Cripes!!! The cost of formulating your own balancer :O

Horsesforever1 said:
and how on earth did we manage in my youth when balancers hadnt been heard of? We fed straights and hacked everywhere, to hunt meets,pony club rallies. everything was fit as fiddles and did a lot more work then a lot of horses do nowadays.
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But where they ? They certainly did not last as long , when I started work as a sixteen year old I looked after an eighteen yo TB who still hunted people used to come to see him as an 18 yo hunting was so unusual it's not a talking point now.
Although somethings where better especially in that no one expected horses to be shod all the time without a break.
I think feeding has changed a lot from staights to mixes and now coming round again to staights.
Horses did more work and where better for it fewer horses where in half work all the time horses either worked hard or where out.
Tooth care has advanced by light years , the ability to treat and keep going horses with spavins and things like that has improved so much.
If people want to experiment with new things like forage balancing great it's there money in time some of these new things will become mainstream some will not.
 
Paulag said:
You know we're going to disagree on this already. You get this all the time in the human nutrition world, people set themselves up as "experts" and make it far more complicated than it actually is, because you can't really charge for sane, sensible advice. Very high levels of some minerals will block the uptake of others, and can be toxic, which is why combining different supplements or using mega doses isn't a great idea. But there is published information on the recommended amounts for horses and, as long as you stick to that you won't be reaching toxic levels or causing an imbalance.

Every time I go on supplement sites my blood pressure rises and I feel the need to put a complaint in to the advertising standards authority about the majority of the products there, but I'm sure someone can get a copy of the nutrient recommendations and find a product that is nearest to 100% recommended amounts for everything.

Please can no one post personal abuse this time - I'm not selling anything or putting myself up as an expert, just trying to save people a little money and time.

Paula
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Paula the fact is that people like me, whose grazing and water is sky high in manganese and iron have copper deficient horses which can be seen in the colour of their coats, as it can in black cows whch turn red/brown. Which is why farmers supplement copper in those areas as well.

The RDAs for horses are not gospel, they are just a "best guess". The science behind them is pretty flakey - they were arrived at by poisoning horses with excess until they got ill and keeping them deficient until they got ill.

You are obviously aware of the imbalance between calcium and phosphorous, which causes "bran head", first described hundreds of years ago. Too much phosphorous, in relation to calcium, causes calcium depletion and loss of bone density and the head swells. It does not matter a fig if you have the RDA of calcium in the food, if you have an excess of phosphorous in relation to calcium, the calcium cannot be absorbed. If you have excess phophorous in your forage then the RDA of calcium in your standard mineral balancer will not work. The same is true of copper with manganese and iron.

You buy a standard mix and trust the "experts", who aren't, if you like. By doing so you will probably be feeding your horse an excess of iron and manganese, both of which are added to all standard mixes in spite of being plentiful in almost all grazing and forage. But you can lay off telling other people that we don't know what we are talking about thanks :D In saving other people time and money you will be condemning some of them to putting shoes back on their footie horses.
 
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criso said:
Interesting - couldn't find it on their site, do you have to call and ask for it. On these smaller things alot depends on the post and packing costs too.
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If you email you'll hopefully eventually get an answer, this is the info I got

We can supply 3kg of Bioplex copper and Zinc; the price is as follows
Bioplex Zinc 15% - £7.50 per kg (in a tub)
Bioplex Copper 10% - £7.50 per kg (in a tub)

Carriage is charged at cost - £6.75 for the first 20kg and £0.25/kg thereafter.

hopefully this helps
 
cptrayes said:
Paula the fact is that people like me, whose grazing and water is sky high in manganese and iron have copper deficient horses which can be seen in the colour of their coats, as it can in black cows. Which is why farmers supplement copper in those areas as well.

The RDAs for horses are not gospel, they are just a "best guess". The science behind them is pretty flakey - they were arrived at by poisoning horses with excess until they got it and keeping them deficient until they got ill.

Surely you are not unaware of the imbalance between calcium and phosphorous, which causes "bran head", first described hundreds of years ago. Too much phosphorous, in relation to calcium, causes calcium depletion and loss of bone density and the head swells. It does not matter a fig if you have the RDA of calcium in the food, if you have an excess of phosphorous in relation to calcium, the calcium cannot be absorbed. The same is true of copper with manganese and iron.

