Re: Having some issues with poor feet.

Anything with biotin in, NAF do a supplement called Pro Feet which has biotin and other good stuff in....

Also 'heavy' magnesium oxide, which is a white powder, mostly used in calmers, but good for horn quality, and possibly limestone flour.

I use the NAF stuff and the mag ox for Monty, who's also had lami in the past, but I haven't tried the limestone flour, as he only gets a very small feed so I can get his supplements in, and if I'm not careful he won't eat it as the supplements take over and they're not that tasty, lol !!

Poor old Parsley, tell him to take care :o)

Re: Having some issues with poor feet.

My farrier says hoof supplements are a waste of money and he says he can prove it! (Apparently he has done research with some of his customers with poor feet and the more "common" brands).  I did give one to Rhapsody who had the same illness as Parsley, I used Formula 4 Feet from the laminitis clinic and it is devised especially for laminitic/cushings horses.  You do need to be careful when using supplements on these type of horses as some can have hidden starches and sugars which you are not immediatley aware of so always read labels or try to get one which is laminitis trust approved if possible.  The other thing about hoof supplements is that the hoof is living tissue a bit like your finger nail, so any improvement brought about by supplements wouldn't be there until the hoof had grown significantly.  E.g. think about your finger nails which are made from a similar tissue and behave in a similar manner.  If you damage your nail at the bottom of it, think how long it takes for that to grow down.  The hoof is the same, the improvement would come from the top down so the supplement would have no effect on the cracks and damages that are already there, to improve those would be a matter of trimming or maybe using a good moisturising type of oil to prevent them getting worse, my farrier recommends a solid one such as Effol as it contains anti bacterial properties which should help prevent infections getting in through the cracks.  It takes around a year for a hoof to renew itself completely and so you would need to feed your supplement for at least that long to identify any benefit which could be expensive.  I think that's what my farrier bases his thoughts on as he has had customers do exactly that and only a year later can you say for definite if it has worked or not, and the ones he has looked at showed no difference whatsoever a year later and the owners were around £700 out of pocket for the full year.