Balancer or vits and mins?

[popsdosh]

Or test your forage if it all comes from the same source. As a major % of the diet that is the best place to look for deficiencies - that and the soil on which the grass your horses are grazing. I know mine is very low in Mg and selenium plus iodine, and I am lucky in that my forage comes off the same soil.

From experience on the farm forage analysis is pointless as it still does not tell you if the animal is getting it from the forage certain things will bind mins ans vits and make them unusable as far as the animal is concerned. Also you also find huge variations between bales even from the same land as different plants or grass species have different levels. The only way to make it anything like relevant is to pool samples from several bales.
From experience the only time we test for mins in plants is when we think we may have a problem in a growing crop . Just as only an animals blood profile can tell you if its getting enough .

 

[Tnavas]

Can we talk about why you consider rye grass to be quality grazing for horses when it causes so many problems in this country? Maybe your climate is better suited to it growing without excessive levels of sugar in it?

Its lack of exercise and overfeeding - nothing wrong with the grass - it was there decades ago and we never had problems with our horses and ponies. Rye grass is used because if it is prevented from growing a seed head either by grazing or topping it will continue to produce in dry conditions when other grasses give up. Its the amount of fertiliser added to it that makes it rich.

Its general over feeding of commercial foods - the majority of horses and ponies DO NOT need concentrate foods. During school holidays my pony on 24/7 grazing was being ridden for hours every day and did not get hard feed. At a show the judge - an equine vet - remarked on her excellent condition

If people stopped feeding concentrates they would have healthier horses! Much of what is put into those feeds in not horse friendly. Bran and SOY to name a couple. They are just convenience foods, they smell nice - well most do, I've sampled a few recently that even my food focused Clydesdale declined. SOY has been proven to cause many metabolic problems in humans - possibly it is doing so to horses.

GRass in New Zealand grows at an amazing rate year round far faster than in UK - you can almost see it growing!

 

[criso]

The only way to make it anything like relevant is to pool samples from several bales.
.

Which is exactly what the instructions from the testing companies tell you to do - or if grass how to gather a sample to get spread across the field.

Out of interest, you say on a farm forage analysis is pointless however the companies doing the analysis are actually aimed at the agricultural industry and have been doing this for long time - 30 years according to their website. Their use by the equine industry is relatively recent.

So there must be at least some areas of agriculture that find this useful for there to be a business there or is this also controversial in agriculture.

 

[JillA]

Also you also find huge variations between bales even from the same land as different plants or grass species have different levels. The only way to make it anything like relevant is to pool samples from several bales.

That is exactly how it is done. Maybe you should be discussing this with Forageplus - my experience only relates to my own horses, theirs is much more widespread. I know Sarah who runs it has spent large sums of money adding missing minerals direct to her land, rather than supplementing in feeds, and seen huge differences in her horses' health and even coat colour. So uptake isn't a problem normally.
Blood sampling is fine if you have a vet in regular attendance, but I'm not sure which labs do that. Apart from the visit and fee for taking and sending off a sample, what is the lab fee?

Useful and properly researched information here http://www.safergrass.org/articles.html - she advocates forage testing so it can't be as useless as you seem to think

 

[popsdosh]

That is exactly how it is done. Maybe you should be discussing this with Forageplus - my experience only relates to my own horses, theirs is much more widespread. I know Sarah who runs it has spent large sums of money adding missing minerals direct to her land, rather than supplementing in feeds, and seen huge differences in her horses' health and even coat colour. So uptake isn't a problem normally.
Blood sampling is fine if you have a vet in regular attendance, but I'm not sure which labs do that. Apart from the visit and fee for taking and sending off a sample, what is the lab fee?

Useful and properly researched information here http://www.safergrass.org/articles.html - she advocates forage testing so it can't be as useless as you seem to think

Why would I need to discuss it with Forageplus . What is the point in adding huge amounts of minerals to the soil as it is a complex environment where the addition of for example K for grassland growth will tie up magnesium uptake from the soil. As I say putting on enough to overcome the inbalance of one element that is being locked up can start to lock up something else. You can only tell accurately what the plant gets from the soil by tissue testing just as the animals blood is the only accurate way of knowing their status.
Uptake also changes throughout the year.
Our blood profiles cost less than plant tissue testing and more accurate to boot however we do our own sampling.

 

[ycbm]

Cost of blood testing is ten pounds per mineral. I have it done with the flu jabs.

There is an issue in that there are, apparently, no agreed 'normal' ranges for horses, so they have to use the ones for cows. But it seems to work with mine

 

[Cortez]

Cost of blood testing is ten pounds per mineral. I have it done with the flu jabs.

There is an issue in that there are, apparently, no agreed 'normal' ranges for horses, so they have to use the ones for cows. But it seems to work with mine

Ha ha: I ask my farmer neighbour for his test results

 

[ycbm]

Ha ha: I ask my farmer neighbour for his test results

Jammy! I only have sheep here and I don't know anyone who blood tests sheep

 

[Cortez]

Jammy! I only have sheep here and I don't know anyone who blood tests sheep

Not worth it I suppose....

