Magesium

touchstone said:
"Don't use Epsom Salts, the chemical make up is not the same. I asked about using human magnesium tablets and the quantities you would need to use would mean needing about 4 bottles a week."

Ditto this, you can buy magnesium from Feedmark quite cheaply, a tub lasts ages.
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I've used Epsom Salt for decades with the same result as the commercial ones. True tha composition is different but it does the same thing and is so much cheaper to buy. It does no harm but can do a lot of good.

To improve the effect feed equal amounts of Epsom Salts, Baking Soda, Yeast & Dried Thyme. Generally to treat 1 tablespoon of each twice daily - for prevention one level deseert spoon each twice daily.
 
Epsom salts is much harsher on the guts than plain mag ox though, which is why I'd use mag ox; it isn't much more expensive than epsom salts and kinder to the digestive system.
 
touchstone said:
Epsom salts is much harsher on the guts than plain mag ox though, which is why I'd use mag ox; it isn't much more expensive than epsom salts and kinder to the digestive system.
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I agree and epsom salts is actually magnesium sulphate not magnesium oxide. It also has a purgative effect.

Magnesium supplementation will only be effective if your horse and his diet is deficient in the first place. I believe magnesium soil deficiency is quite common so grass, hays and haylages made from deficient grasses will tend to leave horses short. If horses get loose with it reduce the dose till it stops or it may well mean they don't need it.

I feed calmag which is mag oxide, salt and a small amount of mollasses. It's also very cheap and available from Agri merchants. I can't get magnesium oxide over here without a vet prescription. Calmag is gritty and one of my horses had to be introduced to it by putting small amount in her beet and gradually increasing it. The others just woofed it down.
 
Conundrum -
I was just about to nab one of the 1/3 off Magic's from efeed, then found this thread. Do we reckon CalMag is going to be as good as Magic?

Am i just being a wimp because i'm a bit of a label poser? I should really just get 20kg of cal mag from countrywide for the same price as 1kg of Magic and then go drink the savings down the pub shouldn't I?
 
Recently read that Calcium & Magnesium should not be fed together in the same feed they stop each other working - a bit like Iron & Vitamin should not be fed together.

The quantity you feed of Epsom Salts is not going to cause the horse any problems - treatment for a horse is 1 Tablespoon twice daily, and preventative 1 Dessertspoon twice daily.

Finally found the link

http://www.performanceequineusa.com/magnesium-themineralsuperhero.aspx
 
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I believe magnesium acetate, although more expensive, is the most gentle way to supplement magnesium.

However, I have one question. Grass contains chlorophyll, whose 'central' molecule is magnesium. Green = Mg, so why would a horse out at grass need Mg? As inefficient herbivores, can they not digest sufficient amounts of the chlorophyll molecule to take out the Mg despite a healthy bacterial presence in the gut? Does anyone know the answer to this?
 
It's to do with soils in some areas being deficient in magnesium and I think to some extent the grasses ability to take it up in unfavourable conditions. http://www.safergrass.org/articles/minerals.html

Cal mag doesn't contain calcium.Well the cal mag I buy doesn't, I rang the manufacturer to ask what was in it. For a test I'd tend to buy a small amount of pure magnesium oxide and if it helps either continue or switch to cal mag.
http://www.naturalhorsesupplies.co....1-Cal+Mag++Calcinated+Magnesite+900g++%A3275/
 
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Many soils are magnesium deficient - one of the reasons dairy farmers use Magnesium salt blocks in their fields.

Fast growing grass is also deficient in Magnesium - the reason that some horses become fruitloops in Spring. I have a magnesium salt block in my paddock at the moment as here in NZ the grass is growing fast and as mine don't need extra feed they can get the magnesium they need.
 
Farmers use Mg supplementation for lactating cattle and sheep where there is a high requirement for Mg (for milk production). There is no evidence to suggest Mg deficiency in horses in the UK (not even lactating mares) and certainly Ca deficiency does not occur in horses (apart from hypocalcaemia in lactating mares) as their diet (i.e. forage) has more than enough Calcium.

Furthermore there is no evidence that Mg has a calming effect on horses. Its only use (anecdotally) appears to be helping prevent laminitis in horses with metabolic syndrome. Why don't you ask all these companies who make a fortune from selling equine supplements for "evidence" - and that is real peer-reviewed scientific evidence from trials - not anecdotal evidence and testimonies - I think you'll find they don't actually have any!! Sorry rant over.
 
CMMB - Magnesium is a muscle relaxant - and requires calcium to maintain correct muscle function. Magnesium deficiency causes 'Grass Tetany' the muscles twitch and the horse is hyper sensitive to stimuli. When you see three of your normally calm school ponys freaking when being touched you understand the effect of insufficient magnesium - feed with Epsom Salts had them right again in a couple of days.

You will never find horses deficient in blood calcium as it gets removed from the bones if the diet is deficient.

Horse feed is notoriously high in phosphorous which inbalances the phosphorous calcium ratio. Limestone has been fed for centuries to horses to ensure that they get sufficient calcium.

In natural forage land in the Chiltern hills is high in Calcium as any one who lives in the area will tell you as you have to descale the kettle every few weeks - were some land is deficient in calcium - no lime scale in the kettle. Therefore in some areas horses will be deficient in Calcium.

I don't use the commercial preparations as they don't work as well as the Stockmans recipe I was given.
1 Tablespoon each of Epsom Salts, Baking Soda, Yeast & Dried Thyme. Fed twice a day for treating, for prevention 1 Dessert spoon daily - preferably split into two feeds. For ponies proportionally smaller.
 
