Sugar Ponies

The idea for this post took a long time to form, because it took me a while to realize what I was seeing from my horse. Luckily for Key, it finally came to the point where I had to take notice, and all of my boys will be that much better for it.

When Key gets his feet done, he's usually good. The last couple times, he's been exhibiting weird behavior--when his front feet were being done, he would walk his back feet underneath his body. The last time they were done, they were so close to his front feet that he looked like he was standing on a pedestal. He puts his teeth on my palm, and opens and closes them--kind of like biting, but his intent is never to pull the skin into his mouth, it's just to run the front of his teeth on my palm. I don't get it, but I do know it means he's uncomfortable. After he couldn't take it any more, he actually reared, just to get away from the farrier and put both of his feet back down onto the ground.

He barely did anything when the farrier does his back feet, however. So what was wrong?

I asked around once and someone suggested back problems. Okay, but why would he be stepping so far underneath himself? He didn't move with any particular lameness. The day he reared and it became clear that it wasn't a weird habit, I asked my farrier what he thought.

"It's probably his hocks," he said. "I can feel calcification on the front of them, and he doesn't like putting them out behind him."

"What about his front feet?" I asked. I picked up one to show what I meant. "In between the heel bulbs, there's this big crack. It's thrushy. Can thrush cause pain? He's a baby about little things."

"Nah," he dismissed. "His conformation is set up to put stress on his hocks."

Ok, so maybe it was his hocks, but that just didn't make sense to me. If they hurt him enough to make him rear (remember, Key is lazy), then why did he look fine in the pasture? Hocks can fuse around Key's age, so that could be the cause of the 'calcification' the farrier felt. (I trust him that it is there, although I didn't think it was the problem!)

I looked online a little but I wasn't sure how to search for what I needed. (Horse-stepping-under-himself-when-getting-feet-trimmed surprisingly did not turn up any results in Google). So I resigned myself to hock problems and browsed the internet like usual.

I came across a few barefoot pages and barefoot blogs--and the main thing I read was thrush hurts. And the second thing--it didn't have to be smelly or gross, just Not Quite Right, or with holes and cracks. Combined with the wet weather we've had... and tada. But why Key and not the other two?

Back when I first got Key, he colicked at a show and we took him to the New Bolton Center (I'm sure I've blogged about this before). Whilst he was there, they said he 'took a bad step' so they x-rayed him and put glue-on shoes. When we got there, they told us he had 'low grade, chronic laminitis'.

We originally scoffed at the thought, and thought it was an excuse to put on really expensive shoes and up our bill (because with or without them, he'd never stepped lame when we got him back!). We'd never seen him take bad steps other then abscesses, he had no event lines in his hooves, no sole pain, nothing. I had actually forgotten all about it, until now.

I was reading the Barefoot Horse Blog and came across a post about it, saying that these horses were commonly sore after being trimmed. And that they had little concavity to their soles.

Ding, and ding. And yet another thing--the high sugar in some feeds (and some pastures) were causing hooves to splat and loose their concavity. Sugar = not good.

Which then got me thinking more--the best his feet have ever been, and the best he's ever felt, was back when I was showing him in 2008. And he had been on a completely different feed... with lower NSCs.

It's becoming a buzz word, and there are plenty of people who don't understand what they are--including me, before all of this. So here is a little nutritional fact-dumping post for all to help better the horses out there.


NSC stands for 'non structural carbohydrate'. The percentage that people are often talking about in feed comes from the amount of WSC--water soluble carbohydrates--and starch added together. Carbohydrates are your sugars, and starch, after it has hit the stomach and is somewhat broken down... also becomes sugar. So basically, the NSC % is a number that adds simple sugars and things that essentially ARE sugar once they get past the stomach, and it is a handy little number. So handy, in fact, that many feed companies do not put it on their labels. ;)

Horses are not designed to take a lot of sugar in at one time. Although some grasses can have high NSC levels (and therefore affect insulin resistant horses--think 'diabetic horses'), the horse is getting little bits of it over a long period of time. When it comes to feeding them a high NSC grain, they get ALL of that sugar in a little under the 5-10 minutes it takes for them to scarf down their food.

So what are the downfalls of sugary feeds? We all know hyperactivity is one. OCD in young horses is another. Just like in people, a diet high in sugar can create obesity problems and metabolic disorders (again, think of insulin resistance). It also can contribute to laminitis, chronic diarrhea, and feet problems. Many people who have switched to low NSC feeds report hoof sensitivity being highly reduced. But what impact would sugar have on feet?

