Weird hoof issue

[fordtraktor]

My yearling has something weird going on with his feet. I can safely ignore diet, I think, because he has been fed on a ration balancer + Farrier’s Formula double strength for his whole life, more or less. 24/7 grass and/or hay always, 24/7 turnout as well.

The hooves…they crack. Not down to the quick, but I have never seen a horse with more cracks on his feet, randomly and all 4. Hoof line to coronet band. He isn’t ever lame on them, but it’s weird.

Two days ago he came in with a chunk out of his left hind hoof that looks like it peeled off in a stringy chunk bottom to top. It’s VERY STRANGE! the “strings” look like vertical hairs. I have never seen anything like that before.

My farrier guessed some sort of fungus-y thing might be weakening his hoof wall. He suggested combating that with some paint on product but didn’t specify what, he doesn’t have a favorite.

What would COTH use? I can spray/paint/whatever the feet, he’s very broke to that kind of thing. I can probably soak intermittently and it wouldn’t be the worst life lesson anyway, but it’s the tundra here right now and a regular soak is going to freeze into a chunk of ice in 15 minutes. a couple of soaks on warmer days is totally feasible.

Any other ideas? This is my yearling whose mother turned aggressive and had to be euthanized, so I’m over-sentimentally attached to this poor dude who had the roughest of rough starts in life. I need to get him fixed up so he can focus on growing up and becoming a normal horse for once!

In good news, he’s turning into a real beauty and isn’t nearly as feral as he has every right to be, given his poor example of a mother!

[endlessclimb]

Do you have pictures? I have heard of this before, and I’ve seen some horses with it - but never found out the cause or cure. Following!

[fordtraktor]

I’ll try to get some soon. His mom had amazing feet, she never needed shoes even in full work as a show horse. all my other horses have lovely, healthy feet too. Of the 7 horses on the place, he is the only one with these weird hooves.

[cnd8]

My farrier swears by Farrier Barrier. I’ve used it for years and Im a firm believer in it.

[jvanrens]

@fordtraktor

I can safely ignore diet, I think, because he has been fed on a ration balancer + Farrier’s Formula double strength for his whole life, more or less. 24/7 grass and/or hay always, 24/7 turnout as well.

Have you tried supplementing with more copper and zinc? I’ve been reading that this helps with crappy feet a lot lately.

I’d think it was something nutritional before something applied externally as the most important thing to address. External might help, but won’t solve the problem.

[fordtraktor]

If it was nutritional, you’d think the other 6 horses eating the same thing would be affected as well. I used to feed copper and zinc for a couple of years, but noticed no difference in anything before or after. I am a skeptic and think this is one of those fads, honestly. I fell for it years before it was cool, lol.

His hoof supplement already contains that anyway, just not in a super high dosing. It’s still well north of daily requirement.

[jvanrens]

It’s possible he might need super high dosing to get him over the hump?

[Inimitable]

I’d probably try a White Lightning soak to kill any nasties. Fungus compromising the hoof wall would be my guess as well. I have one mare who had tiny hairline vertical cracks in her feet. Her hooves weren’t breaking up or anything and she was sound, but these cracks just never grew out. Until I started treating for fungus - they eventually grew out and haven’t come back.

[Xanthoria]

Not a Connemara by chance, is he?

[Simkie]

Pics would be neat to see!

Is there any reason you’ve had him on farriers formula since he was bitty? It might be interesting to pull that and see if things change (for better or for worse.) I’d be wondering if he’s over supplemented in an area, and that’s limiting absorption or utilization of something else. A few months of just the basics might be clarifying?

[skydy]

@Xanthoria

Not a Connemara by chance, is he?

No.

[4horses]

Best to post pictures of his feet if you can. I would suggest white lightning and perhaps zinc sulfate?

