wall's
crumbling around the nails. His crack was minimal, one could feel and see
the line down the hoof, but it was tight together. I was able to have him
shod without clips for normal riding. I still used clips on all four feet
for the harder use stuff. One winter, we did not feed the biotin or the
milk replacer to this gelding and the crack grew down again. It was over
1/2 inch wide. The walls were again crumbly. Shoes were hard to keep on.
Once again he went back on the biotin and milk replacer, and the feet went
back to the better condition.
We then started driving this horse on the roads. We had some of the
crumbling walls at the nails, so we started him on double doses of the
biotin, and again saw some improvement. At this point, we were using
regular shoes, with clips and borium for slipping. We added pads and that
tore up the walls worse as the shoes would work/move even more.
A friend had started using the Slypner shoes, and said she had very good
luck with them. She was having bleeding problems and soreness with her
driving horse, after driving on the roads.
We ordered them. Could not find a shoer who would put them on, so my
husband (diesel mechanic) had to start shoeing again. We really liked the
shoe in use. The pad being on the base of the shoe instead of between the
hoof and shoe, allowed for the shoe to be tight to the hoof. There was no
breakdown of the walls around the nails. They take a little getting used
to, and figuring out. The base plate is hard to shape as it is stainless
steel. The pad part of the shoe has a fastening system that snaps onto the
baseplate and the nails. We found that by squirting gasket goo into the
nail sockets on the pad part of the shoe before tapping it into place, we
had much better adhesion of the pad. We used them on the asphalt roads,
and they lasted better than a steel shoe would. No slipping either, except
when he spooked forward badly (only once). It was weird to go down the
pavement with no clip clop. They were also good on dry grass with no
slippage. We used both the plain and the calked style. Never did get the
studded ones, and never felt we needed them. They sell a style that has
the side clips too, both for front and hind feet.
Hope this helps someone, Bonnie sorta tall Short and Jet...are we really
going to Calgary for a competition Mom?
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