You buy a standand mix and trust the "experts", who aren't, if you like. But you can lay off telling other people that we don't know what we are talking about thanks :D
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I agree with this RDA's are an educated guess anyone who lives in this valley knows you need to give cooper and selenium and watch horses coats for signs of fading .
In my case and I have tried this several times with lots of horses farriers formula give visible improvement in hoof quality it seems to suit us here so that's what I use if I feel the need I chose to do that by 'eye' and feed only staights it may not be that scientific but hey it works horses look fantasic .
 
cptrayes said:
Paula the fact is that people like me, whose grazing and water is sky high in manganese and iron have copper deficient horses which can be seen in the colour of their coats, as it can in black cows whch turn red/brown. Which is why farmers supplement copper in those areas as well.

The RDAs for horses are not gospel, they are just a "best guess". The science behind them is pretty flakey - they were arrived at by poisoning horses with excess until they got ill and keeping them deficient until they got ill.

You are obviously aware of the imbalance between calcium and phosphorous, which causes "bran head", first described hundreds of years ago. Too much phosphorous, in relation to calcium, causes calcium depletion and loss of bone density and the head swells. It does not matter a fig if you have the RDA of calcium in the food, if you have an excess of phosphorous in relation to calcium, the calcium cannot be absorbed. If you have excess phophorous in your forage then the RDA of calcium in your standard mineral balancer will not work. The same is true of copper with manganese and iron.

You buy a standard mix and trust the "experts", who aren't, if you like. By doing so you will probably be feeding your horse an excess of iron and manganese, both of which are added to all standard mixes in spite of being plentiful in almost all grazing and forage. But you can lay off telling other people that we don't know what we are talking about thanks :D In saving other people time and money you will be condemning some of them to putting shoes back on their footie horses.
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Which is exactly what Paula did cptrayes so maybe thats the problem here?!
 
Goldenstar said:
But where they ? They certainly did not last as long , when I started work as a sixteen year old I looked after an eighteen yo TB who still hunted people used to come to see him as an 18 yo hunting was so unusual it's not a talking point now.
Although somethings where better especially in that no one expected horses to be shod all the time without a break.
I think feeding has changed a lot from staights to mixes and now coming round again to staights.
Horses did more work and where better for it fewer horses where in half work all the time horses either worked hard or where out.
Tooth care has advanced by light years , the ability to treat and keep going horses with spavins and things like that has improved so much.
If people want to experiment with new things like forage balancing great it's there money in time some of these new things will become mainstream some will not.
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my mare who had a long working life lived to be 25 and her son 33. Never seen by a dentist or back person. the mare could have gone on longer but was past riding much and I didnt want a field ornament.
 
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mines 23, never had balancers, needed any special measures to be barefoot, had physio or a 'back man' etc & is sound, healthy & looks half her age. I count that as good management & luck, not a set in stone rule for reaching healthy old age. If some horses need a balancer to be as healthy then its not up to me to say they don't because mine doesn't.
 
Sounds to me as though someone out there is making an awful lot of money for what exactly?? Has the horse world gone completely bonkers.
All my oldies lived till late 20's except the shire. Good grazing from a well maintained field. Hay when the grass dies back, some mix thrown in to keep them happy (molasse free where possible) and linseed oil. Lots of grooming and exercise. Our friend next door has a 36 yr old dartmoor living on the same as ours who looks 16. I too must have very shiny coated, bright eyed neglected horses.
 
Does anyone else read these types of thread and feel terrified that their horses are going to drop down dead because they're not doing this kind of thing and are therefore a terrible owner?
 
No, because mine don't need it. Bit like rugging or anything else, then if they don't need it don't do it. But if they do, then imo good that people can share opinions & experiences. If I had any doubts that mine needed a balancer, I'd do it too.
 
