Balancer, would you?

[ycbm]

yup we have hand fed equimins to the mare,
F is a little more fussy

The spec for the powder v. pellets version is the same so I'm not sure why it would be of benefit to feed the powdered one with a feed if they will eat the pellets.
At one point F went off the pellets so I switch to the powder and he was fine, but he's been back on pellets since he went home 3ish years ago.
(they will usually send samples too)

The powder was cheaper

 

[spotty_pony]

All of mine get a balancer year round. It's their basic daily vitamin and mineral requirement, along with ad lib forage and then I just add to it, depending on condition, work load, etc.

 

[Cortez]

All of mine get a balancer year round. It's their basic daily vitamin and mineral requirement, along with ad lib forage and then I just add to it, depending on condition, work load, etc.

Are your horses deficient in anything? I wonder why people feel the need to supplement as vitamin and/or mineral deficiency is almost unheard of (say my vet-y friends, although they have come across over-supplementation).

 

[CanteringCarrot]

I used to feed a formulated one when I had a stud farm in Colorado which had a diagnosed soil deficiency (+ molybdenum). I've fed a balancer now and again since leaving there, but really did not see any difference and haven't done so for many years. Friends-who-are-vets say they have never seen a horse with a deficiency.

Are your horses deficient in anything? I wonder why people feel the need to supplement as vitamin and/or mineral deficiency is almost unheard of (say my vet-y friends, although they have come across over-supplementation).

So, your friends who are vets have never seen a horse with a deficiency. They also say it is almost unheard of. Interesting. We've had a few cases of selenium deficiency here. My own horse was deficient in copper and zinc. These horses exhibited symptoms and then were tested. I'm not sure why some horses at the yard are deficient and some aren't. Some do get a vit/min, some don't as it is the owners choice.

A lot of people have gotten into the habit of doing a blood test annually or bi-annually here because deficiencies have been found. So, it's a bit geographical, perhaps.

So I do supplement a vit/min accordingly.

 

[HashRouge]

Are your horses deficient in anything? I wonder why people feel the need to supplement as vitamin and/or mineral deficiency is almost unheard of (say my vet-y friends, although they have come across over-supplementation).

I've just started feeding a balancer to see if it has any effect on my old mare's skin condition, as she seems much more prone to mud rash lately. No idea if it will help, but thought it was a worth a go.

I got Forage Plus but it's ever so expensive so might try equimins when it runs out, as so many ppl have recommended it.

 

[Toby_Zaphod]

I feed my 3 on Baileys No 19, they do sell the low calorie Baileys No 13. No 19 is Baileys is similar to Blue Chip but around 3/4 of the price.

 

[xxcharlottexx]

My TB had always come out of winter looking a bit too lean until I started feeding topspec where he maintained his weight well all year round for the 3 years he was on it. I swapped from topspec senior in the summer to equimins on the many reccomendations from here. He did OK on it to start with but came out of winter looking poor (albeit it did invove a few stressful incidents for him) he went off his food and I ended up trying various things to tempt him to eat it. Put him back on the topspec and it didn't take long for his condition to improve. It's gotten so pricey I do begrudge paying that much for a bag of feed, but it seems to work for us so I guess he will stay on it!

 

[planete]

How can the analysis of the Topspec senior balancer have no sugar listed while the composition includes molasses? I am particularly interested as the owner of a PPID horse.

 

[Leah3horses]

How can the analysis of the Topspec senior balancer have no sugar listed while the composition includes molasses? I am particularly interested as the owner of a PPID horse.

Because.... They isn't a legal requirement to list carbohydrate / sugar/ starch etc on horse feeds in the UK. Only the ingredients are listed You have to ask the company directly for this information. But you also have to have some understanding about horse feed ingredients, eg molasses free doesn't necessarily mean sugar free, and a feed containing molasses can actually be lower in sugar than a molasses free feed, per gramme.

Interestingly, in answer to Cortez, in our practice where I work , vitamin and/ or mineral deficiencies are definitely seen in some horses...a lot depends on the quality of forage and grazing, and some of both at some yards I visit with work, leave a lot to be desired....horse sick paddocks full of docks, clovers and buttercups are sadly fairly common.

 

[planete]

Because.... They isn't a legal requirement to list carbohydrate / sugar/ starch etc on horse feeds in the UK. Only the ingredients are listed You have to ask the company directly for this information. But you also have to have some understanding about horse feed ingredients, eg molasses free doesn't necessarily mean sugar free, and a feed containing molasses can actually be lower in sugar than a molasses free feed, per gramme.

Interestingly, in answer to Cortez, in our practice where I work , vitamin and/ or mineral deficiencies are definitely seen in some horses...a lot depends on the quality of forage and grazing, and some of both at some yards I visit with work, leave a lot to be desired....horse sick paddocks full of docks, clovers and buttercups are sadly fairly common.

