Living conditions are also important. Stalled horses are less likely to have a healthy enough foot to go barefoot, and often have problems like thrush and white line disease (more often then pastured horses that is).

The trim is definitely very important, but even the best trim can’t make up for improper nutrition or less then optimum living conditions (for the HORSE, not the owner’s convenience).

I completely agree with you on the aspect on nutrition. If you read most of my blog you will see that nutrition is very important in the aspect of the whole horse, including hoof health. With that said, truly the most important aspect of the hoof’s health is how it is trimmed so that it can benefit from proper nutrition. The least important is actually the conditions of the horses environment. A properly trimmed foot can overcome less than optimal living conditions. It is hard to say how much nutrition plays a role, obviously it does; however usually what I have found is that if a horse is not receiving optimal nutrition he is also not receiving optimal hoof trimming. I agree with your stance on high sugar content. I have seen horses with great feet being fed sweet feed and other processed feds high in sugar but eventually it would catch up with them. These types of feed are overall bad for the horses health, but many horses do fine on them (It always amazes me the abuse some horses deal with and still keep on going) and their feet are just fine, because they are trimmed similar to what I expresses in the post

Also did you know that thrush has been proven to be mechanical disorders of the foot rather than sub prime conditions. Of course you still need those sub prime conditions to exist to have thrush but this explains why two horses being fed the same and kept in the same conditions but have completely different feet one is genetics the other is how the foot is trimmed.

I’ll give you an example of a barn that I was in, not optimal conditions. It was winter time, horses were kept in most of the day, the stall cleaners were not very diligent, the barn owners did not like to bed the stalls very deep, the whole bad barn story. They were having problems with thrush…go figure…There was a new farrier in town trying to build up business. I had seen his work and liked it. He was willing to work for cheap because he had to build a client base. I had this barn switch to the new farrier for these thrush horses. One trim and seven days later the thrush did not return, again. The horses that stayed with the old farrier continued to have problems with thrush. The conditions all remained the same for all the horses, the only change was a new farrier. The old farrier blamed the wet weather and stall conditions.. The new farrier said nothing…LOL…but went on to take over the whole barn. Conditions did eventually change in that barn as well with two of us hounding them about the stall conditions and turn out for the horses.

By the way your comments are fantastic and shows a horse owner with a good knowledgebase, please feel free to comment more often I like your insight!