Nutrition affects everything from performance and temperament to growth and metabolic rate of horses. Hoof quality is no exception. Lynn Taylor, PhD, and Ashley Wagner, PhD, shed light on the dos and don’ts of feeding for optimal hoof health.
. . . horses’ diets play a crucial role in the quality and durability of the horn that makes up hooves”
Source: The Horse, August 2020 (paywall). Link.
Also see: No foot, no horse, Horse Network, August 26, 2020. Link. David Ramey, DVM, discusses natural hooves in the context of individual horses versus the horse population. He shares his experience regarding shoeing or not and shoeing approaches.
Also see: A field guide to hoof cracks, Equus Extra. Link. Sponsored content from Cosequin.
You’ve probably noticed those well-defined horizontal ridges that encircle some horses’ feet, but do you know what they are or how they came to be? Growth rings, as they’re known, show how the hooves have responded to the horse’s diet and health over time. They can appear following a period of systemic illness or reflect changes in nutrition—for example, when a horse consumes rich grass in the spring or suffers a bout of starvation. Monitoring the appearance of your horses’ hooves regularly will help you track progress and identify potential nutrition-related problems.