I am fully aware of the fact that there may only be a minute amount of molasses in the feed which would not matter but while it may not be a legal requirement it would be helpful to a great many owners if the sugar percentage was mentioned. Many manufacturers do list the percentage of sugar and starch as they understand how important it is to the correct management of horses. I have not needed to phone manufacturers to find suitable feeds for my PPID horse, I just did some internet searches. For me, no information up front just means it does not make my list of possibles.

 

[Bob notacob]

I am a convert . I used to think it would all balance out but was convinced by the lovely claire from dengie. I changed to a low energy balancer from heygates . Not a huge impact on performance and sanity .(sanity has always been a problem) But coat and hoof improved. So I have a glossy shiny lunatic with great hair instead of an irish bog trotter in need of a makeover.

 

[maya2008]

I feed a balancer because mine get very little feed (mostly natives). Our grass is very poor and they get very little hay even in winter.

 

[rabatsa]

The land here is deficient in selenium and we feed home grown forage. I suspect feeding a general, broad spectrum balancer would not be ideal as there are plenty of other minerals in the ground and a variety of old grasses and plants to get them into the equines. When we kept dairy cattle we had tailored minerals mixed up for us and I used to sneak a pinch for my lot. At the moment i do not add anything.

 

[PapaverFollis]

I think if you have average grass a balancer probably works as a nice top up if they are restricted for calories particularly but probably isn't necessary if they are eating ad-lib or not too restricted. If you have shonky grass then I think a balancer possibly helps but tailored minerals will be more useful. Mine were on a standard balancer when they went copper deficient. It wasn't balancing the right things because my grass is super shonky. Plus I was probably close to over feeding selenium because it's the one thing (other than copper antagonists) that my grass has plenty of!

I saw a post from Claire McC that said a standard balancer will do the job and forage analysis is a waste of time. I commented with my experience and got no response ?‍ I was interested. Life would be easier if a standard balancer would do the job but given the amounts of copper and zinc I've been advised to feed, plus the selenium status of my grass I do struggle to understand how something off the shelf like Topspec could work?

Except now if course I'm feeding hay so need to get that analysed too. It is a faff.

Sorry, ycbm, veering a little off-topic there. I suspect a top up with advance complete will be a good idea for Deza given her restricted diet.

 

[ycbm]

PF I completely agree with you. Forage testing is the gold standard, and my testing was via the water supply which picks up the same minerals as is in the forage. We are sky high in iron and manganese and I've supplemented copper and zinc for years because of it. Even on a full dose of Equimins AC, Deza will need more copper and zinc.
.

 

[TPO]

I think the name "balancer" causes confusion too.

Some people think that it balances the horses vit/min requirements. What is really means is that the ingredients are balanced to themselves (or should be!) e.g. the copper to zinc ratio

A lot of people, in my experience, feed balancers alongside commercial mixes/nuts and chaffs that also have vit/mins added. I'm not clever enough to work out the sums of what happens but I know that it's no longer balanced!

If a horse has a deficiency it's unlikely that a commercial (to differentiate from Equimmins, Forage plus, pro earth et al) would be of a high enough spec to meet that need.

When horses have turnout on suitable grazing during the "good" months it is unlikely that they would need a balancer unless there is real issue with the soil like PF had experienced.

However not many pastures are what would be called suitable. There are a lot of single species fields (mainly rye), small individual paddocks are becoming more common and driving around locally there are a lot of horse sick pastures. It's unlikely that a summer on them would give a horse what it needs.

Then there is winter when there is no goodness left in the grass and vit e drops right off. I would think that even if ine wasnt fed during summer that most horses would benefit from a zero iron vit/min supp during winter.

Another problem is that we are too easy to sell too. We want to be good owners and the feed marketing companies are very good at what they do. There was s different thread in here about a commercial balancer with the lami trust label and when an hhoer interrogated the analysis it was over 10% sugar and starch. Most people would see things like the lami trust label and think that they were doing a good turn and buying the right kind of feed for their lami prone horse.

It is a bit of a minefield. Since this thread started I've been reading the ingredients of some commercial balancers in comparison to Pro Earth and I'm shocked at the amount of "other stuff" on the list.

A 1.8kg bag of Pro Balance + costs less than 15 or 20kg commercial balancers and lasts roughly the same time. It would be a no brainer to me

 

[Micropony]

In my head, once you're feeding a balancer at a rate of 500g a day and the like, it seems to me more like a feed! There must be so much wheat feed and oat feed and other random molassed cereal products and whatnot in there to bulk it out, all the things I go out of my way to avoid feeding. Much prefer the ones that come in small containers.

 

[CanteringCarrot]

Oh yes, we also have a good amount of iron in the soil, hence why I supplement copper and zinc otherwise horse exhibits a deficiency both on a test and on physical appearance. I do supplement Vitamin E when he is not on grass, this helped his skin last winter. The vit/min I use has no iron.

Our hay and grass looks nice, but you really don't know until you test it. Some horses seem fine without added vit/min and some owners are just oblivious if/when their horse shows signs of a deficiency or even too much of a certain mineral. So there's that too.

