Magnesium and rain

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Flamenco

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A quick query for people who have horses who are deficient in magnesium, those who have been transformed after feeding magnesium oxide or a magnesium based calmer.
  1. How much do you feed?
  2. Does your horses behaviour change back after heavy rain?
  3. Have you tried feeding more magnesium to counteract or prevent this? How much? Does it work?
As a bit of background my horse was super spooky and unrideable, otherwise known as grass affected - see calm healthy horses website. We've found a dose of magnesium oxide (cheap ebay stuff) which works 99% of the time. I think the few odd times are after heavy rain. My theory is that it makes the grass grow quickly and messes up the balance. Any thoughts?
 
Flamenco said:
A quick query for people who have horses who are deficient in magnesium, those who have been transformed after feeding magnesium oxide or a magnesium based calmer.
  1. How much do you feed?
  2. Does your horses behaviour change back after heavy rain?
  3. Have you tried feeding more magnesium to counteract or prevent this? How much? Does it work?
As a bit of background my horse was super spooky and unrideable, otherwise known as grass affected - see calm healthy horses website. We've found a dose of magnesium oxide (cheap ebay stuff) which works 99% of the time. I think the few odd times are after heavy rain. My theory is that it makes the grass grow quickly and messes up the balance. Any thoughts?
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Best way to find out is have your horse blood test so you know what horse is actually lacking as he may not be deficient in magnesium and overdose of magnesium can decrease your horse calcium and phosphorus uptake.

Fructon are stored in grass and when it cools at night it fuels for growth.

Your horse maybe consuming too much sugar in grass could be culprit of his spookiness?
 
Thanks for your replies. The vet receptionist said magnesium doesn't always show in a blood test so to try a branded magnesium supplement and if that didn't work then do a blood test. It worked so we didn't do a blood test.

Would the supplement still work if the issue was fructan / sugar? It started working within days and issues returned when I stopped feeding it.
 
Flamenco said:
Thanks for your replies. The vet receptionist said magnesium doesn't always show in a blood test so to try a branded magnesium supplement and if that didn't work then do a blood test. It worked so we didn't do a blood test.

Would the supplement still work if the issue was fructan / sugar? It started working within days and issues returned when I stopped feeding it.
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Hi, keep him on magnesium if it is working. He may be deficient. Thing is when horse become deficient. All the best
 
Hi Leo - might be a silly question but how would you tell? I took him off everything with mollasses / sugar in it before trying the supplement and I didn't notice a difference
 
trainwithbrain said:
overdose of magnesium can decrease your horse calcium and phosphorus uptake.
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Could you tell me where you got this from? I've done a bit of research into mineral balancing because of severe overloads of iron and manganese in my land and it's not something I've ever heard of before. The 'barefoot' supplements tend to have high doses of magnesium and many people with barefoot horses follow the advice of one of the best known advocates in the country to give massive doses of magnesium. Kentucky Equine Research says its very difficult to overdose magnesium because the horse does not absorb it. As far as I was aware all overdosing does is waste money as they pee it away in cloudy urine?

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ycbm said:
Could you tell me where you got this from? I've done a bit of research into mineral balancing because of severe overloads of iron and manganese in my land and it's not something I've ever heard of before. The 'barefoot' supplements tend to have high doses of magnesium and many people with barefoot horses follow the advice of one of the best known advocates in the country to give massive doses of magnesium. Kentucky Equine Research says its very difficult to overdose magnesium because the horse does not absorb it. As far as I was aware all overdosing does is waste money as they pee it away in cloudy urine?

.
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This is what I have been led to believe also re the overdosing.

Rapidly growing grass (like you would get after rain) is often deficient in magnesium, (in NZ anyway) that is probably why you notice a change in your horses behaviour.
 
ycbm said:
Could you tell me where you got this from? I've done a bit of research into mineral balancing because of severe overloads of iron and manganese in my land and it's not something I've ever heard of before. The 'barefoot' supplements tend to have high doses of magnesium and many people with barefoot horses follow the advice of one of the best known advocates in the country to give massive doses of magnesium. Kentucky Equine Research says its very difficult to overdose magnesium because the horse does not absorb it. As far as I was aware all overdosing does is waste money as they pee it away in cloudy urine?

