Forage Plus / Pro-Earth balancers palatability question

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Charlie31

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I'm thinking of feeding my horse one of the Forage Plus or Progressive Earth hoof balancers. I haven't quite decided which yet but a key factor in choosing which one to go for will be palatability. My horse is really fussy - if whichever one I give to him is bland and can be pretty much hidden away in his feed then he'll go for it but if there is any hint of a funny smell or taste he'll just turn his nose up at it.

On looking at the ingredients for both products I can't see anything listed that would be likely to put him off but I know that sometimes the more "healthy" balancers can smell a bit funny and I vaguely remember reading on here in the past about somebody struggling to feed one of them to her horse.

So does anybody with a fussy horse feed either of these and does the horse eat it okay? Or has anybody had success with one over the other?

Thanks.
 
I did have problems with the Foragplus balancer but spoke to them about it and they suggested adding it to bran, damped so the balancer doesn't drop through. Worked really well and now they happily accept it in soaked Equibeet and Ready Fibre Mash, maybe they have got used to the taste. I imagine the Pro Earth one is similar, as it will have similar ingredients in it?
 
In terms of raw ingredients they are pretty similar - magox, bioplex copper and zinc, selenium, phosphorous as key ingredients with some extras and they are not especially palatable. Zinc and Copper are especially horrible.

I feed my own blend and with my fussy horse the only way was to sneak it in very slowly over many weeks. Started with about 1/4 of a teaspoon and built up to the full dose. Made sure he was happily eating before upping the dose. And no changes of feed, he doesn't like change. It also helped finding something he really liked as the base feed - for him that's Agrobs Musli.
 
Mine eats probalance with a small amount of nuts no problem. It is fed alongside linseed and salt which might make it more palatable.
 
I haven't tried Forage Plus but I've had to give up on the progressive earth (pro hoof and pro laminae), after persevering for 2 years trying to get my horse to eat them :-( he eventually went on a complete hard feed strike, so I have let him be for the summer as he's on good grass, and I think I will have to try a pelleted balancer when he's back in overnight. My horse has always been a fussy boy though.
 
I use forage plus I use a little bran and when I start one on it I do it gradually given half a reason for a few days they a little more until they happily eating the full amount .
 
Thank you for all the replies. I think given the mixed response and the fact that my boy is on true hunger strike at the moment I daren't risk introducing either of these options at the moment. He is currently being so fussy that I think my only chance of getting him to eat them would be to stick them in some treacly coarse mix, which would pretty much defeat the object of the exercise really. Perhaps in the winter when he's a bit more hungry he'll be more amenable to the idea.

In the meantime I have just been looking at the ReadySupp hoof supplement. It looks okay and has apparently been palatability tested by one of their horses. So I'm going to start a new thread to see if anybody has any experience of this one and then I will decide between that and going back to a pelleted option.
 
I've never had a problem with the Pro Hoof or Pro Laminae, if stuck to food/mixed in properly. If the "carrier" is too dry, and the powder drops through, only one will lick the bowl.
 
I feed pro balance to my horse with no issues.
hes quite fussy.
Once i accidentally ordered Pro mineral instead, he wouldnt touch it!
It did have a stronger smell.
 
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