Footie horses and magnesium

tallyho! said:
Calcined Magnesite it said on the bag... still got it as nothing will eat it. Pinkish/sandy colour?
Click to expand...

That's it, also known as calmag and dolomite.

So - what had you been sticking your fingers into beforehand :) ? No, don't tell me, I don't want to know !
 
I have read on one of the showing forums that magnesium works to reduce crests. Has anyone experience of that. One of mine could do with some help in that department.
 
brucea who posts on here and on uknhcp.myfastforum.org has reported reduction in crest in a laminitic. It will be because of the effect on insulin usage. The crest is a sign of insulin resistance.

It's cheap and safe and you have nothing to lose, why don't you try it?
 
I have the problem of my gelding not liking the smell of MagOx in his feed. When I first mix it in there's no smell but within minutes, it gets a sour stale smell and gets worse so he won't touch it, can't blame him really.
Does anyone else find this?
If not, I know cptrayes - you said you mix it with a little beet, is that speedibeet or sugar beet? I wonder if it is because mine is Magnesium Oxide, did I buy the wrong one perhaps?
I have to syringe it into him but I hate having to force him, he is good tho even tho he hates the taste.
 
One of my horses has been on magnitude for the last year as he is hypersensitive and over reacts to things- in the time he's been on it he's been so much more relaxed and less sensitive about his feet, he's much more consistent- he's shod though. I have changed Farriers in that time and i've no doubt that he his sheoing has helped I remember being told by a farrier once that magnesium is also good for laminitic prone horses, although mine doesn't have laminitis!
 
Very interesting thread, I'm going to add a little cinnamon to my feeds..all on lami type diets anyway as 2 minis and one with poor hoof quality, which has improved a lot from a change in regime to blue chip lami light balancer and Global Herbs Supahoof :)

I use a lot of Global Herbs products , like them a lot...and a few to seem to have a definite cinnamon type smell, come to think of it...will ask them if they already use it in some products. Happy Hooves to all :) don't mean the feed :)
 
I love you lot! :o
this post is fab!

I have had my girls muzzled 24 hours a day on vets instruction, whilst not diagnosed with lami they have been footy and were looking a bit round, they have been vile!
they they were looking very tucked in and there has been barely any poos despite two big feeds of hi fi lite i am suprised by how much of their fat must have been bloat and water as my old lady started to look like a bit of a welfare case and i was worried about them getting de-hydrated.

After chatting to a friend a pony on her yard has been diagnosed with lami, vet said give 15 mins grazing am & pm, so i have been giving my 14.2hh's 20-30mins am and pm plus their feeds (and a fresh bucket of water whilst their muzzles are off which they are not fussed about), they have been looking much better, and no soreness,
until yesterday when they both looked very footy over stones again (rode out monday without much of a problem on some pretty rough tracks), i also thought my old lady was getting cold as she was shivvering one morning, she didnt feel particularly cold, and im now thinking this was more due to Mg deficiency?!
Im trying to learn as much as i can as quick as i can! and have been reading the barefoot book which everyone swears by (the name escapes me at the mo!)

Mg is on order, going to pick up some cinnamon on the way home (its gotta be worth a shot!) im just wondering what the benefits of the charcoal are?
and what does everyone feed to keep some weight on?
They are on a lush paddock which hopefully can be sectioned off at the weekend but at the moment i have no option but to muzzle 24hrs and feed 2-3 times a day depending on work circumstances.
Funnily enough they've not worked as much as they are now, have been on much longer grass and have been much fatter and have never been a problem,
maybe its just the stones at our new yard but im thinking our grass must be really low in Mg by comparison, where do i look to get it tested??

Phew that was a bit longer than id expected!
 
muff747 said:
I have the problem of my gelding not liking the smell of MagOx in his feed. When I first mix it in there's no smell but within minutes, it gets a sour stale smell and gets worse so he won't touch it, can't blame him really.
Does anyone else find this?
If not, I know cptrayes - you said you mix it with a little beet, is that speedibeet or sugar beet? I wonder if it is because mine is Magnesium Oxide, did I buy the wrong one perhaps?
I have to syringe it into him but I hate having to force him, he is good tho even tho he hates the taste.
Click to expand...

Mix it with Tesco.s value apple juice. Works for my two!
 
