Content

Intro

1. Hooves are dynamic, living structures ...
2. Let's talk hooves
3. Hooves need nutrients
4. Maisie's story
5. Diet is paramount (but isn't it always?)
   
6. The B-vits v. hoof connection, and especially B6 as P5P
7. Abscessing
8. Summary
9. Finally ...

Sub-Chapters

1. Barefoot
2. Laminitis

In 2007 I took all four of my horses barefoot because one of our horses, Kelso, was in Last-Chance-Hoof-Corrall.

We hadn't owned him long, and it was very clear that he came to us with crumbling, brittle hooves. He continually tripped out riding, crashing to his front knees with me ending up on his neck, and we lost count of how many shoes he repeatedly lost, taking half his hoof wall with him, to the point where there was barely enough hoof to hammer a new shoe onto.

In despair, and having heard about this thing called 'barefoot', I decided to have a look at this new phenomena that turned horses who were hoofly-challenged into sound, unshod horses that could stomp over any sharp, stony, or flinty surface.

But - before anyone groans, I promise this isn't a 'Carol-banging-on-about-barefoot' sermon. Let me give you a major reassure that this chapter is about overall hoof health - 'No hoof, no horse' applies whether the hoof has a shoe on it or not.

The main reason I briefly mention my own barefoot experience (although there's a whole separate chapter attached to this section if anyone's interested, link below) is because I found myself on the steepest learning curve ever about all things hoof, and how to maintain hoof health, shod or not. There really is no doubt about it; the equine hoof is a dynamic miracle of natural engineering, but as always us humans come along and mess with everything ...

I still can't claim to know all-things-hoof, but compared to what I thought I knew after several decades of horsemanship, frankly I was clueless, so I have a lot to thank barefoot for. And just to throw in a tiny tip - a barefoot hoof doesn't lie 😉.

So let's talk hooves, abscessing, a bit on barefoot if you're interested (separate link below), and probably the most dreaded symptom of the metabolic horse, laminitis.

1. Hooves are dynamic, living structures ...

... and can change overnight depending on diet, environment, exercise, weather conditions, you name it, and for the better or worse. My Connemara, Murphy's (unshod) hooves are a great example of this; regular as clockwork, year in and year out, he has great winter hooves with plumptious frogs, great concavity, and sound on all surfaces. However, come spring his feet go splat - flat sole, weedy frog, no concavity at all, and chronically footy right through summer on anything other than a smooth surface.

He's retired now but if we were still riding, during summer he'd be booted for sure - as I type I'm booting him to lead him to his field along a stony track which he really struggles with in summer; come winter he stomps over that track like a tank. With Murf it's all about the grass - his mountain native breeding meant his gut system was grown on mountain thistle and gorse so he's completely grass-intolerant, hence I have to micro-manage every part of his regime from the first hint of the new spring grass shoots till lae autumn.

And whether we like it or not, a sound shod horse is not necessarily sound when those shoes come off. Domesticated horses' hooves, whether shod or unshod, need help to maintain hoof health. So let's get stuck into all things hooves.

Let's talk hooves

Hooves are made of a hard, crusty sulphur-rich protein called keratin. You can't add keratin by painting it on – it's produced by specialised cells within the hooves called keratinocytes, which rely on a healthy, nutrient-rich blood supply. And when I say nutrient-rich, I mean key nutrients for hoof health - specifically the essential fatty acid omega-3, quality protein by way of amino acids methionine and lysine, as well as critical key minerals - magnesium, phosphorus, copper and zinc. These are all balanced to the correct ratios in our EquiVita/VitaComplete mineral balancers.

Hooves also need the all-important B-Vits, but ... these shouldn't be added into the diet because first up, any supplemented vitamins you buy off the shelf or see in a feed as a vit/min premix, are synthetic, which we should always avoid because, (a) the equine gut sensor receptors doesn't recognise fake nutrients, and if they do get smuggled in (via chelated minerals), (b) the liver doesn't know what to do with them, so instantly sends them off to the kidneys to excrete. As the saying goes, "An expensive way to make urine." All explained in our Blog Post - Minerals, & It's All Change.

However, no need to worry because rest assured, the B-vits are taken care of because the hindgut biome produces them all in their specific activated form, provided of course that the horse is fed appropriately (hay, hay and more hay) and therefore the hindgut biome is functioning properly - all explained in our Gut System page.

Thing is, when it comes to our horses, hooves are low on their list of priorities. Top of their list is survival, which means available nutrients will be used for survival first and foremost, to feed the vital organs - heart, liver, kidneys, lungs and glands. Whatever's left will be used to feed hoof tissue as an afterthought - unhealthy hooves can be a great indicator that a horse's inner engine is stressed and there just aren’t enough nutrients to go around.

