Healthier Afoot: A Lifestyle Guide for Better Hooves
In a surprising number of cases unhealthy hooves are not due to heritable weakness but instead to avoidable lifestyle factors. As hard as it is to admit our daily horsekeeping decisions are sometimes the cause of our horses sore feet. The primary factors that have weakened modern horses feet include lack of movement ground surfaces diet and supplements and practices related to weaning and early development.
Sore feet compromise more than just quality and soundness of movement. They create a big decline in activity all around which in turn negatively impacts numerous systems that depend on daily exercise digestion bone density immunity blood circulation and more. When a horse has sore feet owners often find themselves in a chain reaction of these impacts. And the solution is not always a matter of finding the best farrier vet or trainer.
Strong resilient feet depend on movement lots of it. Through the gentle concussive forces of moving across terrain for hours each day hooves maintain their thick tough walls and soles strong cartilage dense digital cushions and large frogs. Like much of the horses physiology hooves adapt thrive and depend on ample daily movement. When tissues are not stimulated and positively stressed they weaken.
Every step a horse takes helps shape and toughen the outer and inner hoof structures. Sufficient exercise goes beyond daily training sessions. It means finding ways to distribute small doses of movement throughout the day. Stimulating tissues repeatedly during a 24hour period creates better health than exercising the horse hard for one hour and then leaving him to stand in a small pen the remaining 23 hours. Extra exercise might come in the form of creative paddock designs that require travel to food water and socializing or might include a hotwalker or extra training sessions. The goal is to
