Hoof people. How important is copper in a supplement?

Wagtail

Wagtail

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I accidentally bought some Naf pro feet (pressed wrong button or something when ordering my feed :rolleyes:). It was £25 so don't want to waste it. I have started my mare on Pro hoof and notice that this has copper in it and as far as I can see, pro feet hasn't. I wondered whether if I fed the tub of pro feet say a scoop every three days instead of the pro hoof, if my girl would miss out on anything essential? Thanks.
 
It depends on how much iron and manganese you have in your grazing and your hay/haylage. If you have high iron and manganese levels, you need to feed additional copper or the horse will be copper deficient. You can buy copper from charnwood milling or from forage plus, and add that to your pro feet. It is exactly 10% copper, so easy to work out how to add as much as the pro hoof has in it. If you work out that you only need a couple of 100 grams or so Wagtail, let me know and I'll send you the right amount instead of you having to buy a kilo.
 
cptrayes said:
It depends on how much iron and manganese you have in your grazing and your hay/haylage. If you have high iron and manganese levels, you need to feed additional copper or the horse will be copper deficient. You can buy copper from charnwood milling and from forage plus, and add that to your pro feet. It is exactly 10% copper, so easy to work out how to add as much as the pro hoof has in it.
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Excellent, thank you. :)

I will see if I can get a typical analysis from my haylage supplier too.

ETA: Just seen their hoof balancer works out quite a bit cheaper than Pro hoof with almost identical ingredients. Has anyone tried it?
 
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Wagtail said:
Excellent, thank you. :)

I will see if I can get a typical analysis from my haylage supplier too.

ETA: Just seen their hoof balancer works out quite a bit cheaper than Pro hoof with almost identical ingredients. Has anyone tried it?
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Do you mean Pro Balance +? Yes, I use it.

All the vitamins and minerals are important in the diet.

The issue with copper and zinc specifically is that they are consistently found low in the UK (and US) forage. Copper is important for breathing, connective tissue (tendons, ligaments, laminae), melanin, metabolism. Zinc is important for immunity, tissue production and production and control of insulin.

The excess levels of competing minerals often means what little zinc and copper we have doesn't get a chance of being absorbed by the horse.
 
Oberon said:
Do you mean Pro Balance +? Yes, I use it.

All the vitamins and minerals are important in the diet.

The issue with copper and zinc specifically is that they are consistently found low in the UK (and US) forage. Copper is important for breathing, connective tissue (tendons, ligaments, laminae), melanin, metabolism. Zinc is important for immunity, tissue production and production and control of insulin.

The excess levels of competing minerals often means what little zinc and copper we have doesn't get a chance of being absorbed by the horse.
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Thanks Oberon. My mare would certainly benefit from both copper and zinc then. When I said their hoof balancer, I was meaning the Forage plus hoof balancer. It seems to have all the ingredients of Pro hoof but is only £44 per 5 kg, so lots cheaper than Pro hoof. I was wondering if anyone had tried it.
 
cptrayes said:
It depends on how much iron and manganese you have in your grazing and your hay/haylage. If you have high iron and manganese levels, you need to feed additional copper or the horse will be copper deficient. You can buy copper from charnwood milling or from forage plus, and add that to your pro feet. It is exactly 10% copper, so easy to work out how to add as much as the pro hoof has in it. If you work out that you only need a couple of 100 grams or so Wagtail, let me know and I'll send you the right amount instead of you having to buy a kilo.
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10% copper........surly a typo. The only thing I can think of that's 10% copper is electrical cables. :confused::p
 
lazybee said:
10% copper........surly a typo. The only thing I can think of that's 10% copper is electrical cables. :confused::p
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Copper proteinate/bioplex is ten per cent copper. Some copper supplements are even higher. I don't understand your confusion. Magnesium oxide is around 50% magnesium. Water is more than half oxygen. It's how chemicals work, on molecular weight. The weight of actual copper in copper proteinate is ten per cent. One kilo of copper proteinate contains 100 grammes of pure copper.

Wagtail needs 45 grammes of copper proteinate to make her tub of Pro Feet contain the same copper ration as Pro Hoof, and I'll be sending that to her on Monday.
 
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Wagtail said:
Thanks Oberon. My mare would certainly benefit from both copper and zinc then. When I said their hoof balancer, I was meaning the Forage plus hoof balancer. It seems to have all the ingredients of Pro hoof but is only £44 per 5 kg, so lots cheaper than Pro hoof. I was wondering if anyone had tried it.
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Yes I'm using it for my pony. I was using Forage Plus summer balancer but switched to this when it came out. I've only been using it about 4 months but really noticed the difference in my pony's colour when his winter coat came through (he's piebald but was always more brown than black before - he's now definitely black - so I guess he did have a copper deficiency).
 
dalidaydream said:
Yes I'm using it for my pony. I was using Forage Plus summer balancer but switched to this when it came out. I've only been using it about 4 months but really noticed the difference in my pony's colour when his winter coat came through (he's piebald but was always more brown than black before - he's now definitely black - so I guess he did have a copper deficiency).
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Wow, that's interesting, thanks.
 
It's really important not to lose sight of the fact that an overall healthy and balanced diet is what we are aiming for.

Copper isn't a magic ingredient itself. It is an important trace mineral but all major and trace minerals should be kept IN BALANCE.

The issue with copper is that (along with zinc) it is consistently found low in our forage.

Feral horses could browse for different grasses, herbs, plants etc over a wide range (10 - 20 miles covered per day) and so could get a decent balance in their diet.

By being stuck in the same fields for years and eating hay/haylage from the same land - we are making our horses eat at the same restaurant every day.

The forage is not in balance - so the diet is not in balance.

Generic feeds formulated from standard balancing software do not fully appreciate the existing imbalances in our land - so they are in balance with themselves.....but not with the land and therefore the bulk of what the horse is eating (forage).

I would be cautious about adding straight minerals without knowing what the overall profile of the forage is. Minerals compete with each other and by adding one mineral, you may be upsetting the balance of others.
Forage analysis and bespoke mineral balancing is the gold standard of supplementing only and exactly what your horse needs.
But for those of you who cannot or do not wish to do this - one of the supplements from Progressive Earth or ForagePlus are calculated to be beneficial but still safe.
 
Oberon, are Meta balance and Pro Hoof still recommended?
And where is the best place to get analysees done? Are we restricted to one supplier of these services?
Just realised PH is Progressive Earth, so is MB ok? I get the original blend.
 
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muff747 said:
Oberon, are Meta balance and Pro Hoof still recommended?
And where is the best place to get analysees done? Are we restricted to one supplier of these services?
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Meta Balance was the original supplement created according to what is hinky in the forage.

A bunch of barefooters who had done some nutritional study, harrangued poor Steve at Equimins into making it a couple of years ago - top bloke :D.
However, due to the fact that it's 'off script' with the standard balancing software and pushes the NRC recommended amounts of some minerals to 150% - Equimins can sometimes be uncomfortable with selling it unless you state your horse is insulin resistant and has a special need for it.

Pro Hoof, Pro Balance + and ForagePlus Balancers all do the job as well as the Meta Balance.

Forage analysis can be done via ForagePlus, Simple Systems, Dodson and Horrell. Or you can cut out the middle man and deal with the lab in the US directly - although you need to know just how the sample needs to be stored and to fill out certain documents in order to send vegetation overseas.

Once you get the sample results (unless you can do the math yourself), I am only aware of ForagePlus currently offering the service of bespoke balancing and a dietary plan at this time.
 
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