Horse hoof

Your local tack store has shelves loaded with various horse hoof treatments. What are they used for and do they really work? What works best for periodic hoof care?

Did your horse get the short end of the stick when it comes to hoof genetics? 👎️ Nutrition can make a huge difference. Learn which nutrients are essential for healthy hooves 👇️

Surely the commonest - and most misunderstood - reason given for horses "needing" shoes is the perceived "protection" that shoes provide. One of the flaws in last week's H&H article was a vet's assertion that "working on roads can wear away the hoof wall" which, according to the author, leads to pain and means that only horses who work on soft surfaces can cope unshod. The Worshipful Company of Farriers also cites this in support of shoes. When working an unshod horse, according to its…

Try these tips for improving the quality of the new hoof your horse is continually growing.

Submitted by David Landreville, Guest HCP Blogger When trimming horses' hooves, finding the true form is very much like sculpting. It's not the kind of sculpting that first comes to mind though, where you would start with a block of wood or marble, and slowly reveal the imagined shape within. It's more like sculpting with clay, […]

By Kentucky Equine Research - The white line is the narrow, light-coloured band visible on the underside of a freshly trimmed hoof at the junction of the hoof wall and the sole. White line disease, an infection that causes separation of the wall, may be seen first at the white line but actually affects the zone of contact between the hard outer hoof wall and the middle layer of hoof tissue. It occurs most commonly in front feet but can occur in any foot.

Genetics in hoof health

Dr. Debra Taylor describes the visual exam of a healthy hoof and how horses' feet can change in response to external factors. Watch now!

Hoof Anatomy: What Horse Hooves are Made of

The old saying ‘no hoof no horse’ gains special significance in the winter, when elements, cold temperatures and wetness can contribute to hoof decay. Here in the Midwest, this is a big concern. In…

Hoof Prints In The Sand Flickr Photo Sharing

Explore Nohuanda Equine Art's 4971 photos on Flickr!

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Wouldn’t it make life so much easier if we had a hard-and-fast, always-and-never guide for trimming our horses’ hooves? Unfortunately the hoof can’t be simplified like that. The hoof is an amazing feat of natural engineering that offers an infinite combination of variations within “normal” ranges. To make it even more complicated, our horses can […]

The elastic V-shaped pad of soft horn in the middle of the sole of a horse’s hoof, which helps absorb the impact when walking, is called a ‘frog’. Any guesses why?