.
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Yes Excessive magnesium will be excreted in the urine, but overdoses have been linked to decreased calcium and phosphorus uptake.
 
YCBM - that's really interesting about the barefoot supplements and magnesium because although he's shod his new hoof growth is much stronger than the old hoof. Interesting side effect!

I know I'm going slightly off topic but how much magnesium do barefooters feed?

Thanks Silv that's really interesting! It explains a lot.
 
The article needs to be read in full. It says a bit further down that an overdose might be possible at 80g of magnesium a day.


It would be all but impossible to give a horse 80 grams of pure magnesium a day in a supplement. If you use MgO, for example, pure mag oxide, the weight of magnesium is in a ratio with the oxygen of 24/32. So to feed 80 grams of magnesium in a supplement, you would need to feed 200 or so grams of it and the horse would have to absorb every bit of it, which I believe they aren't that good at anyway. (The ratio in all other forms of supplement is even lower).

I don't think anyone needs to worry about overdosing magnesium unless they are on land/forage with huge quantities of it, and I've never even heard of that in Britain.

The best indicator is probably cloudy wee. I used to feed 25 g of calmag and saw the horses had cloudy wee. I cut it to 15g and the wee is clear, with no change in feet or behaviour.




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Great - I wouldn't ever have looked at his wee, so thanks for the tip.

Cal mag seems to be calcium and magnesium, and all the magnesium supplements have calcium in, so perhaps calcium is needed as well? The branded supplements are properly balanced, but you have to feed so much powder to get a result. I'll look for calmag.
 
Flamenco said:
Great - I wouldn't ever have looked at his wee, so thanks for the tip.

Cal mag seems to be calcium and magnesium, and all the magnesium supplements have calcium in, so perhaps calcium is needed as well? The branded supplements are properly balanced, but you have to feed so much powder to get a result. I'll look for calmag.
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Cal mag is not calcium and magnesium. It is calicinated magnesium and contains no calcum. It is about 60% of magnesium, and some iron, and some impurities. It is okay to feed, as long as your grass / hay isn't high iron levels. But you are just supplementing magnesium.

** The branded supplements are properly balanced, but you have to feed so much powder to get a result.** - Hollow laugh at naïve statement.

There has been a lot of misinformation and poor science spouted by a supplement company that sells calcium based calmers, and that often tell people their horse's diet is too high in magnesium. Which is not possible to know unless you analyse the grass and hay that makes up 80% of diet to know magnesium levels. Most UK grass and hay is very low in magnesium hence need to supplement, but need to test to know.
 
Do you pH test? I pH test a few times a week in conjuction with CHH supplement (on CHH advice) and it has really helped maintain normal levels all year round.
 
Hi, yes the PH test is 8 when he's normal (most of the time on current dose) and 9 when he's anxious, spooky and generally not himself. I haven't tested recently though. I probably ought to following the recent rain.

I only googled cal mag quickly so looks like the info wasn't correct. I thought calcium may be linked but perhaps not. I'm fairly cynical about branding hence moving to the cheap ebay mag ox which is much cheaper, less needed and less powder to mix in feed.
 
Flamenco said:
Hi, yes the PH test is 8 when he's normal (most of the time on current dose) and 9 when he's anxious, spooky and generally not himself. I haven't tested recently though. I probably ought to following the recent rain.

I only googled cal mag quickly so looks like the info wasn't correct. I thought calcium may be linked but perhaps not. I'm fairly cynical about branding hence moving to the cheap ebay mag ox which is much cheaper, less needed and less powder to mix in feed.
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Interesting, I thought from the CHH guidance pH7 was normal and anything above 7 was an issue.

My horse was a fairly consistent 8 before CHH supplementation, and after 3 months of a fairly high dosage. We tested most of the yard and the metabolic horse was 9. Most of the others were 7.5-8.5 (this was in height of summer last year, with them turned out on rye mix of grass).

I have done mineral balancing, and separately I have fed the CHH alleviate and graze-easy. I did not see a benefit on my horse with CHH so I stopped. The labels indicated they are providing more than just magnesium, for a DIY imitation.

