Mineral people please answer me this...

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zoon

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I am going to mix my own minerals, haven't had forage analysed as supplier changes so going to make a copy of pro balance/forage plus winter balancer.

Until I realised that the forage plus dosage is about twice that of pro balance!am I being a dunce and looking at it wrong? Is there any reason why forage plus tell you to feed 100g per day and pro balance is only 50g? They are roughly the same % w/w so just need to work out what dose to feed now... Am I looking at it all wrong?
 
I don't know the reason except possibly cost. The Forage Plus ones are based on the average of all the forage analysis that have gone through them. So it's based on levels needed for average deficiencies and imbalances found.
 
I know from other people locally that our soil lacks those minerals included in these balancers so although not exact, it is a good compromise. If I use the pro balance dose I can make it for less that 15p per day, but hat doubles with forage plus doses. So what do I use?
 
Are they both using the same forms of minerals, e.g. You have to feed alot more bioplex copper than copper sulphate to get the same amount of active copper but the former is supposed to be better.
Is there a non active filler to help distribute the ingredients and make it up to an even scoop.
Are there extras e.g yeasacc or brewers yeast linseed, which would significantly change the volume.
I did a quick comparison for cost the other day for a friend and the progressive earth one worked out at £30 for 25 days and the forage plus £44 for 50 days so would not think the forageplus had loads more active ingredients.

I think you need to approach from a different way. Work out how much of say magnesium you want to feed, work out how many grams of magic or calmag is needed to supply this. Do this for all of them. Do one dose first so you can work out number of scoops per day. Then scale up your mix to make up a batch.

Hope that helps
 
I've worked the ingredients out as % w/w so that means grams of ingredient in 100g of product and diacounts thw fillers. Both use bioplexes (autocorrect tries to change this to bio plebs - lol) and unless I am missing something, they are pretty much the same but forage plus tell you to feed twice as much.


criso said:
Are they both using the same forms of minerals, e.g. You have to feed alot more bioplex copper than copper sulphate to get the same amount of active copper but the former is supposed to be better.
Is there a non active filler to help distribute the ingredients and make it up to an even scoop.
Are there extras e.g yeasacc or brewers yeast linseed, which would significantly change the volume.
I did a quick comparison for cost the other day for a friend and the progressive earth one worked out at £30 for 25 days and the forage plus £44 for 50 days so would not think the forageplus had loads more active ingredients.

I think you need to approach from a different way. Work out how much of say magnesium you want to feed, work out how many grams of magic or calmag is needed to supply this. Do this for all of them. Do one dose first so you can work out number of scoops per day. Then scale up your mix to make up a batch.

Hope that helps
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It is difficult to compare them as there are lots of things that are different but I see what you mean. There are key mineral in common and forageplus's recommendations are about twice the content in the pro hoof/balance.

I feed straight minerals on a forage plus feed plan so I will be feeding similar levels to the winter balancer just tweaked a bit for local conditions so I would go for that.

One thing though, are you getting a seriously cheap source of the minerals, I shop around but use expensive forms (bioplex zinc and copper, magox etc) and I'm not sure it works out much cheaper than the winter balancer. In the examples on their website http://shop.forageplus.com/epages/e...trition for your horse with correct minerals" it works out at 74p per day which is a long way from your 15p
 
If I'm feeding forageplus levels it is about 36p per day as an exact copy of their balancer. Shopping around and having a free supply of magox helps. Need to add cost of yea sacc and linseed on to that though
 
My three expensive ones are magox (that could be saving you 20p a day if you have a free supply) Bioplex copper and Zinc.

Those three probably come to about 50p per day for me.

What is the cheapest supplier you have found for Copper and Zinc, not found many places that sell it.
 
Basing my costs on zinc and copper bioplexes from pro earth. They are cheaper than forageplus. Not rung equimims yet though. Also considering using sulphates rather than bioplexes. The evidence or their greater effectiveness isn't concrete and the sulphates are so much cheaper.
 
Thought you were going to tell me some source I hadn't come across.

Progressive earth is very slightly cheaper (about £2 - £3 per kilo once you've converted the different pack size but if I buy other stuff from forageplus I can get free delivery.

However I used to use Zinc Oxide and Copper sulphate from Equimins before and that is a massive saving. They are also cheaper for Lysine, Phosphorous and magox.
 
Nope, I can make it cheap because I get free magox and will buy everything else in bulk.

Why did you swap from sulphates to bioplexes?

