Natural hoof care is holistic. Because horses are herd animals whose entire physiology is set up for almost constant movement, it is difficult, if not impossible, for horses' feet to be maintained properly if they are stalled for any amount of time. In fact, problems with horses' feet began when human beings began stabling them for their own convenience: lack of movement, coupled with soft bedding and standing in urine and feces caused their feet to break down, resulting in the bright idea of horse shoes to "fix" what we humans broke! Over the centuries, the notion that shoes are "necessary" has been promulgated widely, but the fact is that they are only "necessary" because of our own errors in care.
Grain, too, is something human beings came up with to make their own lives easier. Once horses began being stabled, often in cities, grain was added to the horses' diet to make up for lack of turnout/pasture. The equine gut is not set up for carbohydrate: they eat almost entirely forage in the wild and need nothing else for good health.
My own horses are turned out 24/7. Grass hay (not alfalfa) is provided to them on a free-choice basis, and each horse eats around 3/4 of a 60-pound bale every day. They also have several varieties of free-choice minerals available to them (Buckeye's GrassPlus Minerals; Redmond Salt; and kelp meal). Horses will choose what minerals their bodies need, and this is, in most cases, far preferable to force-feeding them minerals daily in starchy feed. Check out the Links page for more info.
In boarding situations, where providing free-choice minerals may not be not an option, a good alternative is Buckeye Nutrition's "Gro N' Win" ration balancer. It provides minerals and vitamins without all the bulk and carbs of grain and so-called "complete feeds" in a very small serving. Then, if you need to add more calories on top of plenty of grass hay, you can do so via beet pulp (with no molasses if possible) plus oil, BOSS (black oil sunflower seeds), or flax.
In addition to the free-choice minerals, my hard-keeper TB gets soaked beet pulp, BOSS, and Ultimate Finish fat supplement, which is flax-based (I would prefer soybean oil, but he will not eat enough of it to keep his weight up), and my easy-keeper draft X mare gets beet pulp, a small amount of soybean oil, and BOSS. I feed this once a day, scheduled at around the time we would be riding anyway. Then they go right back out--in any weather, no matter what. I, too, was worried about this at first; like most horsepeople, I thought that 24/7 turnout might be fine for SOME horses, but not for my wimpy TB. ;-) The simply fact is that Peregrine thrives on being outside, and I very much doubt that he would have been able to transition to barefoot as well as he has without 24/7 turnout.
The winding aspect of this turnout area encourages the horses to move throughout the day from area to area and activity to activity in a manner very similar to the movement of wild horse herds.
Although the horses have run-in sheds, they rarely use them and are more likely to be found out in the open nibbling their hay even in the worst weather.
Read more about establishing natural living arrangements for horses on the links page.