Lack of, or imbalances of, appropriate minerals and nutrients, will negatively affect hooves, full stop, and it happens quickly. You'll soon see brittle, crumbling, split hooves (our Kelso back in the day), and everything from painful sole-sensitivity to loss of hoof-wall/laminae connection, which we all know is crucial when that spring grass is flushing. The laminae have only one job to do and that's to keep the coffin bone in place; if that vital connection is compromised, we all know how serious the consequences can be.

2. Hooves need nutrients

Why? Simple. Our UK soils are nutrient-deficient which means the grass that grows in it will be as well. The equine gut has evolved over millenia to eat grass forage fibre, yet here in the UK our grass grow in nutritionally-depleted soil. Worse if we're talking converted dairy farms in which case the soil is both nutritionally altered and chemically contaminated to nourish a cow for greater meat and milk yields. And in case anyone isn't sure, a horse is not a cow 😉.

A nutritionally depleted or contaminated soil directly affects what grows in it, and just one of many mind-boggling statistics is that 50+ years ago, carrots contained 75% more magnesium than today. Yes, carrots were once really healthy for us to eat! The chemistry/mineral content in our UK soil also changes with the seasons, which directly affects the grass chemistry, which directly affects the chemistry of the horse who's eating the grass.

A great example of this is how each spring our horses seem wired like Tigger, but not in a good way. Come spring, or any time the grass flushes, the calcium and magnesium levels in the grass fall very much out of sync with each other. Calcium is what feeds the muscle cells with 'boinggg', and needs magnesium to balance that energy load, yet the spring grass flush rockets the calcium levels sky high but leaves the magnesium levels static, so we get an imbalance in the ca:mg rations, which negatively affects that healthy cellular exchange in the muscles.

Same with potassium and sodium, two other key minerals which have to be in balance with each other - the potassium levels increase as the grass grows but the sodium levels don't. And so it goes on.

Two other key minerals, copper and zinc, are also critically deficient in our forage, with a horse needing a daily measure of 400mg copper and 1.2g zinc just to keep the RDA balanced. The EFA's - essential fatty acids, aka the omegas 3 & 6 - are also out of whack; come summer and they're pretty much in balance with each other in growing grass at a ratio of 4:1; come winter, or if we're feeding hay in the diet, they're gone. Summer grass also gives our horses sufficient vit.E - by winter, again, it's gone. Then there are essential amino acids, i.e. lysine and methionine - deficient, so these need supplementing as well.

And for those of our native horses who are carb-intolerant and can't go near grass for metabolic reasons? This is a whole different nutrient story, as those fragile EFAs and vit.E degrade in hay. Trust me, I know only too well how much of a minefield it can be to understand as I was once in the same boat with lami-prone and very footy Murf, who was diagnosed IR/EMS back in 2001, never mind Kelso with his crumbling hooves that couldn't keep a shoe on back in the mid 2000's.

There's no question that our horses and their hooves need these depleted nutrients supplemented back into to their diet, to compensate for the deficiencies in their grass forage as the nutrient levels change. Which means, and pulling this all together, if there was one supplement to feed over any other, it would be a mineral forage balancer to match our UK deficiencies, with added salt for the essential sodium requirements. We've got this all covered in more detail in our Mineral Solutions page, on which you'll find our EquiVita and VitaComplete range of nutritionally grass-forage-balanced mineral supplements.

Maisie's story (image above)

Meanwhile, let's hop back to Maisie's hooves as a perfect example of nutrient deficiency. Maisie is an adorable little pony who was seriously neglected during the winter of 2017/18 and needed some major support to get healthy again. We were very much involved in her refeeding programme, and her new owner kindly allowed us to do a Case Study on her.

Apart from her gut which needed a complete regeneration programme, the other major area of improvement were her hooves. In the image you can see the profound changes in her hoof/pastern angle, with the new, stronger capsule taking shape above the very obvious and damaged old hoof, all engineered and energised by our EquiVita mineral solution.

As her new, tighter hoof capsule grew down, it also naturally shortened her toe to where it should be. This allowed her whole hoof to be more supportive of the pedal bone and limb.

3. Diet is paramount (but isn't it always?)

So, we've established that poor quality hooves are directly connected to lack of key nutrients/minerals in the diet. However, it's still a bigger picture than this - a horse with poor hoof wall and sole integrity is probably also eating a poor-quality, pro-inflammatory, gut-damaging, species-inappropriate diet. Once this is switched up and tweaked, the changes in hoof integrity can be significantly improved, and even better, quickly noticed. For starters you'll notice the beginnings of a tighter, straighter hoof/pastern angle appearing literally within a week or two.

