Brix scale and horses

FieldOrnaments said:
Nrft so pinch of salt (sugar!?) with this needed but

1 brix scale degree is 1% simple sugars.

Nsc is more complex sugars ('carbs') that don't dissolve in water. Which a refractometer won't detect
For laminitic sorts the target is 5% or less combined starch (complex sugars) and simple.

So yours is in an ok range if it was both. Though it will vary throughout the day and on different days according to weather patterns. But it's not showing the carbs as well so care would be needed.
It's not exact but I have the laminitis app which helps guide decisions on in or out during the day or which field etc.
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Cheers, that is very helpful. I was wondering if it was possible to relate Brix numbers to NSC, but it doesn't sound like you can, at least not comprehensively) because of what it measures. But it's still not useless.

I have precisely zero control over which fields my horses go in, but my yard gives me a fair amount of control over how long they are out. It's not the worst yard for it, because there are a lot of horses on limited turnout for one reason or another, so yours is never in by themselves, no matter what time of day it is. I have been at other yards where they are very keen on 24/7 turnout and not best pleased if yours isn't toeing the line.

I'd love nothing more than for her to be out overnight again, but I'm not optimistic that it will be this year.

For what it's worth, we tested all the herd turnout fields at the yard, and they were all testing between 3 and 4.
 
We've been tracking our grass' Brix readings through the mini-heatwave. It was testing at circa 4.5 over the weekend. Today, it rained all morning. I grabbed some grass when I caught the horse in the late afternoon. It tested at 3. I'll get more the morra.

A friend was up riding Fin on Friday. She has two retired horses at a different yard. When she saw us collecting grass (not a lot; just a handful) and asked why, we explained what we were doing. Her eyes bugged out, and she was like, "Oh my God, my yard owner would freak out if you did that at her yard."

Husband and I looked at her, a bit baffled, and were like, "Why?"

She explained, "She'd get defensive about her field management and horse management and doesn't want owners telling her what should happen with the horses."

I said, "That's kinda the point. If the sugars were having a massive spike, I'd know to pull the horse off the grass!"

There's always some yard crazier than yours!!
 
Caol Ila said:
She explained, "She'd get defensive about her field management and horse management and doesn't want owners telling her what should happen with the horses."
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Yes this is familiar to me 😂 horses didn't need balancer as the grass was perfect, didn't need magnesium especially as their grass had perfect levels of magnesium. I will let you guess if this grass had ever been tested for anything. If an owner was concerned about lami then the grass was poor and they had never had any problems. I'm sure they are still saying this even though that's why I left.
 
FieldOrnaments said:
Nrft so pinch of salt (sugar!?) with this needed but

1 brix scale degree is 1% simple sugars.

Nsc is more complex sugars ('carbs') that don't dissolve in water. Which a refractometer won't detect
For laminitic sorts the target is 5% or less combined starch (complex sugars) and simple.

So yours is in an ok range if it was both. Though it will vary throughout the day and on different days according to weather patterns. But it's not showing the carbs as well so care would be needed.
It's not exact but I have the laminitis app which helps guide decisions on in or out during the day or which field etc.
Click to expand...
Full marks for effort, I really hope it keeps your mare safe, relying on the ‘science’.
We test absolutely everything, all the time: soils, grass growth, grass crop, product - takes some time, some kit, some expense, but it’s a commercial operation to optimise.
I hope you won’t drive yourself to distraction trying to apply to a susceptible horse, but if you discover a genuinely reliable equine gauge - should be a fantastic commercial market for that, and many other horses to benefit. Good luck!
 
Exasperated said:
Full marks for effort, I really hope it keeps your mare safe, relying on the ‘science’.
We test absolutely everything, all the time: soils, grass growth, grass crop, product - takes some time, some kit, some expense, but it’s a commercial operation to optimise.
I hope you won’t drive yourself to distraction trying to apply to a susceptible horse, but if you discover a genuinely reliable equine gauge - should be a fantastic commercial market for that, and many other horses to benefit. Good luck!
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Is this directed at me or OP?
 
As above, the refractometer doesn't tell you everything. But it tells you something, more than you'd know just staring at grass.

OH still wants to sneak some grass through the mass spec at work, but that's not a practical thing for 99.9999% of horse owners because even a cheap mass spec costs £10,000, and you need a highly specialised skillset to know how to modify one so it works on stuff like grass.

OH's whole PhD was modifying a mass spec for non destructive testing, so he actually can do it if he finds the time.
 
Caol Ila said:
As above, the refractometer doesn't tell you everything. But it tells you something, more than you'd know just staring at grass.

OH still wants to sneak some grass through the mass spec at work, but that's not a practical thing for 99.9999% of horse owners because even a cheap mass spec costs £10,000, and you need a highly specialised skillset to know how to modify one so it works on stuff like grass.

OH's whole PhD was modifying a mass spec for non destructive testing, so he actually can do it if he finds the time.
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Can well imagine it’s expensive!
And for what horse keepers want, the result has to be instantaneous because grass growth and growing conditions can be altering whilst one types this - raining steadily here today, and the incremental difference from only last night already visible.
Good luck protecting the mare.
 
Just my experience may be of interest to you. So I bought myself a nice digital refractometer from an agricultural store. So once we found a way of getting the juice out of the grass without breaking the garlic presses . We now use a G clamp and a short piece of stainless steal pipe which even I can get the juice out with. I have been testing since September. So early results were all under 2.5 which sounds great but I couldn't understand how my hay from our own field was 10.5% when lab tested. Then I found the artical which explains that you need to multiply the reading by dry matter of the grass then 2% didn't sound so great when multipled by 5 or 6. grass being 20% dry matter at best and now is around 17%. As we have moved in to winter I love the .9 % to 1.6% that I am getting. I have done different times of the day and it is interesting how it rises through the day so as yet I am not grazing past midday. Sun sends it up and grey ,wet days send it down. I did one at 7:30am on the day of the frost . There was ice in the sample so the juice was very weak looking but I was so shocked that it came in at 5%. It lowered by 11am and started rising again at 1pm. So I am learning a lot about the sugars in my grazing and getting my poor girl back to some normal.
It then also has to be backed up with quantity eaten which I have approached in the same way. I have a mt square template which I cut and weighed the grass divided the weight to get the dry matter to find out how much she was getting and move the elec fence so many square mts a day, cut out matching hay but the grazed grass behind is allowed as a Brucey bonus ( old people will know what I mean).
I am going to keep my horse healthy if it kills me which it may well do!!!
 
SEL said:
I'm also using steglatro alongside usual measures - she's retired from ridden work so I've only got diet & muzzle.

I'm going to buy a gadget and have a play. Mine clocked up insulin of 180 in Jan on a well eaten down field so I'd like to know if the grass in there is extra spicy or a rogue hay bale or if it was "something" else. No frost either.
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Tracks are great for encouraging more movement and if she is sound enough , you can longline or walk out in hand
 
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