Wholesome Equine Nutrition, LLC

06/14/2025

06/05/2025

I recently posted about the dangers of trimming to parameters which create poor welfare states, and highlighted the positive changes in one hoof, over a 5 week period, especially how the hoof shifts further under the bony column during rehab focused on improving welfare parameters of the entire horse: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1245134704256689&id=100062805141815

Here is another comparison of the same hoof, highlighting a similar positive change. Notice how the horse is better supported by the hoof, and how it is further under the bony column in the more recent hoof.
References and resources in the comments. If you check these out you will also realise these link top additional research and my conclusion is that there is a huge body evidence to suggest that a long toe, short, under run heel presentation is harmful and that a balanced hoof, with appropriate vertical depth and associated with positive welfare parameters promotes health, soundness, lasting resilience and longevity in horses.

If you enjoy or are in any way curious about the posts I share, I humbly invite you to 2 x inspiring and educational webinars this June:

If you would like to spend an hour or two with myself and Lindsey Field from as we answer FAQ’s on my integrative welfare focused hoof care approach, check out this live event on the 19th June at 7pm BST: https://www.holisticequine.co.uk/event-details/ask-the-experts-q-a-1-with-guest-lindsey-field-the-study-of-the-equine-hoof

If you are curious if you should be training or riding your horse, and you wish to learn practical advice from myself and Yasmin, please join us in this ground-breaking webinar - Monday 30th June at 7pm BST: https://www.yasminstuartequinephysio.com/webinar-should-i-be-riding-my-horse-right-now 🐴🥰

To work with me, online and in-person, and how to support the horses you love (whether barefoot, booted, or shod!) using objective and science backed welfare parameters, visit: https://www.holisticequine.co.uk/book-a-service

Www.holisticequine.co.uk - supporting and promoting compassionate equestrianism for the benefit of all 💚🙏🐴

05/24/2025

05/22/2025

04/13/2025

Spring has shown up in full swing over these last few weeks. The grass is coming in, lots of “April showers bring May flowers” rain, and big temperature swings to boot. While the Spring blooms may be beautiful, it does come at a cost – the potential for sore feet.
If your horse has been comfortable all winter, and now either mid-cycle or shortly after a trim, is becoming sore or showcasing changes in their gait, there is a high probability of grass sensitivity. And when I say grass, I mean the sugars in the grass. I promise you, if you’re working with a responsible and communicative hoof care provider, it’s not the trim. Talk to us. When the laminae is compromised (meaning even just a little inflamed or irritated from the sugars in the grass), just the vibrations from the swipes of the rasp can tip the scales to soreness. If you have a grass sensitive horse, here are some tips to save you emotional distress, and most importantly, your horse the discomfort of grass sensitivity.

1. Understanding photosynthesis: The grass converts sunshine to energy (i.e., sugar). The longer the grass cooks under the sun, the more sugar it accumulates. The safest time to turn out is a few hours after dark or early morning before sunrise and coming in early afternoon. (Generally speaking)

2. Stressed grass, or “there’s not much grass in that paddock”, is the highest in sugar. If you can avoid mowing or overgrazing a field, that’s usually a better option. When grass is stressed (i.e., mowing or overgrazing), it goes into survival mode and stores extra sugar. More info at https://www.safergrass.org/

3. Muzzling. While muzzling isn’t a fan favorite for owners, I promise you it’s a heck of a lot better than a sore or laminitic horse. Horses tolerate them quite well and adjust quickly. AND for your Houdini horses, there are a surplus of designs to minimize criminal muzzle removal. If you’re noticing an improvement in comfort a few days after muzzling or being off grass…. There ya go.

4. Monitor temperature swings and rain. If there is a 20–30-degree temperature change from the high to the low, the grass will go into hyperdrive and will have massive sugar spikes. The same goes for heavy rain. If you have a very sensitive horse, it is best to keep them off grass during these big swings and after heavy rains to avoid tempting fate.

5. Dry lot. If you have the option to dry lot your grass sensitive or metabolic horse, this is always the go-to option. Please be sure to provide them 24/7 access to hay and buddies during this time. If your horse is highly sensitive and is in the middle of an episode, it may be best to soak your hay. Though if your horse is episodic, please work with your veterinarian.
- PS If dry lotting, please make sure they have access to shade. In the depths of summer here in GA, dry lots can turn into frying pans.

6. Jiaogulan: https://madbarn.com/jiaogulan-benefits-for-horses/

7. Booting for protection, especially when we have dry spells and the ground turns to concrete.

8. If your horse is acutely uncomfortable, pathological posture/camping out, has trouble turning, etc., please call your veterinarian immediately. These are important things to look out for and can be time sensitive.