Hi Evelyn, I said there is no "evidence" for hypomagnesaemia in horses in the UK. Hyopmag or grass stagers occurs at certain times of the year in "highly producing" animals - certainly horses are not high producing. Saying that I put a high Mg sheep block up to allow them to help themselves all year round.

Hypocalcaemia can occur in mares in early lactation (as it does in cows and sheep) due to the sudden increased demand for Ca in the milk which cannot be mobilised fast enough from the body's strore i.e. the skeleton and via various other routes. P:Ca imbalance leads onto developmental orthapaedic disease such as OCD. Once the skeleton is etablished P:Ca imblanced diets don't have this effect.
 
Hi Evelyn - Just seen one of your other posts. For clarifacation we are talking grass staggers (Mg deficiency) not Rye-grass staggers (mycotoxin poisoning) - the latter common in NZ, not in the UK. Two totally different clinical conditions both capable of causing nervous twitchy animals.
 
I'm well aware that we are talking about Grass Staggers - or Grass Tetany (the effect of Spring/Autumn flush). We do have both in NZ - Rye Grass Staggers generally found whenthe weather breaks and the stressed grass starts growing again and being from UK am well aware of what we have in the UK too.

When I still lived in the UK it used to be referred to as Spring Fever - too much spring grass. It was in NZ I found out about why horses behave this way from a saddler - he would tell his stressing, bucked off customers clutching their saddles to go home and feed some Epsom Salts for a few weeks while the spring flush was coming through. When our school ponies were ill I called the vet and she also advised to feed Epsom salts for a few days and they would right themselves fast - which they did!

All grass is low in Magnesium during the spring/autumn flush and it is at these times that the horses become spooky, hyper reactive and generally not themselves.

Bone is being remodelled throughout the lifetime so phosphorus/Calcium ratio still needs to be maintained. Miller's disease didn't just affect young horses! If the diet is deficient in Calcium then the body will remove it from the bones to keep the blood calcium levels balanced.

The mix I mentioned works exceedingly well for both Grass Staggers and Rye Grass Staggers - in fact this recipe worked better than the commercial mix on my youngster that went down with Rye Grass Staggers after the drought here a few years ago. There are now many horses on this mix year round with great results - recipe passed on through other forums around the world. My vet analysed the mix and said the same thing - magnesium for the hyper reactivity, the yeast binds any toxins, the baking soda helps keep the gut acids stabilised & Thyme is a natural blood purifier. The whole mix is also more palatable than the commercial mixes.

I don't know if you went to this link and read about the role of magnesium but it is worth reading.
http://www.performanceequineusa.com/magnesium-themineralsuperhero.aspx
 
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Went to add this to my post and couldn't - UK does also have Rye Grass Staggers but not to the extent that NZ does. As the weather patterns change you may get to see more of it though. Any pasture that has Perrenial Rye Grass in it is susceptable to it especially if it is treated seed. Stressed (drought) overgrazed grass is the most suceptable.

Some interesting readings

Title
Recurrence of a syndrome resembling ryegrass staggers
Authors
Wood, E. N.; Gibson, E. A.
Correspondence
Veterinary Record 1980 Vol. 106 No. 22 pp. 466
ISSN
0042-4900
Record Number
19802258525
Abstract
A nervous syndrome resembling migram and ryegrass staggers was reported in cattle and sheep grazing the Yare and Waverley marshes in Norfolk during hot, dry summers in 1972, 1976 and 1979. In 1979, six seven-month-old heifers became unsteady on their feet, showed head nodding movements, and had a 'star gazing' appearance but did not (as had occurred in 1976) collapse when chased. Signs persisted for six weeks until the weather changed, producing renewed growth on the pasture, which had a consistently high stock rate and was often very short. This condition might be associated with the ingestion of a soil-borne tremorgenic mycotoxin.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...baccf85d362bbe236df129ff596ae228&searchtype=a
 
I'm a human nutritionalist not a horse one but ...... If you take any single minaral in isolation it can prevent absorption of other minerals as they use the same absorption pathways. I can't remember off the top of my head exactly what ones, but in terms of humans I rarely recommend high dose single nutrients, and favour given the body a little of everything as after all you don't find nutrients on there own in nature. Although I appreciate that anything made for horses is ten times the price it needs to be, I would still stick to the companies that you trust and the combinations they've formulated.
 
bensonthewonderhorse said:
I'm a human nutritionalist not a horse one but ...... If you take any single minaral in isolation it can prevent absorption of other minerals as they use the same absorption pathways. I can't remember off the top of my head exactly what ones, but in terms of humans I rarely recommend high dose single nutrients, and favour given the body a little of everything as after all you don't find nutrients on there own in nature. Although I appreciate that anything made for horses is ten times the price it needs to be, I would still stick to the companies that you trust and the combinations they've formulated.
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I understand where you are coming from and humans have the freedom to pick and choose a variety of foods to cover their nutrtional needs. Unfortunatly a horse - shut in his field or stable can't roam freely to get all the herbs/minerals to balance his nutritional needs. In general a small amount of all the vitamins & minerals means the horse does hopefully get what he needs but at certain times of the year his principle feed grows deficient in an essential mineral - Magnesium - then it needs replacing and rapidly. In addition the ratio of Phosphorous to Calcium in traditional horse feed is unbalanced so Calcium - as Lime Flour - has always been added.
 
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