Know your products

The other day one of the girls at the barn was using a hoof treatment on the hooves of her little sisters horse.  She was reading off some of the ingredients and mentioned it had Linsed Oil, Pine Tar and Venice Turpentine in it. Of course there were several other ingredients, but these three stood out for me.

I have a bottle of Pine Tar and the brush for it, but since my horses have always had good, soft to trim, yet sturdy otherwise hooves, I don't use it much and have had it for Yeeeeeaaarrrssss. I honestly don't even remember where I bought it.

Linseed Oil - I have a big can of this out in the shed for oiling the wood of my meadowbrook cart. I can also remember the Operations manager at one of the big name farms coating the deck of the flatbed trailer with a good coating of Linsed Oil to keep the wood moisturized and strong.

My wasbands mare Chica had also gotten really thin hoof walls and soles at one point so he was using Venice Turpentine to harden the soles of her feet to keep her from hurting when she walked. The soles were that thin. Shoes weren't so much an option since her hoof walls were seriously paper thin. She did get them the next time around, because I paid for them. I was more concerned with keeping the horse sound & comfortable and obviously he wasn't.

It has always been my experience that hoof ointment is applied liberally at the coronet band or hairline of the hoof since this is where it grows out of. The girl mentions it says on the can (in all caps mind you), DO NOT USE ON THE HAIRLINE OR CORONET BAND. I'm guessing this was because of the turpentine.

Now I'm not sure about you, but to me this mixture didn't make sense. There was the pine tar and linseed oil to soften the hooves and make them more flexible, but then the turpentine to harden them. It sounds a lot like a "fix all" in a can. It softens And hardens the hoof? How does that work?!?! How does an ointment or treatment know when to harden or soften things? What makes things even better is that this girl is one of those that knows all there is to know about the subject. At least she thinks she does.