Testing and recommeded mineral balancing and sales of minerals forageplus.co.uk, run by someone I know but I don't use it myself. Just thought I ought to "declare in interest".

Mineral deficiency causing footiness could also be copper, or too HIGH manganese and/or iron
 
This has got me thinking. We often see comments about how much more laminitis we see these days. How much of that is because more ex dairy farms have diversified into livery & are keeping horses on grass that has been treated for years with nitrogen fertiliser which I understand is more likely to lead to magnesium deficient grass?
 
hairycob said:
This has got me thinking. We often see comments about how much more laminitis we see these days. How much of that is because more ex dairy farms have diversified into livery & are keeping horses on grass that has been treated for years with nitrogen fertiliser which I understand is more likely to lead to magnesium deficient grass?
Click to expand...
Absolutely, and farmers being farmers, they tend to think about nice lush grass as ideal where I would like to find old pasture with sparse grazing, not grass that is overgrazed by horses, full of dock and buttercups.
The grass leys which were used for milk production were sown with ryegrass, a lush green species, which flushes in spring in summer, and at those times it is short of magnesium, high in sugar and low in fibre, the opposite of what we want our horses to eat.
for some reason [economics probably] I never see fields round here being limed, which we used to do every five years to neutralise soil acidity, soil acidity tends to increase due to high rainfall in the UK
 
Tell me about it - most of the yards around here are on former dairy units including the one I'm at. We are gradually training them in most things but the "lush grass = good grass" mentality is very hard to chip away at. They still struggle to understand why I won't move my good doer cobs into a field with lot's of lovely long heaviliy fertilised grass! At least they just accept my supposed insanity now.
 
Really interesting thread....

So who out there has had/does have their pasture/soil and hay/haylage analysed? I don't but i'm now thinking about it as my horses are on ex-dairy pasture.

Really interested to hear what others do...
 
hairycob said:
This has got me thinking. We often see comments about how much more laminitis we see these days. How much of that is because more ex dairy farms have diversified into livery & are keeping horses on grass that has been treated for years with nitrogen fertiliser which I understand is more likely to lead to magnesium deficient grass?
Click to expand...

a LOT!

Single species - ryegrass - too! ans then they also feed single species ryegrass haylage.

BANG!!!!!!
 
Dab said:
Really interesting thread....

So who out there has had/does have their pasture/soil and hay/haylage analysed? I don't but i'm now thinking about it as my horses are on ex-dairy pasture.

Really interested to hear what others do...
Click to expand...

If you are on spring water supply or borehole you should have an analysis of that courtesy of the Environmental Health department which may be free and very useful. Mine shows that we are heavy in iron and manganese and since I have at least six water sources in my field, it's safe to assume that my grazing has the same imbalance. I feed copper bioplex because high iron and manganese suppress the uptake of copper. Copper is needed for insulin regulation just like magnesium is, so lack of it causes typeII diabetes issues in horses, and anaemia too (oddly, I read that more anaemia is caused by lack of copper than of iron and supplementing iron in an anaemic horse can make it even worse!)
 
Well my ponies are on rough grazing, very diverse in grass and plant life, classified for the HLS. The horses are grazed on meadow land,has not been re-sown or ploughed or fertalised for as long as i can remember.
Two of my ponies have had laminitis , and one of those gets a crest if not watched.
I have a thery that because i fed them maybe too well (hard feed) when they were foals/ young, i have set them up to be prone to laminitus, so maybe the same thing as if i had grazed them on good grass.:(
 
Dab said:
What about feeding cinammon? Does anyone else have any experience with feeding this spice?
My little shetland has been very pottery for the past 3 months, i have been feeding MagOx at the recommended dosage and although he wasn't getting any worse there was no real improvement. He's been in pony prison for the past 3 months on small quants of soaked hay and happy hooves.
I was getting a bit fed up with his lack of improvement and read an article on feeding cinammon to equines. So i started including cinammon just over 2 weeks ago and he is now sound and back out on grass.
Click to expand...

After reading this I started feeding cinnamon powder to my boy - he'd always been a bit footy especially after hacking out on the roads - and wow what a difference :). Even after trotting yesterday for much more than I would normally (it started sheeting down!) he came back completely sound. Thank you so much for the tip.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top