Just had a thought, the info on the eBay listing for pro balance doesn't actually tell you the feeding rates. It says cost when fed a 1 50ml scoop per day, but that might be for a little pony. Can anyone who feeds pro balance please tell me feeding rate for a 500kg horse? If it is 2 scoops then that solves my issue!
 
Ive recently swapped from bioplexes to sulphates. No difference in the horses (I noticed a big difference when she went onto minerals) so seems she is absorbing the sulphates well enough!

I changed due to cost (saves me about £7 a month for 1 horse) andbecause the sulphates have a higher % of Cu & Zn its less powder aswell.
 
When I first had my analysis done, Forageplus were still setting up and they weren't supplying minerals, I think one of the reasons they had to was that Equimins weren't happy to be a general supplier which is born out by the fact they are sometimes refusing to sell to people and the price list is secret.

Then Forageplus starting supplying minerals and I emailed and asked the difference and was told better absorbency, the least contamination and being the most accurate to feed.

I also spoke to some people who reckoned they could tell the difference when they switched with their very sensitive horses.

Mine was at a point where is was steadily improving anyway so he might have continued even if I didn't switch.

But it's like Magox v Calmag, some people swear there is a difference others says there's not.

Not sure about pro balance but pro hoof suggests 1 scoop per horse and 1/2 per pony. Scoops are bigger but there are other things in it and contains the same levels of the ingredients we are comparing.
 
Mine too! Help!

Basically what on earth do I feed my horses? Pro balance or forage plus winter (and at what dose???)? Home made faff with minerals or something more basic? I will use fast fibre, yea sacc and micronised linseed. I get free magox, so what else shall I add? Seems a shame to waste magox by getting PB/F+ and not needing it, but mixing minerals is a big faff. Can I get away with missing some of them out?
 
I know other people absolutely slate it but I use Naf Haylage balancer, to which I add 25g of additional calcined magnesite and 10g of additional copper bioplex (because I know that my land and water is high in manganese and iron). That gives me -

- the rda of all the main vits
- the dose they need of all the main minerals
- antacids to counteract the acidity of haylage
- yeast, so I don't have to add extra yeast
- pro (or is it pre?) biotics.

I don't care that it also has fillers or a marketing hype brand name. It does the job for me at the lowest price and least fuss that I can get all of that lot. I buy it in 9kg tubs six at a time for around £45 a tub free delivery by searching about a bit online. It works for me!
 
cptrayes said:
I know other people absolutely slate it but I use Naf Haylage balancer
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Now that's just confusing things even more by adding another option into the mix ;)

Zoon if you are going to mix your own then given that both contain similar ratios you could make a batch and see how you go with dosage levels, you could always start with less and move up. However it is a big faff and it might be easier just to feed the premixed ones if you are following their recipe. I do it because I noticed a difference when i moved yards until it was tweaked for the new grazing.

I'm not sure it's worth the extra effort if you are not following an exact recipe for your forage as it is alot of work.
 
cptrayes said:
My head hurts :D
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Mine as well. This is why I opted for a mix rather than trying to do it myself. My maths is dreadful and I was afraid I would end up poisoning them. :D
ps. I went for the Forage plus mix, thinking it was a higher spec as I have one horse with long standing problems.
 
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Think I might go for a mix for simplicity, but still doesn't solve the dosage issue? Why is one supplying effectively double what the other does?
 
zoon said:
Think I might go for a mix for simplicity, but still doesn't solve the dosage issue? Why is one supplying effectively double what the other does?
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The FP one as I said is based on average deficiencies. What about asking Pro hoof aka Progressive horse?
 
...mmmm I'm gonna throw a little spark plug into the 'mix' now!... I used the FP Winter mix and they told me to feed 75gms a day (my boy is 400kgs),.. i actually feed half of this and he's doing fine and i've seen a good improvement over the last 6 weeks or so.

sorry if that confuddles you even more, but i started off feeding 25gms of the mix and upped it to 50gm slowly,... but then dropped it again as i thought i'm going to see if half of what FP told me to feed will see any difference/improvement on his feet......and it has!

So I guess i've kinda 'tweaked' my own ration of FP winter mix to what I think is suiting my boy at the moment and go on what my eyes tell me and how he is feeling in his feet!!

Other supplements i'm giving are: mag ox, seaweed, linseed, seaweed and monosodium phosphate (as we has a forage analysis done earlier on the hay). Again i've tweaked this supplements myself too!!

It's doing the job on my boy and that's what matters to me!....and him :)
 
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