HORSE HOOF CARE FOR BEGINNERS | Hoof Care 101

did you know that caring for your horse's hooves involves more than just cleaning them out on a regular basis there are some other super beneficial ways you can take care of your horse's hooves and keep them healthy so that's what we're going over today to properly care for your horse's hooves it's important to know what the actual roll of the hoof is so your horse's hooves are actually one of the most important parts of their body there's an old saying no hoof no horse without hooves your horse probably wouldn't be able to survive your horse's hose play a huge role in circulation and blood flow the reason for this is that the hooves actually act as a pump to get the blood back up the horse's leg so as the blood flows the blood's gonna flow down to their hooves but you know the horse's leg is really tall and long so it's hard for the blood to get back up this way so what happens is as the horse steps and moves the hoof is going to pump the blood back up the leg another role of the horse hoof is to act as a shock absorber or a cushion when your horse moves and walks so horses are big animals they can weigh a lot tucker here the vet said he probably weighs about 900 pounds so that's a lot of weight so the trauma that your horse's body receives is the horse and the weight of the horse moves on top of these legs hitting the ground that could really damage your horse's body if it weren't for hooves so the horse's hoof is going to act as a shock absorber to that trauma and impact whenever the horse hits the ground the next thing i want to talk about are important aspects of hoof health and variables that can affect the quality of your horse's hoof believe it or not but the climate that your horse lives in is going to drastically affect their hooves the reason for this is largely the moisture content in your area and how it affects the horse's hooves horses hoes are very much like human fingernails they're made out of keratin just like our fingernails and they are always growing another way that they're similar is that if i've gone throughout my day and i haven't really gotten my hands wet my nails are hard and strong but if i go and i soak my hands in water or take a bath or something then my fingernails are really soft and i can move them very easily without them breaking so if your horse lives in a wet environment where their hose are getting a lot of moisture around them that means the horse's hooves are going to absorb that moisture and they're going to become soft and so that means it's going to be harder for them to walk on hard surfaces you may see horses in the desert that can easily walk across stones and rocks because their hooves are so solid and hard and strong but if a horse is in a wetter climate it's going to have a hard time and the feet are going to be more sensitive in terms of what they're walking on the amount of moisture that your horse's hose is absorbing is also going to affect the growth of the hoof a horse that's absorbing a lot of water is going to grow much faster compared to a hoof that is dry and doesn't have a lot of moisture in it there are things you can do based off of your climate that's going to help your horse's hooves stay consistent and healthy number one if you live in a wetter climate or maybe you're just in a climate where suddenly you've received a lot of rain and it's just really wet out one thing you want to do is make sure your horse has a dry place they can escape to so if your horse is turned out make sure that they have a run in that's dry that they can go and stand in or another thing you can do is you can pull your horse from the pasture and it said that just giving them one hour of standing on dry ground can really benefit the hoof so in the wintertime when it rains a lot here i'll take tucker out and i'll just let him stand in the barn on the concrete for an hour just to let his hooves dry out if you live in an environment that can go between wet spells and dry spells it's important to know that this can actually cause your horse's hose to become brittle and cracked so if that's happening what you want to do is try and maintain a balance within the hoof so if you've had a wet spell and now it's going into a dry spell one thing you can do is moisturize your horse's hooves and just put like a conditioner on them so here's some hoof moisturizer and all it does is it kind of comes in like a paint brush form tucker is so interested and what you do is you just paint this on your horse's hooves it's going to help give the horse the moisture in their hooves that they're used to if you're starting to go through a dry spell and so this will help the hooves from cracking or becoming brittle so you just paint that on and that's going to moisturize the hoof if you live in a dry climate that means your horse's hooves are probably really good they're dry and they're strong and they're hard so that means you can walk across hard surfaces and all of that so one thing you're going to want to avoid in this climate is going into water and letting your horse just stand in water like i used to ride my horse into the river and we just stand and play in the river but then my horse is going from a wet environment to a dry environment really quickly and so that's going to cause the hoof to dry out and crack just like it would from a wet spell to a dry spell so that's just something to keep in mind another important aspect of your horse's hoof health that we've kind of already gone over is circulation as your horse moves and walks each time they take a step their hoof is going to act as a pump to pump blood back up the leg so if that's what the horse's hoof does what happens if your horse isn't moving or walking then a sedentary lifestyle is going to drastically affect your horse's circulation number one they're not able to move and so they're not able to pump blood back up their legs so if your horse is in a stall this may be one reason they're getting stocked up legs is because they're not able to move and get that circulation going but proper blood flows enables tissues and muscles to become stronger while decreased blood flow is going to make them become weaker and not as strong so the more the blood is flowing properly through your horse the healthier they're going to be it's also going to move toxins out of the body as it should compared to if your horse is just standing still all the time those toxins are going to be able to settle in their body so what's the answer for this the answer for keeping your horse's hooves healthy based off of circulation is exercise horses need exercise not only to control their weight but also for the health of their hooves exercise can look like turnout or hand walking or even riding i once heard a failure say that a great way to ensure that your horse's hooves stay healthy is by riding them on a regular basis and the reason for this is that by rotting your horse you're getting them moving you're getting their feet falling and so that way that blood is going to be pumping and circulating back up through their body another thing that's going to affect your horse's hooves is your horse's diet what they're eating and what they're consuming so sugar is going to play a very big role in the health of