As for diet, it's all about keeping it as clean (as in uncontaminated, as in unfertilised grass (and subsequent hay) and feedbag ingredients that haven't been multi-chemically sprayed during the growth phase), and above all, as natural as possible. A horse is nothing more, and nothing less, than a hindgut grass-forage-fibre fermenter, yet sadly, most ultra-processed brand-named feeds that tower above us on the shelves in our local feed merchants (and unless labelled organic or Non-GM) will likely contain a majority of GM grown crops which have been treated with a cocktail of chemical processes, and include many un-nutritious and not equine gut-appropriate ingredients.

I think the best suggestion I can make here is to always check the ingredients on those shiny feedbags. Sadly, other than just two brands out there which I can personally recommend, the majority of the others are full of what I call C.R.A.P. ingredients – that's not me being deliberately potty-mouthed; it stands for Carbs, Refined, Artificial, Processed, or in other words fake junk and bulk fillers.

As an example, you'll likely see ingredients listed such as wheatfeed, Oatfeed, Nutritionally Improved Straw (straw soaked in caustic soda to soften it – who in their right mind would feed caustic soda to a horse?), Rice bran, our old friend Molasses and Beet, Soya in all shapes and sizes, Calcium carbonate (basically chalk), and Vitamin & mineral premixex (synthetic) … plus many more. You’ll see all of these and more listed in our ‘The Feedbowl – what’s really in those feedbags’ and the reasons why we should perhaps think twice before we feed them.

Meanwhile, we've got the whole subject of feed in our main Feeding our Horses Healthy section on the website, and if you’re stuck, there's also my personal feed recommendations.

Long and short, always check the analysis on your feedbags - not the ingredients list as this can be confusing. The analysis list is usually a scrappy piece of paper sewn into where the bag opens. Also, make sure sugar levels are low, ideally below 5%, avoid anything with added molasses, as well as bagged chaffs with molassed coatings and chemical mould inhibitors.

Also, check the iron/manganese levels - our UK grasslands are already overly-high in both of these, which act as antagonists and block the uptake of many beneficial nutrients. Yet for reasons that are beyond me, many producers still add these two - in synthetic form - as extra ingredients into their feeds. However, don't panic too much if you see the text 'naturally occuring' against these two ingredients on an analysis -  this simply means the levels of natural iron in the forage crop itself.

3. The B-vits v. hoof connection, and especially B6 as P5P

Since all of the B vitamins are involved with protein, fat and carb metabolism/interactions, they play a very important role in hoof health. The B-vits are super important – healthy metabolism wouldn’t exist without them because their primary role is catalysing (accelerating) energy production in the body, as in they activate the important enzymes that break down protein, fats and carbs, and lest we forget, the hoof wall has a high protein concentration.

A horse on a quality species-appropriate forage-based diet, i..e hay, is unlikely to be deficient in the B-vitamins, because the equine gut very cleverly manufactures the full B-complex range, with the hindgut creating B6 and B12 in the 'activated' form that the gut nutrient sensor receptors recognise. Hence why a regular synthetic B6-vitamin supplement - Pyridoxine - is completely pointless (seen in all standard B-vit complex supplements), as the gut nutrient receptors simply don't recognise it so it's passed straight on out for excretion. 

B6 in its activated form - Pyridoxal-5-phosphate, aka P5P, is a vital 'connector' in the liver's toxin biotransformation / metabolising process function. Without it, as in if the hindgut's P5P production is disrupted (typically due to longterm dysbiosis in the hindgut), this has a profoundly negative effect on the horse as a whole, creating a multi-metabolic toxicity syndrome known as Cryptopyrroluria, aka KPU. And poor hoof quality (as well as repeated abscessing - see the next section) is a well-known sign of KPU.

However, our UK grasslands and hay are notoriously low in nutritional value, so there's every chance that poor-quality forage - and guaranteed if you're feeding haylage - is disrupting the fragile balance of the hindgut microbiome colonies of good v. bad microbes, which has a direct effect on the production of P5P, especially considering the general nationwide poor-hoof reputation. Hence, because of the high concentration of protein in the hoof wall, and especially if you've thrown heroic efforts at your horse and nothing's worked, it might be worth a read of our KPU page and see if any of it resonates with you.

4. Abscessing

"Without nutrition, you're fighting with no weapons. Without a strong immune system, you're fighting with no army."

Our Immunity Programme page

What is a hoof abscess? It's a painful collection of pus inside the horn capsule of the horse’s hoof, and because the pus within a hoof abscess is confined by the hard hoof capsule, it can't easily escape, leading to increased pressure on the sensitive corium. It's agonising for the horse, and will usually result in a sudden onset of lameness, so severe that the horse can't put their hoof down.

