Warning: overheard a barn owner say they 'don't really need' hoof oil in dry weather

I was grabbing a coffee at the feed store last Tuesday and two ladies were talking at the next table. One of them runs a boarding stable outside of Austin and she was telling her friend she skips hoof oil from June through September because 'the ground is hard enough.' I almost choked on my drink. Dry weather is exactly when hooves get brittle and crack. I had a horse last month that threw a quarter crack so bad I had to patch it with acrylic for three cycles. Took me five hours total and the owner was pissed about the bill. All because she thought the dry climate was doing her horse a favor. Cold or dry, that hoof wall needs moisture protection just like your hands do in winter. Has anyone else run into this kind of thinking from clients?

3 comments

3 Comments

quinna8928d ago

Kind of reminds me of how people treat their own skin and never make the connection, you know? Like, nobody would say "oh it's dry outside so I'm just gonna stop using lotion" but somehow the same logic gets applied to hooves. I've noticed this pattern everywhere actually - people deciding that because conditions look one way on the surface, the opposite approach must be right. It's like how people let their car tires get low in winter because "the cold makes the air contract so they'll be fine" and then they end up sliding on ice. Or the folks who stop watering their lawn during a drought because "it's already dead anyway" when that's literally when it needs it most. Our brains just love taking shortcuts based on what seems obvious instead of what the actual science says.

the_mary28d ago

Five hours of patching a quarter crack and the owner being pissed about the bill is exactly why I carry a tube of Durasole in my truck at all times. I saw a guy last summer who bragged about never oiling his mare's feet from April to October. Her front hooves looked like dried out crackers with chips missing along the bottom edge. He was shocked when the farrier charged extra for the extra trimming and glue work. It's like people think dry ground is some kind of natural hoof hardener, but it's really just letting the moisture get sucked out until the wall starts splitting. I don't get how someone can look at their own chapped knuckles in December and not make the connection to their horse's feet in July.

susanb3428d agoTop Commenter

Do you use a hoof dressing with lanolin in it? Lanolin is a game changer for locking moisture in. @the_mary I feel you on the Durasole though, I keep that in my trailer too for emergencies. I had a client last summer who was dead set on keeping her gelding's feet "hard" so she'd spray them with keratex every single day and never let him stand in wet grass, then wondered why his walls were flaking off like dry clay. Sometimes you gotta remind people that hooves are still living tissue, not a brick.