your horse's hooves so unfortunately horses consume a lot more sugar nowadays than they were originally designed to we give them sweet feeds that have sugar they're on pasture that has grass that has a very sugar high content and so horses are consuming a lot of sugar so in basic terms the way this affects your horse's hooves is that the sugar and the starches actually get into your horse's blood and it travels down to the hoof and then the hoofs tissues like the tissues within the hoof are very sensitive to that stuff to that glucose and starch and stuff like that and so if those things get stuck down in the hoof the hoof becomes inflamed and that's known as laminitis laminitis is a health condition that should be taken seriously as it can lead to even more severe conditions like founder so since we've been talking about horse hub so much i wanted to show you all my scoot boots that my friends over at scoot boot were so kind to send us these are great because i keep tucker barefoot as much as i can so that means he doesn't have shoes on his feet but that can be hard when we ride across hard surfaces we're in a wetter climate here so his feet are a little bit softer so these are actually more like tennis shoes where you can put them on and take them off very easily they have a sole like a tennis shoe that makes it easy for tucker to just walk across rocks if you click the link in the description and use my code equine helper 479 at checkout you can get 10 percent off your pair of scoop boots in order to properly care for your horse's hooves it's important to know the important parts of your horse's hooves and their function so i'm just going to walk you through the parts of the hoof real quick this most notable thing right here this is it's like a triangle this is called the horse's frog and this is largely what the horse walks on if their hooves are correctly shaped is when they step this is going to touch the ground this part right here is the sole of the hoof right here you kind of see a ring around the hoof this is the hoof wall and so this is actually if you look at the hoof when the hoof is on the ground this is what you see so the hoof wall is kind of like the protective outer layer and it's also if your horse has shoes the hoof wall is the layer that the nails go into for the shoes these kind of ridges right here are known as the bars and these are the collateral grooves so these grooves around the frog of course you have the toe of the hoof and the heel of the hoof so those are basically the important parts of the hoof that you should know there's actually another part of the hoof that you can't see but it's a very vital to the function and the support and structure of the hoof so this part i'm talking about is the coffin bone so the coffin bone is a bone that's in the middle of your horse's hoof so there's tissue inside of the hoof that connects the hoof with the coffin bone so the coffin bone is they pretty much support each other so the hoof and the tissue support the coffin bone and vice versa the coffin bone is also going to support the hoof so when those tissues become damaged like when your horse has laminitis that can put strain on the coffin bone and those tissues can be damaged to the point where the coffin bone starts to drop or move around in the hoof and when that happens that is called founder and it can be fatal to your horse so that's an important part you need to know even though you cannot see it so one of the best things you can do to care for your horse's hooves is to clean them out on a regular basis so cleaning your horse's hooves is basically the equivalent to brushing your teeth every day and the fact that it goes a long way in making sure your horse's hooves are healthy so i'm just going to do a very quick overview of how you clean your horse's hooves i like these types of hoof picks that have the bristles just so i can brush out any other dirt that may be in the hoof but what you're going to do is you're going to start by standing next to the horse's shoulder or leg so and i'm going to face backwards so i'm either going to stand here at the shoulder to pick up that foot or here at the hip to pick up the hind foot and then what i like to do is just kind of run my hand down the horse's leg so they know what i'm expecting and tucker knows what i'm expecting so he immediately starts picking up his hoof but you can pull on the fet lock right here to get them to pick up their feet and then you'll just pick out all the dirt out of the hoof and you want to make sure you're getting these grooves real well obviously don't pick at the frog and then i like to brush out any remaining dirt just to remove everything that may be in there so picking out your horse's hooves is new to you or maybe you don't feel confident about it i have an entire video dedicated to walking you through how to clean out your horse's hooves step by step so i'm going to put the link to that video in the description besides cleaning out your horse's hooves your horse is also going to need their hose trimmed on a regular basis depending on the climate you're in the time between trimmings can vary so if you're in a more dry climate where the horse's hooves may not be growing as fast it may be every eight weeks that you need to figure out if you're in a wetter climate or maybe your horse just needs more care for their feet the farrier could be seeing them up to four weeks at a time like every four weeks i get tucker done here about every six weeks and so the professional that's going to care for your horse's hooves in this way is known as a farrier and they can either trim your horse's hooves or put shoes on depending on the needs of your horse the reason a visit from the fair is so important is because as the horse's hoof grows their foot can actually become unbalanced when it becomes more difficult for them to walk if their hoof grows a little unevenly or maybe it's worn on one side more than the other it can become really uncomfortable to walk and it can put strain on the rest of their body so this is why it's important for your horse to see a farrier on a regular basis and get their hooves trimmed as a professional your farrier should be able to also give you advice on the care your horse needs so if your horse maybe has weaker hooves and the ferry can recommend a supplement like biotin that's really going to help the hooves become strong or maybe your farrier will be able to tell you whether or not your horse needs shoes just depending on what you want to do so in addition to caring for your horse's hooves there's a whole bunch of other stuff you need to know when it comes to caring for and owning a horse so i actually have made a video that's just a huge overview of everything you need to know when it comes to caring for your horse and owning a horse and making sure they're staying healthy so i'll put the link in the description to that video for you to check out and as always if you found this video helpful please be sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel

Channel: Equine Helper

Views: 7,015

Rating: 4.9868636 out of 5

Keywords: how to care for a horse's hooves, horse hoof care

Id: Sv2CdYMDbDw

Length: 12min 56sec (776 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 17 2021