For Lindak: I can't believe someone who shoes horses would EVER recommend motor oil for horse's hooves. Go ahead and use it, and I guarantee in six weeks you'll have crummy, shelly feet with small cracks. Use it six months, and wonder why you can't keep a shoe on. Of course, it may be that shoer needs a guaranteed source of income, in which case it's a great recommend!
Grandpa always told me that if you want to take care of a machine, use petroleum based products. If you want to preserve something with cellulose, use a vegetable product, e.g.. for your shovel handles and hayforks--use linseed oil. If you want to preserve leather, use an animal product, e.g.. for saddles, shoes--use PURE neat's-foot (not compound.) The best hand lotions are not the ones with mineral oil, but the ones with natural lanolin. And everyone who conditions their saddle on a regular basis with neat's-foot knows how soft and smooth your hands feel afterwards. Using that rational, if you want soft hooves, put on neat's-foot. Just don't use pine tar or a petroleum based product--which leaves out nearly ALL commercial products. But IMHO, hoof glop is garbage unless you have a reason to soften your horses hooves. Farrier's love 'em, but soft hooves are not the same as hooves with an adequate supply of moisture. Dry feet are tough to trim and shoe, but standing for an hour or two on wet soil before the farrier gets their makes a fella pretty happy. I'd say your best bet is to make a small area that you can keep damp, not muddy, and stand your horse tied for an hour or two after you ride. You want the moisture absorbed through the sole, not saturating the hoof wall itself to promote cracking. The old "run the trough over" trick works well in my area, because I have enough clay to pack into the hoof and give them moisture, but not so much it turns into a gloppy muckhole. I live in the High Plains desert of Southwestern Idaho, and my horse's feet get so dry they develop what I call "cat smile" cracks from the tip of the frog that can get up to an inch long on either side. It looks pretty strange, but in twenty-five years, I think I've only lost one shoe and have never had a lame horse from "dry feet." The young barefoot horses have hooves that ring like iron on pavement, but they go down the trail being ponied without a problem. In addition to twenty-five years in the Idaho desert, I recently returned from Southeastern Turkey, where the horses go through extremely hot, dry 100+ degree summers, and wet and rainy winter months. The native working ponies/horses have the best quality feet I've ever seen on a horse and with extremely minimal hoof care. The only "problem feet" I saw were horses that had "good" hoof care at the expensive private stables, on the track, and at the military stables. I was stable manager at the Incirlik Air Base stables for 18 months, and during that time I threw out every bucket of Hooflex in the barn, took horses off the 385 day shoeing program, and ran over the troughs every other day. The horses went from having ugly cracked run-under hooves that were so sensitive the animals had to be kept in a stall if barefoot, to having beautiful, well-shaped hooves, and were being ridden without shoes at the time I left. Unfortunately, the new stable manager turned out to be a big believer in TLC with hoof dressing, and rumor has it there's another "problem foot" situation again. Sorry about the rant, just had to put in my dos centavos--any one else with a comment? AD _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
