Iron!

Cragrat

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How important ACTUALLY are iron levels, in a barefoot horse?

Mine have been barefoot for 16 years, 15 years and all his life of 10 years.
At first I was blissfully ignorant of mineral balancing, though fed a forage and straights low molasses diet, and their hooves were massively better than when shod.

Then seeking further improvement in my own skills, I attended hoof care courses, and became aware of the demonic iron. I have fed forage plus/ prohoof type balances for a few years now. Their hooves are functional (hunting /PC/ affiliated BE90/dressage etc), and don't cause any problems ( fingers crossed). But this is expensive, a nuisance having to order and hope it doesn't get destroyed when left outside etc. I honestly don't know if their hooves are amazingly better than before.

I have had them on topspec for a couple of months, which does have iron, and maybe their white lines are a TINY bit softer- but then it's winter, incredibly muddy, and they got stones in their whiteline last year.

I am not going down the forage analysis route- we buy hay from a dealer, so it varies bale to bale, and our grazing is hugely varied - I am sure each part of each field would be different- the types of grass certainly are. I do know the area we are in used to mine iron ore, so conceivably there is lots of iron around.

The reason for this rant is I have been talking to Hack Up recently( following reviews on here) and the vit mineral mix they use, formulated by a Newmarket vet(yes, I know, not a nutritionist) has roughly 4:1 iron to copper( if my maths is correct,converting percentages to numbers, and pounds to kilos!).

Will this matter?

Aaaaarrgh:(

(Bury head in sand and shoe them seems easier at times )
 

toomanynags

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Equiminns advance is iron-free. After swapping to it three months ago, all mine look incredibly well - two barefoot (both of whom now have rock hard feet), one shod. Having moved from an acidic, iron rich area, we have found a substantial improvement in their overall well being, so I would say reducing iron is a positive thing. I don't analyse grass or hay either, and prefer to feed a broad spectrum supplement rather than try to balance individual minerals.
 

missyclare

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You're almost there. The balance is Iron:Copper:Zinc: Manganese....4:1:3:3. The ratio of Iron to Copper should not go over 10:1. Hay analysis or not, the reality is, is that Iron is in everything, the soil, plants, off the machinery that processed the hay, and iron is 10X more available to the body in water. The trick is not to add any more iron. Iron is what it is, on an analysis and the goal is to balance the traces around it. An iron-free mineral is a good start, as mentioned. If you can add more copper and zinc without adding any more iron, the better. A good iron value on a hay analysis would read 200mg, 400-500mg would be normal and higher than that, high iron. If I was providing 400mg of iron with the hay already, then bought another feed that also had another 400mg, then I just doubled that horse's daily iron intake. Make sense?
You are doing so much more for the horse than just his feet, though. What iron does, is with manganese, its partner in crime, plugs up the nutrient intake valves, forcing copper and zinc to pass on by. When storage capacity has been reached it goes running through the blood like rust. It latches onto cells and won't let go until the cell dies a week later, so its slow to leave the body. Most Cushingoid horses are already iron overloaded. It is the first thing you address with these horses.
Copper does give to structural integrity of the hooves, protects waxes and oils and helps spit out thrush, but a stretched white line is not a mineral deficiency. If the white line is only stretched in certain places, the hoof could be in need of a trim, or if the white line is more than 1/8" wide all the way around, not creamy yellow but darker/mad/inflammed, then its metabolic.
Hope this helps...
 

Cragrat

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So helpful, both of you :)
I will look in to the equimins advance.

I had heard manganese was also not desirable, yet it and iron are in so many supplements, which are sponsoring, and supposedly fed to, many top level performance horses. So how do they cope?

Like I said, I am not going down the analysis route, because it varies too much, but I am sure my horses already get plenty of iron, especially given we are in an old iron mining area.

His white line isn't stretched, and it's certainly not dark, thank goodness. Interesting you say a stretched white line isn't a sign of deficiency though - I had thought that a correct mineral balance was necessary for good laminae growth and connection, and therefore imbalances would show up in the white line?

Do you know how accurate /useful the 'gingering' of bays and hooked coat ends is as an indicator of copper deficiency?

Thank you:)
 
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