He was eating the hay in the stall and grass in the pasture, but lately he has not wanted to eat hay just the grass in the pasture
Glad to hear his hooves have improved.
How many qts of feed and what type of feed was he on prior to the switch? Is he on anything else that has a caloric value, i.e. oil?
He was getting 6 quarts twice a day of sentinel ls, he also gets flaxseed
[QUOTE=Callie1993;n10235291]
He was getting 10 lbs of the sentinel ls a day
[/QUOTE actually he was getting 7 lbs not 10
Hi OP. So Iām just going to assume that your alfalfa cubes are about 1 lb in a quart and Iāll assume thatās dry volume (your 6 qts a day, that is). From research Iāve done for my own horse, alfalfa pellets and cubes have about 950 calories per pound, vs the average feed, which has about 1500, give or take.
So just doing the math hereā¦ if Iām incorrect someone please correct meā¦ he went from having 15,000 calories a day in feed to now having about 12,000 calories a day in alfalfa cubes. 3,000 calories a day is no small thing. I would add in a cup of oil per day, which would give you another 2,000 calories, approx, and then add in another quart or 2 of alfalfa cubes. If he is already on oil and I just missed it, you need to increase his caloric intake in some other way.
OPā¦ what brand of alfalfa cubes are you using and have you weighed out a quart of them to see how many lbs that would be?
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Heās getting 1cup of flaxseeds not the oil, heās getting the standlee alfalfa cubes , I havenāt weighed the cubes yet
How long ago did you switch diets?
About a month ago
I also suspect it was not the Sentinel that was causing the foot issues. I could see if he was being fed a low quality feed that was high in NSC, but thatās not the case with the Sentinel. I think he was deficient and adding the CA trace took care of that. I have 2 OTTBās and both are on 24/7 pasture at the moment, Sentinel LS, beet pulp and just recently added Vermont Blend and Vitamin E. I switched after reading about the benefits of supplementing copper and zinc in an area with high iron because all of the area where I live is high iron and was mined for coal years ago. With adding vitamin E, the VB ended up replacing all the other supplements I was feeding. So far Iām very happy with it and I can actually see the line in their feet from when I started the VB.
I agree with JB that you can probably just add a ration balancer and go from there. He needs more calories and if heās eating as much forage as he will eat, then thatās the route youāll have to take.
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One month is not NEARLY enough time to see the changes in the feet that youāre claiming. So his feet changed due to something else. Iād get the horse back on the grain that you know maintains his weight.
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1 month produces about 1/4" of new growth, maybe 3/8", which is very hard to see in terms of quality difference.
A change in diet doesnāt make WLD go away - WLD is there, it has to be killed externally, and then you wait for the diseased areas to grow out.
I can see a high sugar diet creating an environment for thrush to take hold. But you changed farriers a month ago. Thatās HUGE in terms of hoof health.
Farriers arenāt nutritionists, most have no idea what constitutes a healthly, balanced diet. Some do, of course, but āremove the grain and add mineralsā sounds like heās got the notion that commercial feeds in general are what cause hoof issues, which is not the case.
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Being underweight is worse for them than having crummy feet, especially with winter coming. Put his shoes back on and start feeding the horse before you run into issues/the ASPCA gets called.
The fact of the matter is that horses WILL NOT gain weight without adequate calories, and what you are feeding does not have adequate calories. That means you have to give something else.
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You can put blankets on a thinner horse. You have to work a lot harder to manage a horse with crummy feed. Besides, I think itās becoming clear that itās very likely the change in farriers, not feed, that has improved the feet.
Nobody should have to choose between a healthy weight and healthy feet, and I strongly disagree itās worse to be underweight than to have feet falling part.
Put his shoes back on and start feeding the horse before you run into issues/the ASPCA gets called.
The OP never indicated the horse was in shoes. And, Iāve never gotten the impression the horse was bordering on warranting any sort of AC call 
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Hi OP,
Just to be sure that I am reading correctly: you were feeding 10 pounds per day of the Sentinel LS, plus 6 quarts of alfalfa cubes per day? So, he got 5 pounds of Sentinel and 3 quarts of alfalfa cubes twice per day?
About a month ago you took him off the Sentinel and upped the alfalfa cubes to 6 quarts twice per day - so 12 quarts total?
Hay and grass amounts and types have not changed.
That would be a pretty big calorie deficit compared to what he was maintaining his weight on unless I was misunderstanding what was written.
If he was maintaining on 10 pounds of concentrate and 6 quarts of alfalfa per day, I would expect to see weight loss when heās taken from that to 12 quarts of alfalfa per day, unless you are adding additional calories from another source.
I believe that it takes about a year to grow out a hoof. Iām not sure that you would see much in one month that could be attributed solely to diet. Is it the farrier that is saying that there is a great deal of improvement in his hoof quality or is it something that you are seeing yourself? Could it possibly be related to having a new farrier working on him, change in weather, different pattern of hoof care (maybe cleaning twice per day instead of once or a new topical treatment) stall cleaning schedule, bedding type, change in turnout situation, or a combination of multiple things that are causing the improvement to his feet?
How long have you been treating the white line disease? What were you using and has that changed in the past month?
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I have yet to see Sentinel LS be the cause of bad feet in any single one of the dozens of horses I have seen on it, I would give him some of it again.
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I suspect your year on the Sentinel LS was probably what contributed to the fact that his feet have improved, rather than the other way round.
Iād put him back on it and maybe add some fat (your choice, I use rice bran pellets for my hard keeper) to boost his calories until he gets back the weight heās lost.
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Geez, I feel for this farrier. Heās apparently good enough, and the horse was apparently bad enough, that he was able to correct a whole lot in one trim. Understandable, with enough flare and imbalance and out of whack ness.
Does his work get the credit? Nooooooo. His whacky suggestions about the diet does :rolleyes:
OP, put the horse back in the grain that maintains his weight. Pat yourself on the back for finding a farrier thatās good for your horse.
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Thanks for all of the suggestions im going to try the triple crown senior and see how that works since it has less nsc then the sentinel ls
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There are MANY other factors to consider other than the NSC and some of them are more important
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TC Senior is a good feed. Weigh it and feed the appropriate amount.
I still donāt understand why the horse isnāt eating HAY. He used to eat hay, and now he wonāt eat hay? How long is he in his stall and refusing hay? (if only a couple of hours, no biggie. If all day or all nightā¦not normal.)
Agree with the comments above that the farrier/trim, and not the diet, is responsible for the improvement of the feet if this is only a month after diet change.
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