Spyda said:
Having spent £199.00 having my forage/grass analysed and a balanced feed plan formulated I am simply shocked at how much it will cost to buy in the individual elements needed to make up a balancer that would last a couple of months. I used Progressive Earth via eBay to tally the total and the cost would be well in excess of £125.00 :eek:

Jeepers, wish I'd saved the £199.00 now! I can't afford to pay that much for x11 bags of different elements. Cheaper to stick with the Spillers Standard Balancer me thinks!!

How do others manage???
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I don't obscess! :D Horses got by perfectly well in years gone by without them before someone announced that we HAD to feed supplements to ensure our horses were well!

Mine have a multi mineral block that they have free access to in their grazing.
 
cambrica said:
Sounds to me as though someone out there is making an awful lot of money for what exactly?? Has the horse world gone completely bonkers.
All my oldies lived till late 20's except the shire. Good grazing from a well maintained field. Hay when the grass dies back, some mix thrown in to keep them happy (molasse free where possible) and linseed oil. Lots of grooming and exercise. Our friend next door has a 36 yr old dartmoor living on the same as ours who looks 16. I too must have very shiny coated, bright eyed neglected horses.
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Can I ask how many of your horses did really hard work with no shoes on?

If it was all of them, then you were lucky enough to have no severe mineral imbalances in your land or metabolic disease in your horses (or they would be crippled by "good grazing on a well maintained field").

That's a really nice situation to be in. I envy you. But I would rather, personally, pay about £10 for 100 days of copper supplementation to counteract the levels of manganese and iron in my water supply and soil, than pay £80 every 4 weeks for a set of shoes on my hunter :D
 
And its not just about the feet - My mare had high liver enzymes caused by a batch of hay very high in Iron and Manganese. Luckily we caught it early, but left untreated could have caused serious problems later on.
 
Science has moved on, we now have the means to test for levels and the knowledge to supplement, or not, as required. It's the people who do so when it's not required, or just because everyone else is doing it, that are often at best just wasting money. Test, analyse and supplement - if required.
 
Spyda said:
To be fair, whilst I'd agree wholeheartedly that horses/ponies were ridden more and were generally fitter back in the day (1970's, 1980's), I'd disagree about the level of molassed feed fed then. I think LESS molassed feed is available and/or fed these days. Owners and feed manufacturers are more aware of the molasses content in feeds. Most advertise 'Molasses free' when then can, as an incentive to buy. Back in the late 70's and early 80's when course mixes came out I remember them being fairly basic in composition - flaked barley, flaked maize, (rolled oats), cooked peas, locust beans and generic cubes all combined with loose molassed meal. People also fed molassed sugar beet in winter. Unmolassed beet wasn't heard of! Mollichaff came onto the market around then, too. Nah, I think we fed more molassed feeds back in the day, not less.
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The horse meusli feeds did come into being in the mid 70's and that was when people started to have problems with the composition of feeds - too much hyper food in one scoop, looked pretty and smelt good enough to have for breakfast. As an instructor at the time I notice a fair few go doo laly on it.

We fed all the horses and school horses on Barley, Horlicks - we got all the waste from the factory, sugarbeet by the large scoop in every feed and the horses were all fine BECAUSE they were ridden accordingly. All the liveries received a minimum of 1 hours steady trotting on the roads everyday.

Only the horses of wealthy owners fed any supplements - Kossolian and V5M

They didn't have visits from chiro's or physio's because we strapped them for 45mins daily. The vet rarely visited, the horses rarely got abscesses or stone bruises - they were shod and as above trotted on the road for 1hour each day, went for hacks along flint filled tracks and never seemed to have a problem.

Today there are far to many 'purpose produced' feeds, gullable people, and unfit horses. The ponies were rarely fed apart from grass, they grazed as a herd over about 10acres, were happy and easy going. Electric fencing in the UK was only for cattle and sheep - no-one dared use it for horses.

My horses had no hard feed all winter - the youngster got hay but they all had free access to their grazing and a multi mineral block.

Be brave folks - give up the expensive feed and supplements for a year, go back to basics, work your horses more, let them play in the paddock and notice what happy healthy horses you have.
 
Cortez said:
Test, analyse and supplement - if required.
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Surely its almost always required?
And then you don't need to waste your money feeding something that's not required?

My mare does just fine on hay and grass.
But she does much much better on balanced minerals.

