How to Take Proper Care of Horses’ Hooves

For horse owners, it’s easy to overlook the importance of proper hoof care as a crucial part of daily grooming. Unfortunately, once you become aware of this fact, it may be too late. Horse foot care is a crucial step that one must undertake for improved health and lifespan. 

By not taking proper care, horse owners will certainly face numerous problems like hoof cracks, thrush, hot nails, street nails, navicular and many other conditions that can affect their wellbeing. All of these conditions can happen to anyone, so aside from proper nutrition and boost with supplements, you should also take care of the grooming – hooves included.

How Do You Take Care of a Horse’s Hooves?

Cleaning and Maintaining Hooves

Cleaning and maintaining hooves is one of the most important things you can do for your horses. Before going on a ride or after each ride, you should inspect the hooves and remove any debris and rocks that may have ended up in their hooves. This can significantly reduce any discomfort and prevent the development of injury and infection. 

This inspection can also improve their balance and prolong the life of your horse’s shoes, so it’s something you should get in the habit of doing daily. In order to keep the hooves moisturized, you can use a cream or a special hoof oil as both of them are good for keeping them moisturized and preventing cracks and splits.

However, in those times of accidents when your horse has an injury or crack, or it has developed some kind of infection, you should certainly invest in some other helpful hoof care products which are designed for treating hooves promptly and effectively. Aside from moisturising the hooves to prevent cracks and dry skin, you can also apply special products to prevent thrush from appearing on your horses’ hooves.

However, this product can also be used in the appearance of thrush. Whether your horse has white line disease, separations of surface pockets in the sole and frog area, or you just need a product that can harden the sole and frog, you can easily find the hoof care product for each of these conditions.

Trimming

Hoof trimming is essential at least twice a year. Practice shows that foals should be trimmed for the first time right after they’re born (about two weeks of age) in order to start maintaining them properly. This is essential to maintain proper correctness or way of going while also improving the leg structure.

Proper Shoeing

This process is almost the same as trimming because it also involves trimming and adding shoes. Generally speaking, this should be done every six to eight weeks, however, this doesn’t apply to all horses as it mainly varies from their age. The reason why a shoe is added after trimming is to increase hoof protection, alongside applying all of the protective products.

Proper shoe application is the process of fitting a shoe to a properly trimmed and shaped hooves. Depending on your needs and the horses’ preferences, these shoes can be made from aluminium, steel, plastic and some other material compositions. Once you have found the right type, you just need to use nails or glue to fix them properly. 

In case you aren’t skilled enough to do that, it’s recommended to contact someone who knows how to do it properly. Proper trimming, care and shoe fitting are needed so that the horses will feel comfortable all the time, without the chances of developing some infection or disease because of poor fitting.

Minimize the Process of Wet-to-Dry Cycles

This process involves wetting and drying the horses’ hooves and practice shows that it would be best if you don’t do it that often. That’s because constant wetting and drying cycles of hooves can cause some problems with the horses’ shoes (if any), and most importantly this constant exposure to water can make the hoof crack. Which, on the other hand, can lead to the development of infections. For instance, during the rainy season, you should minimize the bathing time as their hooves are already being exposed to water, so you really shouldn’t wet them and expose them to excessive hoof drying and cracking. 

Maintain Proper Conditions

Proper nutrition is essential for keeping your horses and their hooves healthy and in good condition. Creating a balanced diet is key to obtaining all of this, and it includes incorporating essential vitamins, minerals and nutrients in their diet. Keep in mind that everything will go in vain if you don’t keep good hygiene in the stalls. 

This means that you need to remove manure and wet bedding from the stall at least once a day and be sure to dispose of it in a designated area. The stalls should also have good drainage so that all rainwater and urine can drain away properly and promptly. All of these things will contribute to your horses having good hygiene and reducing any chances of developing problems with their hooves.