The One Nutrient Your Horse Needs To Build Stronger Hooves Faster
In order to have healthy hooves, your horse must consume a significant amount of high quality amino acids. But even if your horse’s diet is high in these amino acids, it may still take a long time for him to develop strong, healthy hooves…if he’s missing one important nutrient.
Before I tell you what that nutrient is, I need to fill you in on what healthy hooves are made of in the first place.
Hoof Health Made Simple
Your horse’s hooves are made of a substance called keratin, the same thing your fingernails and toenails are made of. As a matter of fact, veterinarians measure hoof fracture resistance by the health of the keratin your horse produces.
Perhaps the most important amino acid for healthy keratin is methionine (pronounced meth-ee-o-nine). The reason methionine is so important is because it produces sulfur. Sulfur, in turn, acts as the glue which holds the keratin strands together. So the more of these amino acids he comsumes, the stronger his hooves are likely to be.
If your horse consumes these healthy amino acids, he’ll grow healthy hooves. But it will take a long time for him to produce them. A long time, that is, unless he has a good source of the one nutrient that speeds up the keratin building process.
The Nutrient That Makes Healthy Hooves Grow Faster
Think of biotin as an accelerator for good hoof health. It converts carbohydrates into protein and metabolizes fatty acids. Your horse needs these fatty acids to kick his keratin production into high gear. With a good source of biotin, he’ll produce healthier hooves a lot faster. And biotin is an easy nutrient to find.
I’ve know of some decent horse supplements out there that are high in biotin. Whichever one you choose, you want the highest biotin per dose you can get.
I’ve researched some of the better ones out there, and the one I like the best is a product called Biotin-Plus. You can get it online at StateLineTack.com (click the link to go to State Line’s site. Then type the word “biotin” into their search box).
Biotin-Plus has 50mg biotin per dose. The 20 lb tub should last you at least 1/2 the year. Probably even longer. That should be long enough to build up some pretty strong keratin.
Hoof health is all about getting the right nutrients into your horse to build keratin. And strong keratin means stronger hooves.
Yours For Better Horse Care,
Sierra Lynch
horse horse health horse nutrition keratinTags: Horse Nutrition
