Balancer Musings - Opti-care vs 365 Complete

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archiesmum

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Having happily fed Gain Opti-care to my horses for about 2 years now, I have been wondering whether to change for something with more in it. I am currently feeding additional micronised linseed and MSM along with grass chaff and I'm now considering adding a hoof supplement as his feet do not seem to hold shoes since the cold snap.

Horse is a reasonably good do-er ISH and currently on box rest/controlled exercise for a suspensory branch strain so keeping a level head is a must! He looks cracking and very shiney for a grey but I do wonder if that is mainly down to the linseed! I also thought he didn't muscle up very well when he came back into work last year and lacked a bit of something until I added a bit of linseed, which is when I began questioning whether he really was receiving the right stuff. I have recently added MSM in case it helps with his suspensory healing.

Having had a Google, Equine Answers 365 Complete appears to tick the boxes from their website - but I am conscious of being blinded by their claims without an ingredients list on the page. I haven't had any nutritional analysis done on the pasture or forage but I would like to think I'd have all the nutritional bases covered by feeding a balancer... again, blinded by advertising claims? Quite possible!

So... stick with Opti-care and the add ons? Change to the 365 Complete? Speak to the nutritionists at Badminton next week and try not to be sucked in by advertising? Ditch the balancer idea and just give him a token feed of grass chaff and linseed?! It's a minefield!

Ideas welcomed :-)
 
I would indeed ditch the balancer. If his feet are poor, the balancer is obviously not doing its job. I would feed forage linseed and chaff (if he needs that).
 
The nutrionists are basically sales people, they know what's on their brochures but you have no way of knowing how deep their knowledge of nutrition is- if you've been doing your own research you could have surpassed them, you'll certainly have a better idea of the available options in the market where as they will be limited to pushing their brand.

Without analysing forage you have no idea if you are meeting, failing to meet or exceeding the recommended daily amounts but I don't hold a lot of trust in those anyway, there's not enough scientific research on human rda and even less for horses. How many balancers list manganese when the horse requirements for manganese haven't been established? How can you balance the ration when you don't know what amount you start with and what amount you should end with?

Pearlsasinger said:
I would indeed ditch the balancer. If his feet are poor, the balancer is obviously not doing its job. I would feed forage linseed and chaff (if he needs that).
Click to expand...

Totally agree with this
 
His feet aren't bad and on closer inspection this morning it looks like the farrier has only put in two nails either side rather than the normal three so that might explain losing one on box rest.
He is on ad-lib haylage and I have been giving him grass nuts in a ball so he is getting good quality fibre.
 
That is also a very valid point wrt not knowing enough about RDAs to be able to fully know if you are meeting their requirements, or not as the case may be!
 
I used 365 complete for years and I also have used opti care .
But if my horse had bad feet I would go straight to forage plus a and try the performance balancer .
Nothing I have ever used has made feet grow as well as this one.
 
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