So we’re trying to increase my mare’s hoof growth (she’s already on a diet to support hoof growth, but if you want to tell me about your favourite supplements, I’m happy to listen and check them out :yes:) and my vet suggested something that sounded strange and I was wondering if anyone else has heard of/tried this. She suggested clipping the hair from the coronet band and rubbing a heating gel on (Tigerbalm or Bengay were her examples). She said it would stimulate growth (she also said to stop for a few days if my horse started to seem sore - she’s not a monster ;)). Has anyone ever heard of this or tried it? She’s an excellent vet and I’ll give it a try once the mud dries up, but it just seems kind of strange to me.
Well I am not a vet so I can’t compete, but I have heard that you want hooves cool. Heat can cause laminitis.
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That’s a new one on me.
I always thought good hoof growth comes from good diet — even if the diet is good it might not be good enough for the horse in question. Meaning what works for one horse might not work for another.
My vet suggested NANRIC’s Extra Strength Biotin 100 for my horse that has foundered in the past.
My other horse has terrific hooves just feeding him Omega-3 Horseshine.
Would I ever intentionally put heat on either of their hooves? Not on my grandmother’s tintype.
If my vet were to suggest it, I would be Googling for credible articles, looking for proof that it works. But that’s just me, I was born a Doubting Thomas — lollollol
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I don’t think it would cause enough heat for me to worry about laminitis, I do think, depending on the horse, that it might be enough of an irritant to cause some blistering or other skin reaction. I definitely don’t think it would cause any change in hoof growth.
I feed a supplement that provides 20mg Biotin per day. That was from a recommendation on here that 20mg is all the horse will use, any more will just be discarded as waste. On my farrier’s recommendation, I use SBS sav-a-hoof spray as a topical anti-thrush/anti-any microbial pathogen. That alternated with venice turpentine on the soles of the hooves kept my barefoot horse sound and with nice sturdy feet (no crumbling or cracking), even with the draught we had last summer.
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Here we use cornucrescine on the coronet to promote growth, and I use Mulhdorfer bay leaves’ cream to avoid too soft growth. All this along a good diet of course.
I suppose the aim is to increase blood flow? You can increase this without the extra heating, with a pentosan polysulfate sodium cream. [h=2][/h]
I read a medical study on that technique somewhere. If you google around you will probably find it. What the study said was that such a technique did measurably speed up hoof growth. A friend and I were talking about it, and she said, “But wouldn’t it hurt?” That made me wonder if the study was the result of a pro-soring group, and if the study has been replicated. But that’s probably a paranoid tangent…
I don’t think it should hurt anymore than putting Bengay on any other healthy and intact non-membraneous skin. The theory is that the chemical causes an increased blood flow at the coronet band which makes the hoof grow faster. If I find a link for that I will edit this post and add it later. 
Links
Iowa State study on use of Reducine. With a quck search, I can’t find any other studies to support this one but it looks convincing:
http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewco…e_veterinarian
General info on hoof growth from TheHorse (interesting and well-written as this magazine always is – why don’t I subscribe??? I think I will):
http://www.thehorse.com/articles/128…ce-hoof-growth
Thread from COTH:
https://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/f…-hoof-grow-but
The question which remains is how irritating is the treatment? Is it painful? Is it worth it for an extra quarter inch of growth in 67 days?
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[B]Yes - the old school method - advocated by trainers and farriers to stimulate hoof growth - a slight variation of your vet’s recommendation follows …
-
have known many professionals who would trim the hair around the coronary band and then ‘paint’ with ‘REDUCINE’
using an old tooth brush to ‘work’ it in at the hair line/ coronary band, a thin line only. -
this was usually used during the winter months and then they returned to the usual Hooflex use during warmer months applied around that area.
Again this was old school hoof treatment
Did it stimulate hoof growth ?
All I remember … * they believed so .
There was NO laminitic response .
Again this was ‘Old School’ - [/B]
My first question would be - why are you looking to increase growth? Growth more or less keeping up with wear is usually a good thing. Is the horse shod or barefoot? Are there actual issues?
Sometimes faster growth would be nice in order to more quickly correct some imbalances, or have defects grow out. Some horses do produce faster growth when on biotin, but more than about 20gm doesn’t increase things.
How much turnout and movement does he get? Is the slower growth a “new” thing, or normal for him? Growth in the Winter is usually slower than Spring-Fall.
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The only thing to spur growth is Movement. Out 24/7 on varied terrain. When turned out on harder ground, the body does respond with growth and usually harder/thicker. I recommend to my trim clients who have limited turn out to take them for a good long walk, with a few trots, down the road (when safe, of course) as often as humanly possible. Expose those feet to the ground you’d like them to be able to tolerate and the body will respond.
Just cease using any goops, goo, salves, balms, etc. Hooves are meant to be hard and dry, NOT soft.
Get them moving!
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[B]This what I have come to believe ^ .
My farrier complains my horses’ and ponies’ hooves are too HARD …
yep - just they way they need to be and how I want them
so
I just laugh ! and ignore …[/B]
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Yup. Those of us of a certain vintage remember this. It has NOTHING to do with soring. The theory being, as a counter irritant, the Reducine caused increased blood flow to the root of the hoof and stimulated growth. It really didn’t cause much heat, we got it all over ourselves, pretty mild unless you were allergic. Some still do it. IME diet and a good supplement probably work better. But never saw or heard of any founder blamed on it…and see more founder today then 40 years ago ( possibly from too much of a good diet, too many supplements and too little work?).
If I had a bad one and had adjusted diet, added a good supplement? I might get the toothbrush out and some Reducine, might help. Or as an alternative to adding a pricey supplement to a pastured horse that might not get it in some boarding situations…keeping in mind that if the horse is not getting proper nutrition, it’s not going to grow a good hoof no matter how fast it grows.
Yes. But I use a product designed for horses.
The product I have used is Reducine. If you google ‘Reducine for hoof growth’ you should find the info.
Follow the directions carefully, Reducine can blister if used too aggressively.
Personally I know of a few horses that just required extra nutrients to have good healthy hoof growth. One in particular I remember always having horrible feet, he got a full recommended amount of TC complete, every hoof supplement you can imagine was tried, and eventually they added a ration balancer on top of his full ration and bam the horse finally had better feet after awhile. So I would def side on nutrition in most cases and sometimes you may need more than what is recommended for a certain horse.
My vet mentioned this to me as something to try (reducine, tooth brush), but I never did.
You can definitely stimulate growth. My farrier used to lightly burn the shoe into the bottom of the hoof, when he had it hot for making a new bar shoe, etc. He would just touch the sole, and then cool off the shoe. That foot always grew a good bit faster than the opposite.
My farriers have done that on all four feet too…never thought to ask why. I can understand the theory…whether it works or not it would be related to the Reducine theory.
Hot shoeing is done for a few reasons.
I’ve seen Reducine work amazingly well, the one time I saw it be used on one hoof only, so a comparison could be maFe between it and the other front. It is old school!
I once heard it explained that it’s not going to change horn quality, just rate of growth. So it might not really fix what one wants it to fix.
I don’t like oils near the hoof so I don’t go that route.
As said above, old school. May have a slight effect.
Not something that I’ve tried, but in a different thread about MSM, several people were adamant that their horses’ hoof condition increased dramatically upon starting MSM, which was completely unexpected (i.e., they started MSM for joint health, and were surprised how much better it made the hooves, too). MSM is pretty cheap as far as sup’s go!
I’ve seen horses with rotten foot conformation and growth, change dramatically when they wore Back On Track boots. The whole foot grew better from the coronet down. TIghter…
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