Seedy Toe the quick fix and long term solution
Seedy toe (also called white line disease) used to be the one on-going issue all my horses had many years ago. That was before I refined their diet and introduced a balanced custom mineral mix which changed everything.
In the process of healing their hooves, I discovered there is a quick fix to kick-start the healing, but also a long-term solution to keep it at bay. Here’s what I found works best:
Trim the hoof
Seedy toe often occurs more frequently in overgrown hooves. Trimming removes lever forces on the hoof wall that can cause further cracking or splitting started by a seedy toe infection, allowing it to take hold.
independent and well respected.
You can also learn to balance your horse’s diet by doing a course yourself – I can highly recommend those offered by Dr Eleanor Kellon here.
Change the environment
Keeping your horse in a wet and constantly muddy area will not assist hoof health.
Neither will turning them out with access to high sugar grasses 24/7!
The best solution is to have a dry standing area that is central or several of them in resting places around a ‘track’ system.
Seedy toe is a reflection of the inner health of your horse, pony, donkey or mule. If there’s a deficiency of minerals or an excess of sugars and starches, it will result in poor quality hooves. Separation of the laminae or overgrown hoof wall allows microbes to eat into the white line, causing on-going splits, holes and eventual lameness.
As they say … prevention is far better than a cure – but at least there is one!