 

[Cragrat]

Mine is on a constant diet, soaked hay with 3/4 mug sugar beet and straw chaff to allow minerals. I am using Western Salts from Trinity Consultants. I was going to go with Progressive Earth, but the Trinity Consultants' L94 was so effective I decided to go with their recommendation.

It cost £40, and is lasting really well.

I didn't want a pellet as his diet is stripped back.

Ingredients
Soy Lecithin, Sodium sulphate, Monodicalcium phosphate, Methyl-Sulphonyl-Methane, Potassium chloride, Magnesium Oxide, Vitamin E, Zinc Chelate of Glycine hydrate, Iron Chelate of Glycine hydrate, Kieselgur (Selected freshwater silicaceous single cell diatom algae), Selenium yeast, Trinity vitamins (Vitamin A, Vitamin D3, Vitamin K, Vitamin B1 Thiamine hydrochloride, Vitamin B2 Riboflavin, Vitamin B6 Pyridoxine, Pantothenic acid, Vitamin B12, Niacin, Biotin Supplement, Folic acid), Chromium polynicotinate.

How long have you been using this? It's interesting that it contains added iron, but no added copper - contrary to most recommendations.

 

[Red-1]

How long have you been using this? It's interesting that it contains added iron, but no added copper - contrary to most recommendations.

I did ask about the iron at the time, as I was trying to avoid it, but they said there was such a tiny amount in it, there was no problem. I will email and ask about the copper...

 

[Bernster]

I use forage plus winter hoof balancer, based on nutr recommendations. she didn’t do a forage analysis but based it on the typical analysis for the area. The fp one seems to have the best mix of what he was likely to be deficient in and none of what he wasn’t.

Unless they were very deficient I assume you wouldn’t notice a big change (a bit like us)?

 

[Tiddlypom]

I got Forage Plus but it's ever so expensive so might try equimins when it runs out, as so many ppl have recommended it.

I used to feed the Forageplus Hoof and Skin health balancer to all mine, including the two PPID mares. It’s pretty spendy, isn’t it.

I started feeling Pro Balance+, which is much cheaper and more basic simply because it does not contain linseed which younger mare is intolerant of and they are, if anything, doing better on it. (PPID mares get linseed added separately.)

 

[Cragrat]

PF I completely agree with you. Forage testing is the gold standard, and my testing was via the water supply which picks up the same minerals as is in the forage. We are sky high in iron and manganese and I've supplemented copper and zinc for years because of it. Even on a full dose of Equimins AC, Deza will need more copper and zinc.
.

I had no idea that testing the water supply could be useful to indicate grass mineallevels -but it makes sense! Was that from a testing spring water supply?

 

[milliepops]

i think the thing about forage testing is that if it's to be of use then you need a fairly steady source, and people who might be buying hay from their YO or getting stuff delivered might be getting a very varied supply.

most of my forage comes from the same group of 3 fields year after year but they are all different to each other, and then I get some from other grass that OH has bought. i also tend to get the stuff that doesn't sell to his other customers (e.g. haylage when it's too warm, because I have enough horses to get through it whereas a 1 horse owner won't) so even for me, where I have been to the source fields in person, it's hit and miss as to which bale I'm getting!

i can test my grazing for the horses that don't move around but at this time of year they get through a lot of hay

 

[PinkvSantaboots]

I just feed the progressive earth supplement if I think they need a boost or on reduced forage.
One of mine had colic and then his feet got sore very close together wasn't laminitis just thin soles, so took him barefoot and it took a while to get him comfortable, he then developed a sarcoid in his nose so I think he was a bit run down, so I put him on the progressive earth supplement and the sarcoid actually shrank and it's nearly gone now.

 

[Cortez]

I am lucky to have neighbouring farmers who all test their soil, water and forage regularly so have a pretty good idea of what's been going into my horses over the past 20 years (no supplementation needed). Before that I tested my own and supplemented as required on that soil base, which was in a known molybdenum area (not in the British Isles). Most horses on pasture here, being fed a commercial feed which has all the necessary vits & mins, will have all the nutrition needed. Owners wanting to be good "parents" will happily listen to the marketing I suppose, but really and truly for the vast majority it's just producing expensive pee.

 

[ycbm]

I had no idea that testing the water supply could be useful to indicate grass mineallevels -but it makes sense! Was that from a testing spring water supply?

Yes, we had a spring water supply tested 30 years ago and recently a borehole. The borehole is horrific and now we have a garage full of stuff that strips out the iron and manganese.

The water picks up the minerals from the land, so I figure the plants must too.

 

[ycbm]

Blimey, the Equimins is here. That's what I call service!
.

 

[COldNag]

Blimey, the Equimins is here. That's what I call service!
.

They are really hot on service! My local feed shop is hit and miss about stocking it so I have taken to ordering it direct. It is always mega quick despatch and delivery.

 

[Red-1]

I'd be worried about the iron and lack of copper in that for here, Red, we are already sky high in iron and adding more would mean even more copper needed.

I emailed and got the full analysis...

It does have copper.

They also added that they do bespoke supplements, so if you would like a batch made up specifically to your horses' needs and/or hay analysis, this can be done.