 

[popsdosh]

Which is exactly what the instructions from the testing companies tell you to do - or if grass how to gather a sample to get spread across the field.

Out of interest, you say on a farm forage analysis is pointless however the companies doing the analysis are actually aimed at the agricultural industry and have been doing this for long time - 30 years according to their website. Their use by the equine industry is relatively recent.

So there must be at least some areas of agriculture that find this useful for there to be a business there or is this also controversial in agriculture.

I dont say its pointless to use forage analysis but I do know at best its an indicator of what mins and vits may be there so on the whole we only have protein ,dm ,fibre ,D value for ration formulation. Any min supps are only added after blood profiles are done

 

[popsdosh]

Not worth it I suppose....

Its catching them before they die !

 

[ester]

Oh lord, don't start that one again!

 

[Exploding Chestnuts]

Equivita will make you a bespoke balancer. They make it up to your specifications then put it on the website so its easy to reorder. They dont charge extra for it either, its costed out the same as their others.

Maybe so, but I fear the OP , or anyone else has a the "correct" mineral mix,

 

[ycbm]

Maybe so, but I fear the OP , or anyone else has a the "correct" mineral mix,

Can you explain what you mean?

 

[Casey76]

The way I see it:

Balancer - normally pelleted with fillers and usually molasses/moglo as a binder

Vits and mins - powder with minimal fillers.

Cost wise they are about the same all around £1 per day give or take a few pence.

 

[SEL]

Cost of blood testing is ten pounds per mineral. I have it done with the flu jabs.

There is an issue in that there are, apparently, no agreed 'normal' ranges for horses, so they have to use the ones for cows. But it seems to work with mine

Which ones do you ask for? Last time I discussed this with my vet I got told it wouldn't be worth doing. I got the impression the results wouldn't be of much use, but the nutritionists posting on the PSSM facebook forum seem to think a full blood panel is essential.

 

[supsup]

The way I see it:

Balancer - normally pelleted with fillers and usually molasses/moglo as a binder

Vits and mins - powder with minimal fillers.

Cost wise they are about the same all around £1 per day give or take a few pence.

Actually, I think the difference between a "balancer" and a "vit & min" supplement is that "balancers" also contain essential amino acids, and are designed to be fed alongside forage only to make a "balanced" ration. (I'm not going to go into what constitutes a "balanced ration" here...). Some of the "filler" in pelleted balancers is often quality protein (e.g. soya protein) to add those amino acids, and the pelleted form is merely for convenience to make it easy to feed alongside forage.

If you follow that definition, many of the powdered supplements mentioned above (Forageplus, Equimins etc.) are actually balancers. It's really personal preference IMO whether you go for a powdered or pelleted version. Considering the lengths some people have to go to to get their horses to eat the powders, I don't think the pelleted balancers are always the worst option, though there seems to be less variation on the market between pelleted versions, so less choice to pick one to suit your forage/situation.

And you can get away with paying less than £1 a day. As far as I know, the cheapest big-brand pelleted balancer on the market at the moment is 57p per day (for a 500kg horse). And some of the powders can work out cheaper than that.

 

[Exploding Chestnuts]

Can you explain what you mean?

Sorry, that was not clear
..." but I fear the OP , or anyone else has a the "correct" mineral mix..... "
What I mean is that the whole mineral business is very complex, and while a company will supply a mix to order, this does not mean it is providing the minerals required by the horse.
I looked in to it in detail when I got interested in the barefoot scene, after all good hoof growth is a very obvious necessity. My conclusion was that it is best to get a mix from a specialist, they are dedicated to the study of minerals, which is not an easy subject, one has to consider bio availability and the relationship between various minerals. Of course they do not have intimate knowledge of the diet of every horse they are fed too, but neither does the owner, even those who take blood tests, yes, the blood is tested on one day, but it may be different next month, whether or not the minerals are altered.

 

[Exploding Chestnuts]

Which ones do you ask for? Last time I discussed this with my vet I got told it wouldn't be worth doing. I got the impression the results wouldn't be of much use, but the nutritionists posting on the PSSM facebook forum seem to think a full blood panel is essential.

I assume that nutritionists need the whole blood profile in order to study it, just one mineral must be of very limited value. I would tend to assume that testing for one is to clarify a disease diagnosis, if we define disease as deviation from good health.

 

[ycbm]

Which ones do you ask for? Last time I discussed this with my vet I got told it wouldn't be worth doing. I got the impression the results wouldn't be of much use, but the nutritionists posting on the PSSM facebook forum seem to think a full blood panel is essential.

I asked for the ones I supplement to ensure that I wasn't giving too much and the two that I am trying to suppress to ensure that I was giving enough of the suppressors.

My results showed that the horses were too high in selenium so I reduced that, and too high in iron and manganese, so I increased copper and zinc. My results have been comparable year on year so I'm happy that I've got things stable.

I wouldn't pay for a broader analysis unless I felt the horses weren't healthy. They are, largely, self balancing animals as far as minerals go. They had to be as wild horses, to enable them to cope with eating whatever was available at the time. I think it's really bad news the way we restrict their diets these days to very few species of herbage. A lot of horse have only one - rye grazing and rye forage. No wonder people have to feed balancers.