Hooves getting too short - are boots my only option?

[Laura+Phantom]

Phantom's feet look fantastic since he's been barefoot with no cracks and a better shape, yay :) He's been for a few hacks lately on the roads with minimal trotting but they are starting to wear quicker than they are growing now.

I had him barefoot on his backs in 2005 and his backs went tiny and he was really footsore so shoes had to go back on. I don't want that happening again so are boots for roadwork my only option? If so, what ones should I get? He's a 14hh new forest pony. I want to be able to do XC, can I go bootless for that?

Oh yes and if his frogs are shedding, I should get the farrier to chop off just the dead stuff shouldn't I, as they harbour bacteria or something? I'm sure I read that on Pete Ramey's website.

[KarinUS]

I don't know about UK but in US we even have boot-trades where you can get slightly used ones rather than buy new.
So many boots now available. Seems like EasyCare Co. has most of them. Check it out and perhaps look at that table (http://www.easycareinc.com/Education/whatboot.aspx) to see what would suit you.

[Yann]

Boots would take the worry out of it and are almost essential for hard working barefoot horses in this country, especially recently transitioned ones. This is a particularly difficult time of the year, the change from wet to dry and the grass flush are likely to make some horses struggle at times.

You could also try Keratex hoof hardener, it might just tip the balance between wear and growth in your favour, it does work. However if he isn't footsore I'd be inclined to keep going and just monitor things, the feet can sometimes look shorter than we think they should be and be fine, and the wear will make them grow more quickly and toughen up :)

[Laura+Phantom]

Thank Yann, i've still got some keratex hoof hardener left over actually so will use that. He isn't foot sore yet and he's on blue chip which should be improving hoof quality but that will take a while to see. I will try and alternate between schooling/lunging on grass and hacking out, and use the hardener and see if we can continue as we are.

Hopefully we can get away with it, it's been about 6 months since his shoes came off.

[Jessey]

I would agree, try Keratex first its great stuff :D if not then a pair of boots might be a good idea, you could just use them for road work so that the feet continute to be conditioned to other surfaces and to harden up without getting worn too short :D

[MelanieD]

Boots are very useful if growth isn't keeping up with wear, but if workload has increased recently there can sometimes be a little bit of a delay between increased work and growth rate increasing so you might be lucky and find in a week or so the feet have caught up anyway. In what way are they too short? If you're used to looking at shod feet normal barefoot feet can seem scary short when they are actually okay, and feet being a tiny bit short is a lot less likely to make them sore and cause problems after they've been barefoot a while compared to early on.

Using boots for just some rides can work really well, sometimes if the feet are a little bit short boots for just a couple of rides so they get the pressure without the wear encourages them to grow and gets the feet back to a good length quite quickly.

If the frogs have nasty little pockets where thrush can lurk then trimming to open them up does help. If the frogs are shedding in big chunks and there aren't any pockets of ming then might be okay to let them come off naturally and maybe just pick off any loose bits.

[Laura+Phantom]

There aren't any pockets in the frog, just ragged flaps. They aren't too short now but last time he was barefoot on his backs, well he didn't transition as well as he has this time but they wore away to practically nothing, so I was just worrying in case they did that again. As you said though, hopefully they will catch up, as his workload has increased.