under slung heel

Question
I have a horse who has a problem with his hooves since and before I have had him.  He has shelly walls and flat feed. His hooves break when he is bare foot.  I have been feeding him hoof supplements; his hooves seem to better they aren't breaking or crumbling like they were.  When I ride him any length of time I have him padded because of the rocks.  Any ideas as to how to get his heel to grow out (this is only one hoof,his left front).  I would appreciate any help you could give me.

Answer
Hi Mary ... thank you for your question. :)

Underslung heel takes awhile to "fix" and needs diligence from the farrier or trimmer to keep the toes and heels back where they belong. This helps to keep the center of articulation in its proper place for correct weight distribution of the hoof. Rather than trimming every 8 weeks it might be prudent to trim every 4 - 5 weeks.

Booting or padding him for riding on rocks is probably a necessity if the horse is kept on soft ground and not ridden daily. The hooves just don't get the opportunity to condition to rocky ground if they only sporadically have contact with it. Walking the horse, barefoot, on level, smooth tarred road on a daily basis for 10 - 20 mins goes a long, long way to help condition/toughen up hooves and get them in good form.

If the hooves are trimmed correctly and are still shelly and crumbling then the diet needs to be examined to see where the sugar content might be lowered. This means a no sugar/low carb pelleted grain used as a supplement to free choice, medium quality hay, a good vitamin, free choice minerals and salts. Horses are designed to eat forage and too many people feed grain as a base diet with hay as the supplement when it should be the other way around.

I would do some research on what constitutes a correctly trimmed equine digit and compare your findings with your horses hooves. You'll find, I'm sure, that the trimming of the hooves isn't quite what the hooves need. Check your balance and levelness of the hooves. A couple of websites to help illustrate and define this are:

http://www.barefoottrim.com
http://www.hopeforsoundness.com
http://www.barefoothorse.com

Hopefully this will be of help to you.

:) -- Gwen