Immune system veteran

Emmangel

Emmangel

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My mare is 18 years old and generally in fabulous condition (ridden 4-5 days per week and competes BD elementary). I feed her a scoop of chaff, a handful of nuts plus NAF superflex. She has good quality hay and grazing.

Recently her lymph nodes were a bit swollen so vet came out to do bloods yesterday. She has elevated white cells, elevated chronic proteins and inflated globulin. My vet says she's basically recovering from a historic infection - at this state fairly non-specific viral or bacterial - not sure...... vet said as she's recovering she needs no meds, but will come back out in 2 weeks to take another blood sample.

Do I feed her a supplement ? I have heard good reports about Global Restore or has anyone used NAF Immuforte ? OR, should I stop feeding her nuts and switch her onto a good veteran mix OR both ?

My concern is that she is not getting enough nutrients and vitamins in her current diet especially now she's getting older.

She's a very good doer and prone to weight gain. She's is very laid back to ride and not fizzy.

Thanks in advance.
 
Which chaff and which nuts? If you are not feeding to the specified amounts then it might be worth switching to something more forage based so that you can feed the correct amount - or adding a vit/min supplement. I'm not personally a fan of global herbs - they tend to be more filler than anything else and Restore looks no different. The NAF one at least has echinacea - but seems to be mostly milk products which isn't really going to help much. I have had good results with Propell for horses just a bit flat mid season. But that isn't an immune boost as such. Really just a suitable amount of vits and mins should work.
 
Thanks Shay. I have spoken to my YO as my mare is on full livery and she has kindly agreed to switch my mare from nuts (they are Hilight horse & pony nuts - Analytical Constituents: Protein 8.75%, Oil 2.75%, Fibre 18%, Ash 9%) to Allen & Page Veteran Vitality (which additionally contains Vits A, D & E) at no extra cost so I'm going to do that. If she gets a bit porky, I see they make a Veteran light version. The chaff is Dengie hi-fi original.

Like you, I've never been a fan of global herbs, but to be fair, the write up looked OK. I tried Propell once before and my laid back mare bucked me off at competition warm up :)

I may look at Echinacea as a short term pick me up. But would you add a vitamin supplement on top of Veteran Vitality ?
 
Personally no. I'm a massive fan of A&P feeds. As long as she is fed at or above the minimum recommended amount she'll get everything she needs from there. It will be a massive improvement from bulk feed nuts.

You might want to think a little bit about your chaff though - HiFi Original is packed full of molasses. Its 9% sugar - one of the highest sugar chaff available. You might do better switching to molasses free (2.5% sugar) or Alpha A (4.5%) if you need the extra calories. Even HiFi Lite is 7% sugar. Too much sugar can have an adverse impact on the immune system.
 
Hi - my retired oldie came in from summer turnout and was very flat/off feed etc. Vet out treated with anti inflam and antibiotics (slight high temp) thought he’d got a chill and was told to mollicoddle him for a bit. 2 weeks later he stopped eating his feed again and temp went sky high! Vet out and bloods taken (pain killers for temp given) results unremarkable low end of normal red cell. Hoping just a virus and nothing too sinister so gave him high dose Global herbs restore - liquid version so no fillers and he picked up a treat. Then again he had been stabled at night and on 2 feeds a day of recommending quantities (swapped chop for speedibeet to encourage eating) for 2 weeks as well but I do think it helped him.
I thought he’d had a really good summer - out 24/7 on plentiful meadow grazing with hedgerows etc looked a bit on the porky side actually but obviously not getting all his requirements for vitality.
Going to provide a quality vitamin and mineral field block next year! He’s fine again now :-)
 
Check out haemavite b+, its a blood tonic. I can't recommend it highly enough. Its used for convalescing horses. I have used it and the results were invaluable with my mare. Have also recommended it to a number of people on here and they all had very positive things to say about the support it gave their horse. You can buy online or your vet can supply it. It comes in either powder or syrup form.
 
Thanks everyone for your recommendations. I rode her yesterday and she was happy enough but felt flat (especially considering how windy it was). I will see how the A&P Veteran Vitality goes. I will ask YO if she has any other chaff options with less sugar in..... My friend had an unused tub of Hack up Liquid Vit & min which she has given to me which has lots of vitamins and minerals (especially B and iron). As it's free, I will give that a go. She's having bloods taken again next week so I can get an accurate idea of the progress. Fingers crossed. I'l let you know.
 
Vitamin E boosts the immune system and although plentiful in grass is absent from hay, which is the main difference between winter and summer balancers. You can buy it and add to her feed as a supplement (from Forageplus among others). My poor doer TB gets it all year round as he seems unable to cope with any infections whatever the time of year.
 
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