Re: Bad feet and Biotin

[Susan Evans Garlinghouse <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

Hi Amber,

This is one of my pet subjects (every one else is satisfied with just
dogs and horses, I have to have pet subjects as well;-)), I'll answer
this one.  Most folks have heard this before, so y'all can go take a nap
now or hit delte.

Anyway, biotin isn't a magic bullet, but it might help your boarder's
TW's feet.  There has been some pretty good research that 15-20 mg a day
over an extended period of time will help significantly increase the
quality (toughness) of the hoof, and decrease the incidence of sole
bruising as well.  The research was done on the Lipizzan stallions at
the Spanish Riding School at Vienna, where care, maintenance and
exercise regimen was virtually identical among all the horses.  Half the
horses got biotin, the other half didn't.

What they found was that the horses getting biotin didn't grow foot any
faster, but the quality of the foot was better in its tensile strength,
the white line was healthier (no open areas) and there was less
cracking, crumbling and bruising.  However, you have to be a little
patient waiting for the improvements, because some things like
nail-holding ability won't improve until the New and Improved horn
tissue has grown down from the coronary band to the bottom part of the
foot, which obviously doesn't happen overnight.

The study also noticed that after intial improvements were noted, the
horn quality continued to steadily improve over the next 2 years--so
apparently whatever biotin does (it's actually a cofactor in a number of
protein synthesis mechanisms), it keeps doing it better and better as
supplementation continues.

The general concensus in the research community is that the equine body
can only utilize about 15-25 mgs a day of biotin, and since it doesn't
store it, any leftovers are promptly peed out, so there's no benefit to
feeding more than about 15-25 mgs per day.  On the other hand, some
people here on the list have posted that their shoer swears they have
faster foot growth when they feed 50 mgs a day.  So it's up to you how
much you want to feed---25 mgs is sufficient to get improved quality,
but if you want to double the dose and hope for faster growth, you
certainly won't be causing any harm.

Paragon's Biotin Plus is still about the cheapest on a per mg basis that
I've found, and it smells good, too.  I don't have much faith in any of
the other various formulas for foot growth on the market, as nothing
else in there is backed up by even a smidgen of research data, so the
primary ingredient is just profit.  I just supplement with plain old
biotin and my shoer says I'm trying to kill him by making him trim four
horses with such tough feet.  Personally, I think he's just playing for
sympathy so I'll bring him cookies.;-)

Good luck with the TW.

Susan G 
Bob & Amber Roberts wrote:
> 
> I don't know if this has been discussed before.  A horse belonging to
> one of my boarders has terrible feet.  He has a quarter crack on the off
> front, crumbly feet without much area to hold a horse shoe nail.  This
> horse is a TW and she only does light pleasure rides (horse is 2 1/2
> years old).  She is wondering about feeding the horse Biotin for a year
> or two.  Has anyone has this problem and has Biotin helped?
> 
> I compared this horse's feet to one of my Arab's feet, and there is a
> world of difference between them.
> 
> Thanks for any info.
> 
> Amber