SatansLittleHelper
Well-Known Member
Has anyone here ever used the hpd horse and pony direct diets?? And if so how do you rate them?? 
H&P Direct
- Thread starter SatansLittleHelper
- Start date
YasandCrystal
Well-Known Member
I use their lo cal balancer. It seems good to me - nice glossy coats. Keen pricing.
flintfootfilly
Well-Known Member
They only use inorganic selenium, so it's of no use to me.
SatansLittleHelper
Well-Known Member
Sorry to sound ignorant but what does that mean?? 
flintfootfilly
Well-Known Member
Sorry, was trying to keep it brief rather than go into too much detail!
I have had long term muscle problems with my 5 (formerly 6) ponies. After lots of investigations, it turns out their diet has been deficient in selenium for many years (hay/grass have only 0.05mg/kg dry matter of selenium, as opposed to the recommended minimum of 0.1, so they only have half as much as the minimum recommended).
The reason I looked into this was that all ponies showed reluctance to work - varying from only being able to do a ridiculously slow walk under rider to grinding to a halt in walk, trot or canter. A small scale tying up, if you like.
Blood tests have consistently revealed raised muscle enzymes, which indicate muscle damage (the enzymes can only leak out of the muscle cells and into the blood if the muscle cells are damaged).
So I've been monitoring them using bloods, and varying the diet to try and get an improvement.
When they were on a balancer with inorganic selenium for 10 months, there was no sustained improvement (measured by muscle enzyme levels). Whereas both times they've been on organic selenium, there has been a significant improvement in all ponies at 4 or 5 months.
Inorganic selenium is basically a lump of rock found in the earth's crust.
Organic selenium is produced in nature by plants processing inorganic selenium. It can also be produced synthetically, often by growing yeast in a selenium-rich environment. This organic form is an organic (ie carbon-based) compound, and is basically selenium chemically bound to an amino acid.
The significant thing is that organic selenium is the chemical form which would naturally be found in an animal's diet (ie it's the form they get from grass).
Studies have shown it to be more bioavailable than inorganic selenium. In other words, it's more effective than inorganic forms.
Incidentally, inorganic selenium is cheap as chips. Organic selenium is not. It's probably no coincidence that vit/min products containing organic selenium tend to cost a bit more.
Sarah
I have had long term muscle problems with my 5 (formerly 6) ponies. After lots of investigations, it turns out their diet has been deficient in selenium for many years (hay/grass have only 0.05mg/kg dry matter of selenium, as opposed to the recommended minimum of 0.1, so they only have half as much as the minimum recommended).
The reason I looked into this was that all ponies showed reluctance to work - varying from only being able to do a ridiculously slow walk under rider to grinding to a halt in walk, trot or canter. A small scale tying up, if you like.
Blood tests have consistently revealed raised muscle enzymes, which indicate muscle damage (the enzymes can only leak out of the muscle cells and into the blood if the muscle cells are damaged).
So I've been monitoring them using bloods, and varying the diet to try and get an improvement.
When they were on a balancer with inorganic selenium for 10 months, there was no sustained improvement (measured by muscle enzyme levels). Whereas both times they've been on organic selenium, there has been a significant improvement in all ponies at 4 or 5 months.
Inorganic selenium is basically a lump of rock found in the earth's crust.
Organic selenium is produced in nature by plants processing inorganic selenium. It can also be produced synthetically, often by growing yeast in a selenium-rich environment. This organic form is an organic (ie carbon-based) compound, and is basically selenium chemically bound to an amino acid.
The significant thing is that organic selenium is the chemical form which would naturally be found in an animal's diet (ie it's the form they get from grass).
Studies have shown it to be more bioavailable than inorganic selenium. In other words, it's more effective than inorganic forms.
Incidentally, inorganic selenium is cheap as chips. Organic selenium is not. It's probably no coincidence that vit/min products containing organic selenium tend to cost a bit more.
Sarah
YasandCrystal
Well-Known Member
Thanks for that comprehensive explanation Flintfootfilly - that is really interesting. Is selenium deficiency a countrywide potential problem or is it specific to areas do you know?
SatansLittleHelper
Well-Known Member
Thank you very much for the explanation. So as I feed balancers...what brand would be best to go for??
flintfootfilly
Well-Known Member
According to a survey by Yara in around 2003, around 70% of the UK is selenium deficient. Whilst it can vary from field to field, it is largeley dependent on the underlying geology.
I've come across a couple of maps showing selenium levels around England and Wales. Here is the link to the most comprehensive one:
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/nercsoilportal/maps.html
Scroll down to "advanced soil geochemical atlas of England and Wales, and you'll see a map of England and Wales with a lot of blue on it. Click on that, and you'll see the levels found in general. Anything below 0.5mg/kg selenium in soils is likely to produce selenium deficient forage (according to NRC, America's equivalent of DEFRA).
From that, it looks as though higher ground on the west side of England and Wales is more likely to have enough selenium, whereas many other areas are deficient to different degrees. The darkest blue areas are the most deficient.
My area is the mid-blue, and definitely my 10 forage analyses show a deficiency which ties in with what's shown on the map.
My preference for a traditional balancer is either Blue Chip or Dengie Alfa A balancer, both of which contain around 1mg of organic selenium per 500kg horse per day. Blue Chip is cheaper and more easily available. Some people opt for powdered balancers like Forageplus or Hoof Pro, which also contain organic selenium, but I haven't looked at those in any detail.
Oh, and I should have said but selenium is an antioxidant (like vitamin E, but works differently so both are needed). It's really important in ensuring that muscles stay healthy after exercise. It also seems to be pretty amazing in immunity in humans and other animals. But it is toxic at relatively low levels, so it's really important to only supplement in an informed way and not go overboard on it.
Sarah
I've come across a couple of maps showing selenium levels around England and Wales. Here is the link to the most comprehensive one:
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/nercsoilportal/maps.html
Scroll down to "advanced soil geochemical atlas of England and Wales, and you'll see a map of England and Wales with a lot of blue on it. Click on that, and you'll see the levels found in general. Anything below 0.5mg/kg selenium in soils is likely to produce selenium deficient forage (according to NRC, America's equivalent of DEFRA).
From that, it looks as though higher ground on the west side of England and Wales is more likely to have enough selenium, whereas many other areas are deficient to different degrees. The darkest blue areas are the most deficient.
My area is the mid-blue, and definitely my 10 forage analyses show a deficiency which ties in with what's shown on the map.
My preference for a traditional balancer is either Blue Chip or Dengie Alfa A balancer, both of which contain around 1mg of organic selenium per 500kg horse per day. Blue Chip is cheaper and more easily available. Some people opt for powdered balancers like Forageplus or Hoof Pro, which also contain organic selenium, but I haven't looked at those in any detail.
Oh, and I should have said but selenium is an antioxidant (like vitamin E, but works differently so both are needed). It's really important in ensuring that muscles stay healthy after exercise. It also seems to be pretty amazing in immunity in humans and other animals. But it is toxic at relatively low levels, so it's really important to only supplement in an informed way and not go overboard on it.
Sarah
magicmoose
Well-Known Member
Has anyone here ever used the hpd horse and pony direct diets?? And if so how do you rate them??
HPD is actually the "supermarket own brand" version of another well known feed company. As FFF pointed out, there may be some lower cost ingredients in it, but it all depends on what deficiencies you are looking to balance out. Unless you are going to have forage analysis done, you just have to take a best guess at what you need!
For what its worth, I use Progressive Earth's Pro Balance or Pro Hoof for my two.