Excess sugar in the blood stream raises insulin levels. Studies have shown that this then diverts glucose away from the hooves--but laminae NEED glucose. A diet of sugar can create a hoof with weak laminae, and a perpetually weak attachment to the hoof itself. Weak hoof structure = sensitive feet!

So what to look for when selecting a feed for your horse?

Feeds where the first few ingredients are oats, barley, corn, or wheat bran/middlings are probably going to have a high NSC percentage. This is because oats have a NSC of 50%, barley is at 60%, corn 75%, and wheat bran/middlings come in at a smaller, but still sizable 30-35%.

To put this into perspective you ideally want to feed a grain that is under 20%, and the closer to 10% or under, the better. If you had an IR horse, you would absolutely require it to be under 10%. The feed I have currently has a NSC of 40%. (Where is the eye-pop-out-of-head icon when you need it?) Its first five ingredients in order are as follows: Ground Corn, Wheat Middlings, Wheat Flour, Corn Distillers Dried Grains, Cane Molasses.

Feeds that are high in fiber and fat are also typically lower in NSC. Often times, feeds that suggest they are 'low starch' or 'low carb' MUST be checked--there is no industry standard attached to those terms, and ANY feed can be listed as low starch. There are many sites that provide a list of feeds and their NSC values, and typically finding your NSC percentage to your current feed is as easy as typing 'X feed NSC' into Google.

Some horses do just fine on high sugar feeds--imagine those people who can shove donuts into their mouth and not feel the effects of the food. But they were never designed to eat sugar in such a dense, calorie-rich package. Some IR horses even get their hay soaked, as this lowers the sugars further in normal grass hay. Key, with a known metabolic issue (chronic low grade laminitis), is a definite contender for a feed change. Clyde's feet have always been good, but he is fatter then I would like; Odie's feet are also good but again, he is prone to putting on weight. I am planning on switching them to a new feed in the next couple of months, and will update you all if Clyde and Odie show any 'improvements'.

It is almost frightening how doing something as simple as feeding must be heavily researched in the horse world. There is so much information out there, and sometimes it feels as though I'm always doing something wrong when I'm trying to do the most basic of things--like feeding.

With the wet weather we've had, Key has thrush. He has often had a crack in his heel, and I now wonder if the high sugar in his feeds that are at the root of these problems. The lowest sugar feed he'd ever been on was the time of his life where I think he moved the best and, more importantly, felt the best. He had been running a lot in the pasture that year, and we thought it was because he was getting more food/alfalfa. Perhaps it was just the simple fact that his feet felt good.

I took some pictures of his feet to monitor the process, and although you can see the crack, you can't see the one flap in his frog all that well. Not only can I fit a toothbrush all the way into the cracks, I can also fit it into the flap on his frog. Ew! I urge you all to take a look at your own horse's feet. Key's feet do not 'smell' or look like a typical 'thrushy' foot that you all hear about. But alas it is there, and it's time to go!

The hoof pictures were taken at separate times, so that's why one is dry, and the other is wet, with my phone.

Right front

Left front

Edited to add:

Left front

(This picture is after soaking with Lysol, so it has that white bleachy residue on it. The left is way worse then the right. However, the more I clean it, the dead parts are more obvious, and I thought this photo would show what I'm dealing with a little better. You could hardly see the flaps in the previous photo.)

I decided to go with scrubbing with Dawn to clean, and then soaking with diluted Lysol daily. The back feet, which have no cracks at all, are getting sprayed with apple cider vinager solution (one part ACV to 2 parts water) to keep the foot at its optimal PH. Just in case. Will update!

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As a side note: Whilst I love this blog, and love putting up my tips, info-dumps, trials, shows and experiences, sometimes I don't always have exciting news. (Worked with Odie today, and he stood tied to the trailer for 20 minutes like a grown up. Exhilarating.) And other times, the posts are long, and take a lot of effort and research for me to feel comfortable putting them up. I don't want to stop posting here--actually, I need to post more!--but was wondering if anyone would be interested in another blog that I've been thinking about for a while.

I'm not sure of a clever title yet, but it would be half a product review blog, half a neat tips blog. So reviews on new products, cool apps that horse people can use, and new ways to tie other then the 'quick release' that isn't all-that-quick-releasing when a horse is hanging on it, etc.. It would allow the posts to be relatively short (yay for my fingers), full of pictures, and just a general fun, informative-type blog, updated weekly. Any ideas for a title, shoot them my way. :)