I caculated the amount of vits and mins needed to see if the naf vit and min supplement is legit...

[gypsiegal567]

hiya, i was browsing vit and min supplements for my mare and i found a few different popular ones, the naf one was seemingly good value but i wasn't sure if it actually had the right amounts of vits and mins, the ss one claimed to have them but was quite pricey so i decided to actually caculate if the naf one has enough vits and mins and fry my brain in the process...
just a warning this all very rough , i just looked on this source that said how much of them are needed for a 500 kg horse, annoyingly on the naf website they only show per kg so since the dose is around 50 g a day i just found 5 percent. here are my findings, i hope this helps
good = enough in supplement
vit a= good
vit d= most horses get enough but supplement has enough too
vit e = roughly fine
zinc= good
copper = half amount in supplement needed daily
magnesium= they get a good amount in forage
calcium= they get a good amount in forage
selenium=0.4 in supplemnt but 2.5 needed a day , they can find this in most hay and grass though
iodine= they get enough in forage
manganese= they get enough in hay but supplement helps
amino acids=good
zinc and copper ratio are good
i still don't know how i managed to do this with my terrible maths skills only armed with google and a caculator!
i hope this helps <3

 

[ycbm]

Welcome to the forum.


Only a forage analysis will tell you if there is enough of anything in the hay you have available.

copper = half amount in supplement needed daily

Do you mean the supplement contains half what's needed or half of what's in the supplement is what's needed?

 

[maya2008]

All I can say is that my horses do well on that supplement in a token feed, plus grass with a bit of haylage in winter. So it must have most of what they need!

 

[[153312]]

ah, ycbm beat me to it! but whether a certain supplement contains the 'right' amount of something depends on an awful lot of factors - your grazing/forage, what hard feed they receive, their gut biome, even genetics plays a role in how well they can metabolise certain compounds. It would be really nice if it was so simple, but unfortunately it's not.

for forage analysis there's forageplus specifically targeted for horse owners but also yara and faa group. Alternatively you can use the UK Soil Observatory Map to get an idea of what's going on in your area if you can't afford an analysis. https://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/ukso/home.html
In terms of gut biome I think equibiome is the only company offering it commercially at the moment.

 

[gypsiegal567]

hi , i know that you wont know about the forage but its just average, i was just trying to see if the supplement had roughly what they needed and wasn't a waste. for the copper per daily dose of supplement its a bit more than half the total daily dose so they will probably get enough with the whole diet

 

[[153312]]

also interested what your sources were for target values?

 

[gypsiegal567]

https://horseandrider.com/horse-health-care/vitamins-and-minerals-for-horses/ i used this website mainly and a few other sources which i can't remember!

 

[ycbm]

hi , i know that you wont know about the forage but its just average, i was just trying to see if the supplement had roughly what they needed and wasn't a waste. for the copper per daily dose of supplement its a bit more than half the total daily dose so they will probably get enough with the whole diet

Whether there's enough copper or not will depend on how high the iron and manganese in the total diet is.
.

 

[Landcruiser]

I had been using a supplement with a similar level of Selenium (Equimins Tip Top) when I worked it out (they also give it as mg/kg of product) after my young mare was diagnosed with Selenium deficiency. She had been on box/pen rest and then on a track for many months and had had very little grass - obviously the hay in our area is very low in this important trace element. Recommended daily intake of Se is 3mg for a 500kg horse.

 

[DabDab]

That's interesting, thanks for sharing gypsiegal. The Naf supplement isn't one that I have looked at much before

 

[Elno]

Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing!

I just want to add that, just like some people already pointed out - if a supplement is good or not is determined by what the horse actually needs and consumes. It will wary depending on the horse ie is it a foal, yearling, lactating mare, high performance horse, senior, does it have a condition ie PPID, EMS and what type of food the horse consumes.

In your post for instance you stated that the horse would get selenium from forage- in my, and many other people instances it will not. In many places in the world the soil is deficient in selenium, as well as copper and also high (sometimes very high!) in iron and manganese. The mineral balance in living creatures is a very delicate and complicated process, it's not as simple as filling a quoata on paper and say "Look, my horse gets 150 mg of copper, that is plenty enough". Through studies it has been established that at least for some minerals there needs to be a balance between them, otherwise one might impare the absorbance of another mineral.

So even just adding a supplement you think looks good enough "on paper" is sometimes not enough. Most of the times it's fine, the horse will manage, but if you have a horse with a condition where vit/mins and their ratios and balance actually matter and can be the difference between a living and dead horse...well.

In the country I live in most of us analyse our forage. We don't have the opportunity to have our horses out on grass pastures year round, but even if we did I think we would analyse the forage. So our horses rely on hay and/or haylage during the winter. By analyzing the forage I know roughly what the forage is lacking or have in excess, taking the guess work away from finding the right supplement to complement that particular forage. Also, the analysis gives me information on how much energy and how much protein the forage has- meaning if the protein is low I know just HOW LOW and can supplement with correct amounts.

The NAF supplement would be a complete waste of money together with my forage, and honestly all the forages I've had tested for several years back.