Sorry to hear that Huntsman.
I have a 30 year old paint. old guy was getting thin and we would find hay balls in his stall where he tried chewing hay but just couldn't grind it down very well. My wife did a little research and now feed him this twice a day. one scoop of beet pulp shreds, one scoop of alfalfa timothy cubes and one scoop of 12% grain. we put the beet pulp and cubes in a bucket and add about half a bucket of water to it. after the water has soaked in we top it off with the grain. He is now probably the fattest horse in the barn, almost never drinks from his bucket as he gets a lot of water from his mix, and doesn't get hay anymore because his teeth are so bad he just wastes it.
As far as shoes, I do not live in a rocky area, but I have two horses that have never had a shoe on them. Both have hard black feet, both have been ridden close to 400 miles a year and never been sore footed.
