Absorbine Hooflex Natural Dressing & Conditioner 450ml

Details

Absorbine's Hooflex natural dressing takes a different approach from the old petroleum-and-tar hoof oils. It is built on natural oils and conditioners rather than petroleum distillates, which matters to people who have watched a heavy petroleum dressing sit on a hoof and seal it rather than condition it. This one absorbs and works into the wall and coronet band instead of just coating it. The place it earns its keep is a dry summer on a hard corral, when hooves go brittle, chip at the edges and start losing nails between farrier visits. Brushed on the wall and around the coronet a few times a week, a conditioner slows the moisture loss that causes that. Apply to a clean, dry hoof — a wire brush first does more than a second coat over caked mud. Keep it out of the frog crevices if there is any sign of thrush, because sealing a wet, infected frog makes it worse rather than better. Be honest with yourself about what a dressing can do. Hoof quality is grown from the inside out, over months, from nutrition, exercise, genetics and consistent farrier work. A dressing protects and conditions at the surface; it does not change the hoof the horse is growing. If you have a horse with genuinely poor feet, a biotin and mineral supplement, a shorter shoeing cycle and getting it off constantly wet or constantly dry ground will do far more than anything in a bottle. The 450 mL size lasts a long time with a couple of horses. Keep the cap on so it does not thicken, and store it above freezing.