Text: Christine Pinna
With the large amounts of summer rain recently arriving, many horse owners will be looking at their horse’s hooves while biting their nails and praying for dry weather.
But is there something that we, as horse owners, can do to help prevent the inevitable thrush, cracks and chipping that tends to occur in these wetter months? Absolutely! While the solutions are not foolproof, and we may need to accept that we can’t manage to keep every horse’s hooves 100% over the wet season, there are some things we can try.
Plan your paddocks
If you have the option, try utilising paddocks on higher ground or in areas where the soil drains more easily. If your horses have free access to dams, it will be best to corner them off at this time and possibly even long term. I have found that the absolute worst hooves belong to horses with free access to a water source, particularly dams. While healthy populations of ‘wild’ horses will have a big drink and perhaps enjoy some sweet grass growing around the water’s edge before moving on, our often already overfed domestic horses can be found browsing for long periods on delectable pond weed, keeping their hooves wet for far longer than is ideal. The consequence is usually frogs that wither away or deeply infected cracks, seedy toe and thrush.
The horse track system or Paddock Paradise with pea gravel and Mud Control Mats that keep the horses out of the mud while protecting the ground from excess wear can be the perfect solution if you are living in a particularly wet area and find yourself ready to pull your hair out when the rain starts falling.
Do all of the other things that are great for hygiene
If you have chosen to stable your horse, are both manure and urine removed thoroughly from the stable daily? Is there plenty of thick and clean bedding? It may be worth popping into your yard first thing in the morning to see what the situation looks like so that you can decide if you should make some adjustments to your horse’s living arrangements. This may mean improving the current state of hygiene, increasing the living area by adding a run onto the stable or letting your horse live out with access to a shelter.
Whether you see problems or not, a daily or twice-daily disinfectant can go a long way in helping to avoid issues that come from invasive bacteria and fungus in the foot. Try this simple recipe:
- 500ml unfiltered apple cider vinegar
- 10 drops tea tree oil
- 10 drops oregano oil
- 10 drops eucalyptus oil
Shake thoroughly and spray under the hooves as well as into cracks twice daily.
Tighten up that diet
We should all know by now that the bulk of a horse’s diet should be comprised of quality roughage, but did you know that certain types of grass can contribute to hygiene issues as well as cracks? In my experience and according to feed analyses, oat hay can be particularly high in sugar. Much like candida in humans, fungi and bacteria thrive in a sugary environment. Other grasses can also be a problem, like Kikuyu, but I find that oat hay is the biggest culprit. Many times over the years, I’ve seen good hooves deteriorate suddenly – becoming flared, cracked and thrush-ridden when previously there were no problems. This has left me completely baffled until I have found out that the owner had changed the horse’s roughage from lower-sugar eragrostis or teff to oat hay.
What about the concentrates you feed? Don’t just read the bag; have the food tested by an independent nutritionist who is familiar with the NRC guidelines and can help to advise you on the most suitable feed for your horse. Or perhaps you can speak to the nutritionist and consider mixing your own feed and adding a custom mineral mix. This seems to yield the best results as far as healthy bodies and hooves go.
A basic supplement containing copper, zinc and magnesium can do a great job of strengthening hoof walls making them more resilient to cracks. Avoid supplements with added iron as this interferes with copper and zinc absorption, and there is often far too much iron in our grass, hay and bagged feed as it is.
Watch out for laminitis and abscesses
If you don’t know how to check for a digital pulse, speak to your vet or hoofcare provider and ask them to show you where to find one. This will be most easily detected if your horse has just exercised or is unsound and the hoof is affected. A digital pulse should not be detectable in a sound horse that hasn’t been exercised recently.
Detecting a pulse can give you a clue as to whether your horse is developing an abscess or another hoof problem such as laminitis. If you have an overweight horse that could be prone to laminitis, you may want to monitor his response to lush summer grazing. Often, even in horses carrying an average amount of weight, a pulse may be detectable in all four hooves as a response to an influx of sugar in the grazing, usually after a rainy day once the sun is out. Armed with this knowledge and being more attentive, one can prevent problems from occurring by keeping your horse off grazing during those times and rather feeding soaked low-sugar roughage such as eragrostis or teff. Ideally, your roughage should be tested so that you know what you’re working with.
Final thoughts
While you may find the wet season overwhelming and you may not be able to implement every change that your horse needs, try to do what is in your control even if it seems small – even small changes can make a difference.
OPINION: Christine’s approach to the wet season
Some of my ideas here may be unorthodox and even unproven, but I am merely sharing what I do for my own horses. I take a holistic approach to hoofcare and find that the wet season isn’t such a problem when I do.
I start with this entire routine in the wet season, which is summer for us. I live and tend to work in many tick-heavy areas, and having noticed a correlation between poor hoof quality amongst horses that suffer from repetitive biliary, I looked at what I might be able to do to offset these effects with my own horses. I found and now use a blend of herbs that has multiple uses, including assisting with tick-borne illnesses; these herbs also have antifungal and antibiotic properties, which I really appreciate as itchy skins are rife here and appear to be fungal in nature at times.
When the dry season arrives, I might put this product on hold for a few months and replace it with a liver aid product. The herbs used in these products have been studied carefully and have proven properties. I once had a horse with severe liver damage and all of the symptoms that go with it, but after four months of using the liver aid product, when the vet re-tested his liver, it had almost fully regenerated. At the same time, the hoof issues, skin issues, and diarrhoea finally disappeared after years of trouble. This was a huge eye-opener for me.
I use a detox product instead of, or as well as, the liver aid product, in some cases, to counteract the effect of toxins in my horses. Our horses are exposed to so many toxins throughout their lives ranging from pesticides in their feed, to air and water pollutants, to topical insecticides and many more. I like to offset any o this exposure as best I can by using a detox product, even though I am already very mindful about what goes into and onto my horses.
Finally, I will do a worm count towards the beginning of spring and decide whether I need to use a dewormer or not to avoid giving unnecessary chemicals.
So far, these efforts have served my horses and me well, and we have had very few hoof problems. Hoof health really does come from within!