The competition season is well underway and keeping your horse healthy for all this activity involves hoof care – we have some handy tips to enable your horse’s hooves stay safe and sound this season.
Hoof Care Essentials
During the busy spring and summer months, be sure to maintain a regular shoeing schedule – a farrier visit at least every four to six weeks is ideal for most horses. However, if your horse’s shoes are loose or their hooves need attention, contact your farrier straight away to address the problem immediately. It is essential to pick out your horse’s hooves daily so as to monitor your horse’s hoof health. Make sure to clean either side of the frog to prevent nasty stone bruises and thrush. During warm weather, using a hoof conditioner can be beneficial. Hoof conditioners help promote the correct moisture balance of the hoof in dry conditions.
Nutritional Support for Hooves
Sound nutrition is the cornerstone of healthy hooves regardless of season. Your horse’s nutritional plan should be based on high-quality forage and adding concentrates as required to meet the energy demands of a busy riding/competition season schedule. The nutrients needed for hoof growth are predominantly biotin, zinc, methionine and are often contained in a horse’s normal diet. However including a high quality hoof supplement ensures that your horse has sufficient material to maximize development of strong hoof tissue. As hooves grow slowly, for best results use a hoof supplement continuously throughout the year.
Farriers Choice Hoof Supplement
Farriers Choice is hoof nutritional supplement with a unique combination of biotin, the seaweed Ascophyllum nodosum and essential microminerals. Farriers Choice maintains hoof quality by supporting good growth and contributing towards strong, resilient hard hoof horn through it’s unique ingredient combination:
- Biotin is included at a high concentration, as there are a number of clinical studies showing an improvement in hoof quality, condition and growth rate from long-term feeding of biotin to horses with hoof horn problems.
- Zinc& Copper are essential microminerals that are key for healthy hoof horn and are deficient in forages.
- Seaweed is a traditional supplement for healthy hooves. Seaweed is rich in iodine, which counteracts the natural deficiencies in forage.
- MSM& Methionine are rich sources of sulphur which is an integral part of the hoof protein keratin, so supplementation can improve intrinsic tensile strength of hoof horn.
The unique formulation of Farriers Choice promotes hoof growth, improves bonding within the hoof wall and contributes towards resilience and hardness of the hoof horn. It is ideal for horses prone to cracks, splitting and crumbling of the hoof horn, where slow growth is a problem and for those with brittle or soft hoof walls.
For more information or advice on supplementation, please contact our equine nutritionist here or call +353 (0)51 304 010