9. Speak with your veterinarian on the possibility of metabolic disease and appropriate testing. Early detection can save lives.

Let’s keep our horses safe and comfortable this season!

04/08/2025

I can't stress this enough!

Laminitis is already hitting hard this year. I spoke with multiple owners last week who hadn’t started using their grazing muzzle yet because “the grass wasn’t really growing yet”…..are we all looking at the same grass??

The grass is HERE! The time to muzzle is NOW!!
My springtime muzzle rule of thumb is always March 1st through Memorial Day.
Check your horses hoof temperature every day and familiarize yourself with what their normal is.
Are they moving a little slower than normal today? Hesitating to cross the gravel driveway when they don’t normally? Hoof boots don’t fit because of sudden rapid growth?
Don’t wait until they’re full blown laminitic to take action. Being proactive with an ounce of prevention can save your horse!

(Pictures are from a laminitis rehab case last year)

04/05/2025

This morning I was in a mood.

In fact, I was downright grumpy.

I was likely not very pleasant to my trim clients (sorry y’all), and quieter than usual. I kept thinking about each foot I picked up, and how it would fit into the mold of various ideals I have been seeing around social media. Some groups would want me to change HPA, or bring back toes more, or lower heels more, or raise heels more, or take more bar, or trim less bar, or trim less frog, or trim more frog, or add XYZ for protection/correction/comfort… the list goes on. I doubt there was one trim I did today that would have pleased everyone on the interwebs.

I know I sound like an actual broken record, since I feel like I say this exact statement every few months, but the hoofcare world can be crazy and full of drama. There’s always someone claiming they have it all figured out, and that their way is the right way. Or the only way. Or if only everyone else did it their way, all horses would be saved. But since others don’t do it their way, horses are dying. And it’s their job to yell it from the rooftops. .

And with some of these bold statements of right and wrong we often have various groups of people who have an ideal of what we should do to the feet in XYZ scenarios.

Listen- I am not immune. I am guilty of it too. Most of you know I’m insanely passionate about navicular rehab, so much so that I wrote 2 guide books about it. That’s how much I think about how to rehab navicular. And I know I probably get pretty preachy about it too.

But that’s also why I try so hard to shadow and work with hoofcare providers outside my own little bubble, to see other ways of doing things - EVEN IF I might disagree with them - to hear and understand and have conversations and bridge a gap. Because I never want to end up in an echo chamber where I think I am always right or my way is the only way.

Any time we apply the same exact trim or protocol to every single horse no matter the circumstances, we are treading towards dangerous territory. If we do that, no matter what we say, we are forcing our own ideals on the horse- and some horses simply don’t fit the mold, don’t read the textbook, or have a lifetime of pathology or injuries or damage that absolutely can’t accommodate our cookie cutter ideas.

We have to listen to the horse.

If someone is telling you that a certain way of doing things supersedes what the horse is saying they may need for comfort, I’d take a big step back, a big deep breath, and think long and hard about what we are trying to accomplish.

Some conversations I see on social media - even amongst groups who are WORKING TOWARD THE SAME GOAL! - make it seem like we are often burning more bridges than building them.

The horse comes first. The horse has a say. The horse has an opinion. And we need to listen.

This is exactly why I put together the Humble Hoof Podiatry Clinic for this October with Dr. Jenny Hagen, Ula Krzanowska, Celeste Lazaris, and Pat Reilly- all amazing clinicians who focus on biomechanics, wear patterns, growth patterns, and balance: so at this clinic we can look at conformation and movement, pathology, muscling, biomechanics of the distal limb, hoof wear patterns, and radiographs on various kinds of blocks and how it affects the horses’ balance, so we can start to get a better picture of how to adapt to an individual horse’s needs. Because they don’t all need the same thing for soundness.

And as a side note: one huge shoutout to Progressive Hoof Care Practitioners, one of our amazing clinic sponsors, for being an incredible hoofcare education community that doesn’t believe in having any one hoofcare “guru” and taught me over the years to listen to the horse and push my tunnel vision aside. This group is open to horse owners, trimmers, farriers, veterinarians, bodyworkers and more, to have a great supportive group and wonderful continuing education options.

(And yes- our podiatry clinic is SOLD OUT- but we do have a livestream/video recording option available here: https://thehumblehoof.com/product/october-25-26-2025-livestream/ )

03/08/2025

In my opinion, joint spacing alignment is more important than phalangeal alignment. It’s very easy to achieve preconceived favorable palmar and hoof/pastern angles by lowering or elevating the heels with 2 dimensional trimming and or shoeing. Joint spacing alignment relies on finding the 3 dimensional balance of the true ground contact points in the calloused live horn in the solar structures. The joint spacing shouldn’t be compromised trying to prematurely improve the angles. True elevation comes from engaging and building the digital cushion, not by propping up the heels on premature preconceived favorable angles.