So how can we tell that the sudden severe lameness is due to an abscess as opposed to, say, tendon or ligament damage? For starters the hoof will be obviously hot, and you should be able to feel a pounding pulse, plus the leg may sometimes be swollen. Then again we know that this can also be similar to laminitis so it's best to get your vet or farrier/trimmer to properly diagnose it.

When it comes to hoof abscessing, we're generally looking at two possible causes - either an external assault (i.e. thorn), or internal, the causes of which can be anything from poor quality feed to environmental toxins, resulting in exhausting the immune system over time.

Long and short, we mustn't throw antibiotics at abscesses as these annihilate the gut microbiome, which in turn will significantly weaken the immune system - when it comes to abscesses we need the immune system as strong as we can get it. What can be helpful is to throw nature's finest antimicrobials at it - see our BioCARE blend. This is what I gave our Carmen for her fetlock joint sepsis - 3-days later and out it all came through her coronet band.

However, if your horse is experiencing non-healing multi-infections, i.e. repeated abscessing, the root cause is quite simply a weakened immune system. The only way to overall good health is via a strong immunity – in theory, a healthy body has a strong immune system and won’t get sick, but if the body’s sick, the immune system is sick. And the only way to a healthy immune system is via a healthy microbiome. More on the wonder that is the microbiome on our dedicated Microbiome page.

(NB. Not that I’m wishing to imply that an abscessing horse is immunodeficient – there's a bit difference between immunodeficiency and weakened immunity. A horse wouldn’t be abscessing if they were immunodeficient.)

So why do some horses repeatedly abscess?

Simple. The immune system wasn't strong enough to kill off the various bacteria during the first assault, so slowly over time the bacteria have multiplied and re-colonised back to the established infection site.

Let's not forget that other than how we feed and manage our horses, we live in a very contaminated world - there's chlorine and fluoride in our water, crop-spraying, chemtrails, electro-smog – think cell phones and their towers which emit radiation. The air is contaminated and our soil is sick from all the decades of chemical sprays and treatments. And so the list goes on.

This is all beyond our control, especially if we live in a highly sprayed crop area - these are all artificial toxins that us, and our horses, are not intentionally ingesting. Long and short is that these environmental toxins over time will affect the microbiome, which weakens immunity, which overburdens the body’s natural detoxification centre (what I call the Three Amigos – the liver, kidneys and lymph nodes). These three organs are the body’s natural filtration system, and if they’re overwhelmed with toxicity, they become sluggish and struggle to cope. Cue a wide open door allowing infection taking hold.

The solution? We need to clear out the bad stuff and fortify with good stuff, and the only way to do this is by focusing on the health of the microbiome to reset the immune system, alongside heaps of good nutrition and … the magic word, ‘detoxing’. Or make that two magic words - regular detoxing, as in at least once a year. And let's face it - a regular gut regeneration programme is never a bad idea. More on detoxing on our dedicated Detoxification page, and the blend in question is our OptimaCARE.

PS - if a vet's prescribed antibiotics alongside bute then the gut/microbiome/liver will have taken a hammering so a detox will be useful to help reset them. I can only recommend that you decline the antiobiotics or if it's difficult to say No to your vet, simply don't feed them. They won't work. Promise.

Update - Sept'21

It's now thought that repeat abscessing may be rooted in KPU, so if you haven't already, have a read of our KPU page and see if any of it resonates with you.

5. Summary

Basically, keep it simple. Feed a horse how it's meant to be fed, i.e. grass forage and balanced mineral supplementation, and with plenty of quality meadow hay going through the hindgut to keep the hindgut fibre-fermenting biome colonies happy and producing all those vital metabolites to help your horse thrive.

To achieve perfect performance hooves, the diet, environment and exercise regime must all be addressed - and balanced - to achieve healthy hooves. Everything starts with a healthy gut and microbiome that's able to digest, assimilate and absorb the nutrients from a grass forage-based diet, with balanced mineral supplementation to fill in those nutritional gaps, which will help ensure your horse stays healthy with strong, robust, performing hooves.

And the final recommendation? Give your horse an annual detox, or preferably twice a year just before each coat change, to keep their inner engine ticking over nicely 😉.

Finally ...

There's a brilliant video on FB which shows just how awesome hooves are - I don't know how long this link will be available, but here it is for now: https://www.facebook.com/alHHHC/videos/846776945485820/ 

It's only 20-minutes long-ish, but within just the first 5-minutes you'll be amazed - it's almost painful to see the immense force on the hoof and pastern area in a galloping horse!