for those supplementing with minerals/vitamins etc.

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SusieT

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How many of you have actually tested you horses for their vitamin levels? Or done a forage analysis that has a thorough breakdown of the vitamins/minerals? Have you seen the studies on humans that un necessary supplementation may actually be harmful, or thought about what 'if' I am oversupplementing? Lots of people think its innocent to just top up with x, y and z supplement. It might not be so innocent-food for thought?
 
I have had a couple of my horses tested .
I don't worry much I don't feed anything extreme or usual just a general purpose supplement a hoof supplement to two of them ( make by the same company as the first and designed to go with it )
I feed thirty grammes a day of magnesium oxide to each per day quite a lot but they just pee it away.
Two get probiotics .
In the past I have had a horse injected with copper his levels where low and did not improve with oral supplementation he was injected with copper for cattle it made a huge difference to him.
 
I was going to make the same comment yesterday. I'm a little horrified at the number of supplements being sold with no scientific evidence and health claims that would be illegal if they were intended for human consumption.

Some minerals can block the uptake of others, cause digestive upset or even damage and be toxic in large amounts. Horses have evolved to extract nutrients from low quality forage and I suspect most hard feed is supplemented already.

What you can get is what is known as "proof by vigorous assertion" where someone who perhaps has made their name in another way, e.g. training for competition, states repeatedly that something is good and this then gets taken up by others who want their success and eventually it becomes 'common knowledge'. Then you get confirmation bias, which is where anything that supports he idea is requoted and requoted and anything disproving it is ignored.

When I get a chance I might see if I can access the vets nary literature and do a bit of research, but I'm betting a large randomized control trial is pretty tricky in horses. :rolleyes:

Paula
 
I have had forage analysis done it was very enlightening! My results are quite out of whack and no generic supplement covers these amounts. For 2 horses im going to need nearly 2 kgs of magnesium a month....

For eg I need 33.27 grams of MagOx per day
2.8 grams Lysine
1.62 grams copper
3 grams zinc.

I dont need ANY selenium so even Pro Hoof which is a good supplement is wrong for my land as over dosing on selenium can be dangerous, and it also prevents the up take of copper. Very eye opening!
 
I do find it a little odd when people insist that their horse needs hard feed/ supplements/ balancer or their horse wouldn't be getting their vits and minerals but they have no idea either what their horse actually requires or what their giving them and if it is actually necessary at all. Maybe they don't realise how much horses can and do get from forage alone :confused: It just doesn't make sense to me at all.
 
I spoke to ForagePlus about a forage analysis for mine but they advised it would be so inaccurate it's probably not worth doing.

My horses graze over roughly 20 acres which is divided by a river and includes a woodland. They felt that due to the area and diversity of forage they could not provide a true analysis.

The horses will be getting a lot of what they need from grazing not only the grass but the woodland, hedgerows, river weed etc but as the grass itself is poor and overgrazed I supplement with a vit/min supplement.
 
I find it fasicnating that horses who are out on pasture, as they would be in the wild, with various bushes etc. suddenly require balancer unless they are getting hard feed (not exactly natural...). For the record-I don't have analysis done unless there is a decline in the horses performance/health. Currently I have 4 healthy, fit competition horses on just grass.

Interesting to the person who said pro hoof would be dangerous-excellent example. And to whoever said magox is just peed out, that may be true, but that gives the kidneys extra work to do and there will be a level at which the kidneys are overwhelmed. Now that may be at an extremely high level, but just thinking. Where do you get your figures for calculating you horses requirementS?
 
Yes and that's exactly why I had a forage analysis done and didn't buy a standard multivit/ mineral supplement but supplement just what is lacking.

As said, some minerals are toxic in too high quantities and others interact with each other. On one yard the calcium and iron were so high they were off the scale on the graph. With that knowledge it makes sense to adapt my feed and supplements to take that into account.

How many people read the ingredients on everything they feed, if you are feeding a mix or cube it may have added minerals, then they might add to that a balancer, a calmer and a joint supplement so there will be alot of overlap

The difficulty is I suspect alot of people don't have access to lovely mixed pasture and woodland and bushes but turnout paddocks which are often single species, ex dairy and overgrazed, separated with post and rail and electric fencing so there can be a need for some basic supplementation.
 
Very very good thread this. I dont feed supplements. I go by "eye" and how the horse is going. Both mine seem A ok . They are youngsters out on old fashioned pasture. I think the industry pushes unnecessary stuff at people all the time.
 
Mine has a GP supplement because she has liver damage, which affects certain vits that you can't buy single supplements for. I must say, she looks so much better for it. I wouldn't have given her the supplement otherwise; over 20 years she's the only pony I've had that has been given extra vits. She also has milk thistle for her liver.
 
I should have said in my first post we know our land is very low in selenium all the land around us is and all their haylage is very locally grown so I need to make sure then receive an adequate source of this.
 
Goldenstar said:
I have had a couple of my horses tested .
I don't worry much I don't feed anything extreme or usual just a general purpose supplement a hoof supplement to two of them ( make by the same company as the first and designed to go with it )
I feed thirty grammes a day of magnesium oxide to each per day quite a lot but they just pee it away.
Two get probiotics .
In the past I have had a horse injected with copper his levels where low and did not improve with oral supplementation he was injected with copper for cattle it made a huge difference to him.
Click to expand...

