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

[cptrayes]

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.

I do not disagree with you that horses today are generally underworked, overfed and fed the wrong things. Nor that they would not benefit from a return to 1900's horse care in many respects. But the rest of what you write is rather simplistic. Horses didn't have chiros or physios because they didn't exist, not because none of them had muscular problems. Plenty of horses which were probably in pain got shot because they were too difficult to ride. Maybe not yours, but certainly others.

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.

Be brave Tnavas, take the shoes off your horses and see if you can manage without mineral balancing then

There are many horses out there which will have to continue to be shod unless their owners look at mineral balancing. I am coming to the conclusion that it, along with low grade laminitis from too much grass, are the two main reasons why horses needed to be shod in the first place.

Why would I give up supplementation and have to pay £80 a set for shoes instead, to have shod and less healthy horses?

 

[paddy555]

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.

We have had about 4 years now with very high rainfall in the summer and not very much sun at all. Must be just a coincidence that for the earlier 3 years with no supplement he was dark brown and this year with a supplement he went black and stayed that way.
They are uncovered in summer.

 

[Oberon]

Just buy ginger horses. Simples

 

[Monkers]

Charwood milling do the bioplex copper and zinc and it's cheaper than pro earth at £7.50 a kg plus p+p
Mine have copper, zinc, salt and magnesium mixed in one small handfull of cheap pony nuts that have been soaked and there is never a problem with them licking the bucket clean though one does have to have mag ox as she won't touch cal mag.

Is this correct, I have called charnwood and they say they don't sell copper and zinc???

 

[Erin]

I emailed charnwood and got told they didnt sell copper & zinc seperately - but they could make me up a custom mix with a min order.of a ton!

 

[Monkers]

I emailed charnwood and got told they didnt sell copper & zinc seperately - but they could make me up a custom mix with a min order.of a ton!

How strange. I just called them and they told me flat that they didn't sell it. I usually am part of a ton order with them, so that wouldn't be a problem, but I wouldn't want a ton of zinc and copper if that's what they meant!

 

[Natch]

To add to the discussion about RDAs of minerals for horses, the figures for many of the minerals are extrapolated from cattle studies. Some are even scaled up from rat studies, so the accuracy of 100% RDA is questionable for horses. Thank goodness the excess and deficiency studies were done so that we know what is a dangerous quantity, but in balancing minerals we are still a bit lacking in research. It makes sense to me as a scientist that knowing how things like calcium and magnesium are absorbed and used, it follows logically that an excess of one can cause a deficiency of another, even if both are present at RDA or higher quantities. I think a lot of people can forget that grazing, hay and hard feed also contribute to mineral intake, and so a 'balancer' that provides 100% RDA of everything is not actually BALANCING what you are already feeding, and you cannot balance an unknown quantity, hence forage analysis.

All we can do is our best with our knowledge and feed the horse in front of us. Some may not appear to be affected by their diet, others improve when fed differently.

The 'horses were okay in olden days' argument amuses me as it is so flawed. Nobody is suggesting your horse will fall down dead if he doesn't receive bespoke supplementation, just that he may not cope as well barefoot.. I said MAY! what did these olden day horses eat... some straights, but mainly, they grazed and ate hay from meadow pasture not fertilized perennial ryegrass, and if footy, shoes were used, as the research we have access to today regarding minerals hadn't happened. If a horse's feet were too poor to hold a shoe and work, he was shot.