I do feed sodium, magnesium, zinc, copper, selenium, etc as standard. I also feed a low sugar, low starch, high fibre and quality protein diet. I don’t avoid alfa A which CHH recommend.

I now have my horse on a much less potent grass, which I feel is important for us.
 
MuddyMonster said:
Do you pH test? I pH test a few times a week in conjuction with CHH supplement (on CHH advice) and it has really helped maintain normal levels all year round.
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Please could you explain how you use the PH testing results? Which of their products you give extra of and how much?

I missed this when I read your message earlier. This is where I'm stuck as my DIY version works apart from odd days.

I was ph testing daily but it never changed so I stopped. If this links to feeding extra then I'll start again as this will make it much easier.

His normal ph is 8, but so is the water, so maybe the strips are dodgy? They were £1 inc postage, so you probably get what you pay for!

I'm also feeding salt and vitamins (or balancer) as CHH recommends. I'm not adverse to trying their products but it sounds like I'm almost there.
 
Thanks for your feedback on CHH products. I was going to try them but the vets sold me a branded magnesium based supplement which worked. Obviously there was loads of other stuff in it as well as magnesium.

I might look into analysing the grazing but he's on livery so its not my land
 
@Flamenco I bought the Simplex pH test strips of eBay at something like 100 for £ 7. Mine go from (I think) 4 or 5 and up to 9 but in 0.5 incremements, so you can see the subtle changes. I'll take a picture of the box tomorrow for you.

At the moment, I'm just using Alleviate C but was using Grazeeasy earlier on in the year at a different yard. I'm now on poorer grazing at a new yard so haven't found I needed it.

Before Alleviate C his reading was almost a 9 - despite being muzzled, on a magnesium supplement, alfalfa free/low sugar diet with soaked hay but was still showing quite extreme symptoms, at times.

It's now usually between a 7-7.5 and he's currently living out 24/7 but he's back to his usual (if not even improved ;) ) self with the occassional spike when I get caught out - I'm new to him living out and he's only been on CHH since April/May so still learning what triggers him.

If it spikes, I up the Alleviate C and bring him in for a few nights and then return out 24/7.

I found Sue at CHH UK to be brilliant at advise wheras despite showing physical and behavioural symptoms, I struggled to get vets to take it seriously.
 
Since we've already established that it's very difficult to overdose magnesium, I don't understand why you just don't put him on a dose of mag ox that's definitely more than he will ever need and let him pee away the excess. That will make it clear whether his behaviour changes are connected with grass growth, magnesium, or something else.

.
 
Muddy Monster - that's brilliant thanks! I'm glad you got this sorted. I couldn't do anything with mine at PH 9, he was anxious, spooky and explosive to ride so you have my full sympathy.

YCBM - Actually that's by far the easiest solution. I'm over complicating this by trying to feed the minimum I can get away which is causing the issues. Sometimes you just need someone to point out the obvious!

Thanks everyone for your help!
 
Flamenco said:
YCBM - that's really interesting about the barefoot supplements and magnesium because although he's shod his new hoof growth is much stronger than the old hoof. Interesting side effect!

I know I'm going slightly off topic but how much magnesium do barefooters feed?
.
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I've only just seen this question, sorry. I feed 15 grams of calmag but I know 25g and 50g isn't uncommon in barefooters. There are lots of reports of it improving feet, possibly because it's making the hind gut less acid and better absorbing, possibly a beneficial effect on insulin regulation, maybe both and more.

Sadly, though I hate to fall out with Rockley Farm who do great work in barefoot rehab, I think their suggested amounts of calmag are crazy. I think I read three 50ml scoops a day in the most recent book.
 
ycbm said:
Since we've already established that it's very difficult to overdose magnesium, I don't understand why you just don't put him on a dose of mag ox that's definitely more than he will ever need and let him pee away the excess. That will make it clear whether his behaviour changes are connected with grass growth, magnesium, or something else.

.
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Magnesium oxide did nothing for mine, whereas he was able to uptake a magnedium chloride based supplement much more effeciently. So sadly, just feeding a high amount of MgO doesn't always help in all cases - that would be so much cheaper ;).

@Flamenco I also forgot to add, I feed lot of salt too.I struggle to grt him to eat enough in his feed so spray his hay and add to his water too.
 
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