Looking for (yet another) supplment carrier

Casey76

Casey76

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I've hit a bit of a brick wall with Tartine. She has basically gone on hunger strike and is not eating her (very expensive) dinner. I know the issue is the total amount of supplements she has, which is now almost 300ml powder. It's a lot to hide in anything.

She is back on a diet, after gaining weight (seemingly overnight!) probably due to the lack of exercise I've been able to give her. This is now hopefully resolved as she is back in work, but it will be some time before she is going anything really strenuous.

Supplements are:

100ml ProLaminae+
45ml (9500IU) Vit E
25ml Mag Ox
50ml ground Rosehip
15ml ALCAR
10ml glucosamine
10ml Boswellia
25ml (L-Lysine, DL-Methionine, L-Threonine)
1ml Selenium

90ml Linseed oil
50ml whole milk thistle

Current hay is 5kg 12 hour soaked hay in 2 nets overnight.

She isn't eating all of her hay, preferring to eat the really manky straw (probably because it is full of seed heads at the moment).

"Dinner" is what I've having bother with. It needs to be wet to bind all of the powder. So far she has said no to the Agrobs weisen cobs (both warm and cold water), and a very definitive no! to twice rinsed sugarbeet (as I can't easily get the no molasses added stuff here). Trying to add that amount of powder to damped chaff doesn't work.

All in all, the powder smells very innocuous, just chalky (to me anyway).

What ever I add it to it must be cereal/grain/molasses free; less than 10% NSC; volumous enough to bind the powder; kind to bare feet; available in France!

Any ideas?

Last night I made a mix of the sugar beet, Agrobs muesli, and a huge handful of dried spearmint. But I don't know if she ate it all of it, or if it ended up on the floor...
 
Casey76 said:
I've hit a bit of a brick wall with Tartine. She has basically gone on hunger strike and is not eating her (very expensive) dinner. I know the issue is the total amount of supplements she has, which is now almost 300ml powder. It's a lot to hide in anything.

She is back on a diet, after gaining weight (seemingly overnight!) probably due to the lack of exercise I've been able to give her. This is now hopefully resolved as she is back in work, but it will be some time before she is going anything really strenuous.

Supplements are:

100ml ProLaminae+
45ml (9500IU) Vit E
25ml Mag Ox
50ml ground Rosehip
15ml ALCAR
10ml glucosamine
10ml Boswellia
25ml (L-Lysine, DL-Methionine, L-Threonine)
1ml Selenium

90ml Linseed oil
50ml whole milk thistle

Current hay is 5kg 12 hour soaked hay in 2 nets overnight.

She isn't eating all of her hay, preferring to eat the really manky straw (probably because it is full of seed heads at the moment).

"Dinner" is what I've having bother with. It needs to be wet to bind all of the powder. So far she has said no to the Agrobs weisen cobs (both warm and cold water), and a very definitive no! to twice rinsed sugarbeet (as I can't easily get the no molasses added stuff here). Trying to add that amount of powder to damped chaff doesn't work.

All in all, the powder smells very innocuous, just chalky (to me anyway).

What ever I add it to it must be cereal/grain/molasses free; less than 10% NSC; volumous enough to bind the powder; kind to bare feet; available in France!

Any ideas?

Last night I made a mix of the sugar beet, Agrobs muesli, and a huge handful of dried spearmint. But I don't know if she ate it all of it, or if it ended up on the floor...
Click to expand...

Does she really need all these supplements - ie; have the relevant tests been carried out to ascertain whether she is deficient/her forage/grazing is deficient? I know she has PSSM, and there are certain supplements indicated in the management of such horses - but this seems a little excessive, and I'm not surprised she doesn't want to eat!
 
What about Readymash Fibre? I recently swapped Toby onto this after a stress colic episode and he really likes it, licks the bucket clean and he can be fussy! Alternatively, does she like bread? Could you put some of the supplements into a slice of bread with some mint and give her separately so you know she is getting them? This is what I am having to do with the Vit E powder I bought while waiting for the oil.
 
can you get magnesium chloride flakes over there? I have more success getting magnesium into my horses when it's MgCl dissolved in water, so now they have a large bucket with MgCl in it and a separate plain water bucket. You have to dissolve 100g of flakes to get 12g of magnesium. I can get the flakes very cheaply from an agricultural store so it works out cheaper than MagOx for me.
 
I would cut out the oil if she needs to lose weight and feed a balancer (like topspec with everything in) rather than all those different supplements
 
Auslander said:
Does she really need all these supplements - ie; have the relevant tests been carried out to ascertain whether she is deficient/her forage/grazing is deficient? I know she has PSSM, and there are certain supplements indicated in the management of such horses - but this seems a little excessive, and I'm not surprised she doesn't want to eat!
Click to expand...

Well...

she's on the ProLaminae for her feet - which are absolutely stonking, so I don't want to take her off it. There is nothing in here which would be contraindicated with anything else.

For PSSM she is on the Vit E, Mag Ox, ALCAR. We're experimenting with the amino acids as she has never had a good top line, no matter what work she was doing (and I'm considering getting her tested for PSSM2 due to this)

She gets the glucosamine and boswellia as a joint supplement. Tomorrow she is having back xrays to rule out KS, especially over the one area which is constantly jammed up under a whorl.

She gets extra selenium as at her last blood test she was extremely deficient, and a selenium supplement was advised by my vet.

The linseed oil is instead of micronized linseed as she didn't get on well with the last batch I got for her.