Build a sustainable foundation.

12/23/2024

Salt and electrolytes
I have recommended for many years at least 2 tablespoons of salt (about 50 g or so) and more in hot weather for horses on untested forage on the basis of the NRC Nutrient Requirements of Horses and Dr Eleanor Kellon VMD. Horses use sodium, chloride and potassium for chemical processes in the body (maintenance needs) AND for cooling down when sweating (sweat losses). Fortunately potassium is relatively high in all feeds including grass and hay so from a daily, maintenance aspect, the two electrolytes we mainly have to supplement is sodium and chloride. Fortunately the easy way to do this is with NaCl, salt. This amount of salt will hopefully cover maintenance requirements AND contribute to electrolytes lost in sweat.

I've been concerned for some time by some people saying to base horses salt supplementation on 5-10 g/100 kg BW (bodyweight). This is not going to be enough in many cases. It's not a BW calculation when you take into account the horse can excrete excess electrolytes easily, and the potential for high losses in sweat in hot conditions. If the horse is a miniature, I have halved the general recommendation but understand that excess salt (excreted easily as long as plenty of drinking water) is vastly better than an electrolyte deficiency.

Some years ago, a visiting vet told me she gives her horses 6 (six!) tablespoons of salt over a day on extremely hot days.
It makes sense. If we only supplement at one time in a day and knowing that electrolyte excess is excreted easily and efficiently within a 4 hour window, even within one hour, then it makes sense that if a horse is sweating in the heat in the paddock, it's not going to be enough. I've now stepped it up to 4 tablespoons, split between two small feeds (we have plenty of grass thank goodness).

If your horse does not have access to water (huh?) never force salt into your horse as it can cause hypernatraemia. Always have drinking water available.
Sodium is what the brain ‘reads’ in determining when to trigger thirst and when to regulate the amount of sodium and water the body excretes in the urine.

At normal body levels, the horse has 1.58 g of sodium per kg of body weight. That's 632 g of sodium for a 400 kg horse. Slightly over 50% of that is stored in the bone and only 10% of the body's sodium is in the blood. If blood levels of sodium have been low for a long time, when you start to provide salt, sodium will need to be replenished in the skeleton and other tissues, not just the blood.

When a horse is sodium deficient, they drink less, they urinate less to conserve sodium. A sodium deficiency = fatigue. Drinking less may make you think you shouldn't give salt but salt is what they need. By supplementing salt, it can trigger drinking. Many endurance riders know how well this works.
You may ask, why do horses not drink when they are obviously dehydrated (pinch test)? The two triggers that can cause the thirst mechanism to be activated are loss of body fluids and loss of concentration of sodium.

When body fluids around cells drop due to sweating (horse looks dehydrated, tucked up, skin stands up in tent, slow to lower), fluids are forced out of the interstitial spaces (around tissues and organs) to compensate for this. With continued exercise and sweating, fluid is absorbed from the stores in the gastrointestinal tract. (Jenkinson et al., 2006) This helps maintain the fluid volume of the plasma. Due to the large reservoir of fluids that the horse maintains, plasma volume is able to be maintained, even with a fairly large loss of total body volume.

The plasma concentration of sodium is also fairly stable. When the sodium levels drop, the kidney concentrates the urine and less is secreted. When the fluids move from interstitial spaces or from the colon, sodium is moved with it. This allows for a more stable plasma concentration of sodium, so the cells do not recognise that there is sodium depletion.

The notion that all grass and hay provides enough salt, or that horses will always get what they need from a salt block is not supported by pasture and hay test results or research. Horses are amazing at conserving sodium if the need arises, and will even excrete potassium as a substitute for sodium in urine. I don't want to confuse people, salt is so far the only documented craving in horses, they will travel long distances to a salt lick but the above hopefully will help with understanding why some horses simply won't access a salt block. The best way to supplement salt is in a feed, in addition a bucket of loose salt in the paddock is sensible too but NOT to be relied on. And please don't be fooled into thinking your horse knows always when he needs to grab salt from your salt block. Some don't even like the flavour.

Effects of feeding frequency and voluntary salt intake on fluid and electrolyte regulation in athletic horses
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jappl.1999.86.5.1610

Sweating. Fluid and ion losses and replacement
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9561689/

Voluntary salt (NaCl) intake in Standardbred horses
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279566836_Voluntary_salt_NaCl_intake_in_Standardbred_horses