[JB]

We’d definitely need pics, and you may need xrays. If your farrier thinks there’s a fungus, I would start soaking the feet, not bothering with topicals. White Lightning is good, CleanTrax is great if it’s still made, and a cheap WL alternative is plain oxine which you can get a variety of places

Pete Ramey has instructions for oxine soaking
https://www.hoofrehab.com/Thrush_treatment.htm

[JB]

@fordtraktor

If it was nutritional, you’d think the other 6 horses eating the same thing would be affected as well. I used to feed copper and zinc for a couple of years, but noticed no difference in anything before or after. I am a skeptic and think this is one of those fads, honestly. I fell for it years before it was cool, lol.

No 2 horses utilize nutrients the same way. A foal and yearling have higher nutritional requirements per pound body weight than his adult self does. Darker hair requires more copper for health than lighter colors. NRC requirements are basic, more or less what it takes to prevent disease, not provide optimal health. Vit E for example is listed as 0.5IU per pound body weight, but every nutritionist I know likes to see at least 1IU/lb, if not 2, and that’s just for maintenance, not even work.

copper and zinc isn’t a fad, it’s a requirement for a lot of horses for one reason or another. Adding it, and removing it, doesn’t always show the impacts quickly, sometimes it does. A few years ago I ran out of my mix early that Summer and got lazy and didn’t get more. A few weeks later after some rain, 2 horses had rain rot, something they hadn’t had in YEARS.

Back in 2000, my then-yearling WB with white hind socks developed nasty scratches. We did all the vet things - shaving, Hibiclens, EqStim, I even did a saurekraut wrap (which helped in the moment but not long-term. I finally moved him to a barn where he could get out of tall grass, and that helped some, but the scabs were still coming, and thick.

On a whim I started a supplement with cu/zn in it, and within a week, scabs were falling off and new ones were not forming

@fordtraktor

His hoof supplement already contains that anyway, just not in a super high dosing. It’s still well north of daily requirement.

FFDS has 90mg copper and 247mg zinc. That IS basically the minimum requirement (which remember, is about not allowing/causing disease, nothing more) for a 12 month old who will be 1100lb as an adult

BUT, most who find a need to supplement are adding anywhere from 200-300mg Cu and 500-900mg zn, for perspective, at least for an adult horse, maybe slightly less for a < 2yo

Is that the issue here? No idea, the pics will help. But hopefully that puts into perspective what “well north of daily requirement” can really mean

[fordtraktor]

There is also copper and zinc in his ration balancer (he has been, at times, on Triple Crown, Essential K, and Enrich Plus (current), around 3 lbs of it still as he’s just a bit of a harder keeper. Doesn’t that put him in a decent range of copper and zinc? I find it difficult to turn the ppm on the bag into an actual amount! Thanks, JB.

[fordtraktor]

I put him on the FFDS because of the cracks, which have been an issue since he was barely weaned. He was weaned early (3 months) and his mom was euthanized then. At that point he was completely untouched by anyone, so trimming was a pipe dream.

He has had X rays on all 4 hooves with no structural defects, the fronts in April and the hinds in November. I will not post those because I don’t want my poor farrier to get slagged on the Internet…the horse has had some trimming issues over time, but none of that was the farrier’s fault. I personally have been able to work on him for quite a while, but he has an extreme fear of strangers and was pretty feral for the farrier to handle until recently. Then my farrier retired and we had to start again with a new “stranger” and it again took a while to build trust between them. The issue is he is totally fine for me, but that does not transfer to others. And no, I don’t have Black Stallion Syndrome – it’s a PITA!!!

[fordtraktor]

I got some pics this AM. I am going to post each with comments about what you are seeing. You can’t see the stringy peeled issue because my patient, kind CJF farrier put some glue in that area to stabilize it, which covers up what you can actually see. This is inside right hind.

[fordtraktor]

Front left. This is a VERY bad abscess growing out, so this looks worse than it is with the horizontal crack. The vertical cracks are the concern.

[fordtraktor]

Hinds

[fordtraktor]

Left front