It is really easy to overdose horses on magnesium. The industry always thought that excess magnesium was excreted. This is clearly not correct and excess magnesium can make horses very difficult indeed! Many horses are already getting too much magnesium from their forage, concentrates and feed balancers!
 
kirstykate said:
It is really easy to overdose horses on magnesium. The industry always thought that excess magnesium was excreted. This is clearly not correct and excess magnesium can make horses very difficult indeed! Many horses are already getting too much magnesium from their forage, concentrates and feed balancers!
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean by clearly not correct , my vet confirmed that it's not an issue not sure what I do that's clearer than that.
 
Sorry Golden star, copied and pasted it:o:o!! It is only a recent discovery that horses cant get rid of the mag as originally thought. I know with one of mine he becomes impossible if I put him on any extra mag, see trying to get a calmer without it its nigh on impossible;);)
 
SusieT said:
I find it fasicnating that horses who are out on pasture, as they would be in the wild, with various bushes etc. suddenly require balancer unless they are getting hard feed (not exactly natural...). For the record-I don't have analysis done unless there is a decline in the horses performance/health. Currently I have 4 healthy, fit competition horses on just grass.

Interesting to the person who said pro hoof would be dangerous-excellent example. And to whoever said magox is just peed out, that may be true, but that gives the kidneys extra work to do and there will be a level at which the kidneys are overwhelmed. Now that may be at an extremely high level, but just thinking. Where do you get your figures for calculating you horses requirementS?
Click to expand...

From my vet that where we worked out the requirement all started with a sick horse that excretes too much magnesium that's how the vet got involved.
 
kirstykate said:
It is really easy to overdose horses on magnesium. The industry always thought that excess magnesium was excreted. This is clearly not correct and excess magnesium can make horses very difficult indeed! Many horses are already getting too much magnesium from their forage, concentrates and feed balancers!
Click to expand...


Hence having forage analysed, then you arent over or under dosing on ANYTHING ;)

Its people who say 'well my horse NEEDS a supplement so hes on xyz' when they havnt a clue what its getting in hay/grass/feed so what on earth are they supplementing?!
 
TigerTail said:
Hence having forage analysed, then you arent over or under dosing on ANYTHING ;)

Its people who say 'well my horse NEEDS a supplement so hes on xyz' when they havnt a clue what its getting in hay/grass/feed so what on earth are they supplementing?!
Click to expand...

The power of Advertising!!!! I just feed Seaquim and a pre pro balancer
 
The thing is there's a huge range between opinmal levels of vits and mins and level that will be detrimental to health,and horses vary their needs vary with work level and environment affects this so even the ideal levels as given say by a feed manufacter are at best a guess as they dont know what your horse is getting from the environment .
I have considered forage testing etc the vet advised me to save my money that unless we hit a issue their view I should do as I was doing.
I am interested in what people do in a selenium rich area how do you avoid them getting to much.
I am lucky my vet who has horses lives in the same valley do is well up on the best things to do.
 
I just chuck a couple of different licks in the field and let my horses choose which one they want to lick. Bit old school but they haven't died yet! You'd have to over supplement by really rather a lot before you started to cause kidney and liver problems.
 
Goldenstar said:
The thing is there's a huge range between opinmal levels of vits and mins and level that will be detrimental to health.
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The idea of 'optimal' vs minimal levels of vits and mins seems to have become common in human healthcare too, often promoted by people who sell supplements . I'm not sure how much evidence there is for it though? It seems a bit of a wooly concept.

The evidence behind RDAs is more certain though, and like humans taking a low level RDA multivitamin, perhaps the same is fine for horses?

Where problems seem to occur is when supplementing specific minerals in high doses, which then throw other mineral levels out of whack.
 
I think the concept of what you are balancing to/what the horse actually needs is certainly an interesting one and I do think it is all a bit wooly atm even if you add a feed analysis to that.

We have a 4 acre paddock split into 2 (3 and 1 acres) our horses graze this and we make hay for the year with minimal access to hedges round the outside (depending on paddock but is all post and rail.) Recently got the grass analysed and as a result supplementing magnesium, copper and zinc. Horse previously was on naf profeet and had prior to that used naf gp mineral mix.
 
This is interesting. So what does forage analysis involve then? Sending off a bunch of grass from the field (as I do not give hay at the mo)? and does it cost a lot?
 
But even if you have forage analysis, conditions change all the time. So to keep supplementing correctly you would need to keep re-analysing? Is that what people do?
 
BeesKnees said:
But even if you have forage analysis, conditions change all the time. So to keep supplementing correctly you would need to keep re-analysing? Is that what people do?
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And like worm egg counts how do you find out who you can trust to do it properly.
 
well you have to guesstimate how much they are eating of it too, if grazing so I think in some ways there is so much variablility to account for that sticking another one in like seasonal variation probably makes little difference overall.

the theory is great, I think the science is very much lacking!

worm egg counts are difficult to get wrong tbh, it is a very simple procedure, on previous posts I have been clear that I am less than pro them but this is because of the owners sampling methods and the interpretation of results not the actual tests themselves.

the same goes for grass testing really.. the lab can only test what they receive which may or may not be representative.
 
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