Crumbly hoof advise

[Kira657]

My friend has just changed farriers and her knew one has said her mares feet are quite crumbly around the white wall and needed to be washed regularly to get rid of bacteria before she becomes 'gravelled'. She was also advised to religiously pick them out twice a day and kept off of wet ground as much as possible, which means keeping her in a stable thats as dry as possible too!Does anyone know of any good products/antibacterial washes to help kill the bacteria.Anyone tried Iodine, i've heard it can be good? Any advise greatly recieved! She is also fuming that her old farrier never said anything, even when the shoes were dropping off after just 3 weeks!

[artemis]

Perhaps a supplement such as Formula4feet might help.

[Kira657]

Im looking for something more along the lines of a wash/spray that will kill the bacteria building up in the hoof wall, thanks anyway

[Bay Mare]

Borax (yes the laundry stuff). Bebe knows the amount but I think that it's one tablespoon dissolved in a ?gallon of water.

You can either soak their feet in it (easy if they will keep their feet in a bucket), 'paint' it on or spray it on. I tend to wash the bottom of the feet after picking out with a bucket brush and a borax solution and then spray into the sides of the frog and around the white line area as well.

Another product that is recommended (but more fiddly) is Clean Trax.

Just another question ... have they taken the shoes off now? It might be a good idea to get a Barefoot Trimmer to have a look even if she wants to put the shoes back on once the feet are better again. I've had much more advice from my barefoot trimmer than I ever did from a farrier :rolleyes:

[MelanieD]

Unfortunatly a lot of farriers do ignore this kind of thing. Quite a lot of shod horses have a little bit of white line infection, but the muppet that was shoeing my horse was ignoring it even though it was getting really bad and close to causing major problems.

Borax is good, if the shoes are still on I guess you'd have to soak with it to have any chance of it getting to where it's needed. Clean trax is the best treatment for this kind of infection but has to be done with the shoes off, though the shoes can be put back on after doing it if you want.

A correct trim to get rid of white line stretching is important as well, and it's much easier to do that and get rid of infection barefoot. Because the white line is weak and infected it does make it easier for more infection to get in and lead to abcesses (what farrier means by gravelled). Borax/clean trax will treat both the white line infection that's causing it to be crumbly and help keep out any abcess-forming infection.