In the wild the Nevada horses range over large areas able to browse and pick what they need from their environment. They are born into an environment largely free of chemicals and rich in minerals and vitamins through the large diversity of terrain and plants available to them.
Our domestic horses, conversely, usually have access to small areas which are over grazed creating soil imbalances which result in mineral and vitamin deficiencies in the plants growing on the pasture. Equally our intensive chemical farming is creating further imbalances which mean that much of the feed we buy for our horses is similarly imbalanced. Add our obsession with killing weeds on those overgrazed pastures and loading our horses every 8 weeks with wormers and we have a recipe which may be contributing to foot sensitivity in many of our domestic horses.
Sadly we don’t have all the answers although increasingly we are being given answers by the horses in our care. John is one such horse, Fari another. More research is needed in to how environments, chemicals and diet can affect hooves and hoof performance and whether the effect is cumulative. We are conducting our own research into analysis of our soil and adding organic dressings to improve the Ph balance and the mineral balance. We have also been experimenting with the use of natural sources of minerals such as seaweed, brewers yeast and herbs. Perhaps this will make grass less toxic to some horses, maybe this will make their hooves stronger and their systems more able to deal with toxins in their environment.
Increasingly though it is apparent that there are some horses, which have hooves free from ripples, with strong white lines, which can maintain an upright dorsal wall angle on the same diet as others who appear to suffer from varying degrees of rippling and a white line that gets pulled forward to create a shallow dorsal wall angle. Our question is why is this so? Is it genetics or is it that the horses with compromised hooves have systems which have been damaged in some way by their environment? Are we actually looking at horses who’s bodies are working at less than the optimum? Is hoof performance a barometer of horse health? Only time and more research will supply the answers.