And it doesn't need to cost as much as the OP paid.
 
Tnavas said:
Be brave folks - give up the expensive feed and supplements for a year, go back to basics, work your horses more, let them play in the paddock and notice what happy healthy horses you have.
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I did it the other way round. Mine didn't have expensive feed (still don't) didn't have a supplement and did play in the paddock. I changed about a year ago and started feeding equimins metabalance. This time last year I had a dark brown horse, I had quite forgotten he should be black. This year I have a black horse with a much nicer coat. :D A year ago my dun had "burnt ends" on his coat. This year they have gone.

We are, BTW low copper, low selenium, high iron and high manganese. I didn't test but did find out from my neighbouring farm what our soil mineral analysis was likely to be. All our horses live with us for life and all had much better coats when they arrived. Some had been with us for many years and there was quite a bad cumulative effect of mineral shortages.
 
cptrayes said:
Can I ask how many of your horses did really hard work with no shoes on?

If it was all of them, then you were lucky enough to have no severe mineral imbalances in your land or metabolic disease in your horses (or they would be crippled by "good grazing on a well maintained field").

That's a really nice situation to be in. I envy you. But I would rather, personally, pay about £10 for 100 days of copper supplementation to counteract the levels of manganese and iron in my water supply and soil, than pay £80 every 4 weeks for a set of shoes on my hunter :D
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Maybe I am fortunate, maybe its because I only have natives that I don't really believe that they lack in anything. The two sec a's are ridden everyday, hacked out, road work, ridden in the paddocks and are pretty fit ponies. They have never had a set of shoes on. The sec D is too young and the 2 cobs are semi-retired both in their mid 20's, one was used for ride/drive. Luckily for the one that does have shoes its just gone upto £60 every 6 weeks.
 
jeeve said:
I reccomend that you read Pat Coleby's Natural Horse care. She lived in the UK till the 1950's and has since lived in Australia. Her book on soil analysis, supplements and what works to make your horse healthy at low cost is brilliant, I just re read the whole book last night.


I have fed her supplements to my horses (dolomite/copper sulphate /sulphur/seaweed meal and others) they do not cost much, they are what is missing in the soil, and prevent health issues in your horse.

He main focus is on people analysing their soils and adding what is needed to correct the mineral balance in the soil, not supplements, but the supplements she recomends are useful say where not your property, or trying to fix a problem with your horse like stringhalt, poor hooves, worms etc.
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Brillient lady! Her recipes are made up at my local saddlery shop for us to buy when we need it

this is her base mix - feed one teaspoon daily
500 grams Dolomite
80 grams Copper Sulphate
80 grams of milling Sulphur
80 grams of Seaweed Meal (Urea free)
 
paddy555 said:
This time last year I had a dark brown horse, I had quite forgotten he should be black. This year I have a black horse with a much nicer coat. :D A year ago my dun had "burnt ends" on his coat. This year they have gone.
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Mine will get bleached ends on their coats if not covered - it's just the effect of the sun.

UK has had high rain this year, less sun so if uncovered horses are less likely to have sun damaged coats.

One of my youngsters in the 70's - no extras, bog standerd basic feed
Pinzara001-1.jpg


My Cydie - again this one 2011 no feed but access to a mineral block
WishawSerenityJan2010010.jpg
 
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So what do you do if you are on a livery yard where forage is sourced from whoever is doing the best deal at the time? No point in me doing an analysis as it'll be null and void a few weeks later. I'm in Maidstone, Kent if anyone know the general soil analysis around here
 
zoon said:
So what do you do if you are on a livery yard where forage is sourced from whoever is doing the best deal at the time? No point in me doing an analysis as it'll be null and void a few weeks later. I'm in Maidstone, Kent if anyone know the general soil analysis around here
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If your horse is sound and happy, nothing.

If it's footie, you feed one of the all-round mixes that have no added iron or manganese and higher than usual level of copper and magnesium. The others will tell you what they are.
 
That's why a couple of supplements came on the market to address the common issues found in the UK. Pro Hoof, Pro Balance +, Equimins Meta Balance and ForagePlus Balancers :)
 
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