Milk thistle is liver support, and she eats this like it's going out of fashion!

I could remove/not add the rosehips, as tbh are only there for a bit of taste.

I was thinking of trying Lucerne pellets, but I'm hearing conflicting things regarding the PSSM.
 
NOISYGIRL said:
I would cut out the oil if she needs to lose weight and feed a balancer (like topspec with everything in) rather than all those different supplements
Click to expand...

The horse has PSSM it needs the oil!! and topspec is frankly pants compared to the balancer casey is currently feeding :p

casey my thought would have been museli I'm no good on what else rocks up in france!

I'd sack off the glucosamine, I don't believe it is absorbed or makes it to the joints and does she need the extra mag on top of what the prolaminae is delivering?
 
Art Nouveau said:
can you get magnesium chloride flakes over there? I have more success getting magnesium into my horses when it's MgCl dissolved in water, so now they have a large bucket with MgCl in it and a separate plain water bucket. You have to dissolve 100g of flakes to get 12g of magnesium. I can get the flakes very cheaply from an agricultural store so it works out cheaper than MagOx for me.
Click to expand...

They sell it for cattle, I know its easy to get hold of in the UK as its commonly used. I'd assume so as well in France.

Have you tried Copra?
 
Thanks everyone.

My current pre-mix (I make everything up week to week) runs out on Friday, after that I'll leave out the extra magnesium and the rosehips.

I'm wondering if I should try the Agrobs mash. It comes up at almost 12% NSC, but for a small feed it should be OK?

INGREDIENTS
Prenatura@-Fibers, linseed granulate (cyanide free), apple pomace, Pre Alpin Struktur Fibers, carrot, beetroot, parsnip, oil mixture cold-pressed (linseed oil, camelina oil), psyllium seeds, rose-hip skins (seedless), fennel, caraway seeds

[table="width: 500, class: outer_border"]
[tr]
[td]Protein[/td]
[td]12.8%[/td]
[td]Potassium[/td]
[td]1.37%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Dig. protein[/td]
[td]10.5%[/td]
[td]Sulphur[/td]
[td]0.17%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Precaec. dig. protein[/td]
[td]8.3%[/td]
[td]Zinc[/td]
[td]34.5 mg/kg[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]oils and fat[/td]
[td]4.8%[/td]
[td]Manganese[/td]
[td]89.9 mg/kg[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Fibre[/td]
[td]18.9%[/td]
[td]Copper[/td]
[td]8.58 mg/kg[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Ash[/td]
[td]7.3%[/td]
[td]Selenium[/td]
[td]<0.1 mg/kg[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Calcium[/td]
[td]0.53%[/td]
[td]Starch[/td]
[td]2.5%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Phosphorus[/td]
[td]0.3%[/td]
[td]Sugar[/td]
[td]9.3%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Magnesium[/td]
[td]0.24%[/td]
[td]Fructan[/td]
[td]4.7%[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Chloride[/td]
[td]0.22%[/td]
[td]digestible energy[/td]
[td]10.3 DE MG/kg[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Sodium[/td]
[td]0.06%[/td]
[td]metabolizable energy[/td]
[td]8.9 ME MJ/kg[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Unfortunately I can't find any distributors of copra anywhere in my vicinity :/
 
Last edited:
I think its the boswellia that tastes / smells a bit dodgy - but I can use copra to hide the flavour. Fenugreek also seems to work as something they like the smell of but is strong enough to hide other stuff.

If you're only doing a small feed then I think the mash should be fine.
 
Unfortunately she won't touch anything with either fenugreek or turmeric in it, won't even put her nose in the bowl... of course I only figured this out once I'd bought 4kg of fenugreek lol!
 
Bran is very palatable, I keep some just for supplements for fussy feeder. And you can feed it wet or dry - I used some this morning to give Danilon to a horse who hardly ever cleans up. 1/3 scoop of bran, a drop of water and the Danilon and the bucket is licked clean. I also use it to disguise the taste of the Forageplus balancer which they wouldn't accept in anything else. Cheap enough and pretty universally available I would think
 
Unfortunately bran has a very high NSC (Rice bran = 21%, wheat bran is over 30%) and it is something I would be keen to avoid in any metabolic horse.

Thanks for the suggestions though :)
 
Casey76 said:
Unfortunately bran has a very high NSC (Rice bran = 21%, wheat bran is over 30%) and it is something I would be keen to avoid in any metabolic horse.

Thanks for the suggestions though :)
Click to expand...

You only need a handful. The total amount of NSCs as a % of the whole diet would be negligible. And compared to failing to eat important supplements very much the lesser of two evils.
 
OLDGREYMARE said:
Keyflow pink mash,my fussy old cushings mare loves it and so do the others.Hell of a lot cheaper than agrobs too.
Click to expand...

Something based on "soy hull superfibre" no thanks

Not that I could get it delivered to France for any cheaper than I can pick up a bag of Agrobs (which is in plentiful supply here ;) )

Thanks for the suggestion though :)
 
my old mare is a B***er to feed - real fussy.

THis winter she has lived out on adlib hay, and 2 meals consisting of:

pro earth balancer
Coolstance copra - soaked in warm water
Mirconised lineed
Handful of grass chaff

Shes 22 and a TB and looking great ... plus she actually wants her feed! even when shes been eating hay all day! which is a first - i think she likes it warm too

have tried fast fibre and speedi beet before and she wasnt too fussed on it.

Maybe replace the linseed oil with just linseed - some horses dont like the taste / texture
 
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