Feed help please - improving foot/coat condition.

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LizzieRC1313

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My 7 year old ISH is on baileys lo cal balancer & alpha a (the red one with oil) x2/day, which we are really happy with, & he looks pretty good on it, so don't want to change it. Also he turned into a monster when we tried him on A&P power and performance, so he's obviously pretty sensitive to feed changes. However atm he has an abscess & the vet wasn't happy with the state of his feet. A lady on our yard recommended CLOP which we have put him on. However, CLOP is expensive, and I'm wondering if pure cod liver oil or linseed oil might be better? Linseed oil sounds like it is quite a good all rounder, good for joints/coat/condition/feet, is this correct? I'd rather feed a pure oil, especially as the ingredients on CLOP say cereals and grains, don't really want to feed him extra cereals and grains if I don't actually know what they are or effect they might have?

Any advice/recommendations? Thanks in advance!
 
Micronised linseed is better than the oil ( cant remember why!) great for coats and hooves, done wonders for my ex laminitic/PPID horse..Easy to mix in feed and no nasty taste :)
 
Thanks, after looking at other threads it seems micronised linseed is highly recommended. I thought the oil might be purer but after reading up a bit the micronised stuff does seem to be just mashed up?
 
As well as the linseed, also try brewers yeast which is a very good aid digestor (it's the base for Pink Powder) as it's very good for skin and hoof condition; I've not found one that hasn't improved on it; if I had to pick just one, I'd rather use the BY unless your horse needs extra condition on him.

There are also black sunflower seeds which some horses do well on.
You can get both the linseed and BY from Charnwoods http://www.charnwoodmilling.co.uk/mail-order/Horse_Food.html although you can buy smaller amounts of BY from most Gold Label stockists/feed merchants also if you are anywhere near Farm & Pet stores, they do the linseed (same brand) a bit cheaper too.
 
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Thanks Maesfen. Would you feed them both together? He doesn't NEED extra condition but before he had gone on box rest he was looking a bit lean. I'd only feed 200g of the linseed a day I think.
 
I'd just feed the micronised linseed to be honest . . . I don't know why, but the linseed meal seems to be more effective than linseed oil . . . I used to feed BY, and now that I don't I don't see a difference at all, so it didn't do much for my boy. However, I feed him a very low starch, low sugar diet (no fillers, no mixes) so I'm guessing he doesn't need a gut balancer?

P
 
LizzieRC1313 said:
However atm he has an abscess & the vet wasn't happy with the state of his feet.
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Was the vet a bit more specific what he was concerned about? Wall quality, white line integrity, frog and general hoof health, form and strength?
Diet is a fundamental, just adding more things may not be the answer, you may need to reduce sugars/ carbs for eg.
A decent balancer is always to good first step imo.

ps. Linseed oil is often extracted using heat which destroys some of the components. M linseed is the whole seed ground and stabilized in a way not using heat.
 
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micronised linseed and a vit/min supplement with low iron and feet (or likely barefeet) in mind would be my option - their balancers (like the forage plus/pro hoof one) often contain yea sacc (yeast) in them already.
 
amandap said:
Was the vet a bit more specific what he was concerned about? Wall quality, white line integrity, frog and general hoof health, form and strength?
Diet is a fundamental, just adding more things may not be the answer, you may need to reduce sugars/ carbs for eg.
A decent balancer is always to good first step imo.
Click to expand...

I think she just felt the wet/dry/wet conditions in the field were affecting them & seemed to think it was the case with quite a few horses she had seen in recent weeks. He doesn't usually have poor feet & his diet hasn't changed since we got him a year ago.
 
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