Mineral/Vit Deficiency symptoms in Unshod and Shod pones

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PooJay

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There are so many things out there to worry that your horse is deficient in, i think mine is pretty much ok but i could be missing something glaringly obvious to someone else! I thought i'd share my experiences in the hope that someone may get something from it or can offer me advice?

Has your horse been deficient in something? How did you work it out? Did you have bloods, test your forage or did you just try loads of things and find one that worked so stuck with it?

Do you actually feed trace minerals and elements just because you think you should?

I'll go first with some details on my girl. :)

My beastie was imported from Poland, she's a Polish Warmblood and was 5 when i bought her and is now rising 8. She's a very (VERY) good doer, very shiny coat, she is without shoes and can hack on the road quite happily without boots.

I feed her on less than 1 round scoop of fast fibre and 2 small handfuls of hifi lite per day plus plenty of unsoaked meadow hay during the night.

I supplement her diet with Equinourish from Trinity, Magox and some electrolyte thingys :D

She is sensitive to grass, doesn't go really footy but does get massive hamster pouches on new fresh grass, as she gets used to the grass these get smaller (i never have her on 24/7 t/o because of this)
She also has very sensitive skin, recently had an allergic reaction to a washed numnah (i felt so guilty) and had 1 allergic reaction to hoof putty at exactly the same time last year (which makes me think that spring grass makes her uber sensitive!)

She was deficient in magnesium and the symptoms were stressedness, really tight muscles, she'd get wound up but would not calm down no matter how long i rode her for. 2 or so days on magnesium and she was a different mare.

I'm considering brewers yeast going into Spring but i'm worried that I might just be feeding it for the sake of feeding it as i don't "seem" to have anything to fix atm.

Anyone else? :)
 
for me one reason to feed supplements would be the poor growth rate in the feet and poor quality of growth.
These are the horses people post about saying "if I carry on on the roads he will wear his feet down to nothing". They do as growth just doesn't keep up with wear. I have found with one of these type of horses that no supplement means his feet wear away too fast and he needed lots of booting. With supplementation he is normal. He goes on the roads and his feet grow and need trimming.

The other point for him was quality of foot, in his case wall. Without supplementation it was shelly. A trip through a river with rocks and he would have pieces of wall missing on several feet. Introduced a supplement and this stopped very quickly and now he can do anywhere with just a normal chipping rate of the wall (which is of course very infrequent).

so for some they are vital. Others seem to get away with it. I think the only way to find out is to hay and grass test for minerals or alternatively to try one of the better supplements and see if there is any improvement.

mine is unshod BTW, didn't make that very clear.
 
Forage analysis is the only way to tell what might be deficient in the diet.

I feel that many horses are over suplemented nowadays which can cause it's own problems.
 
paddy555 said:
for me one reason to feed supplements would be the poor growth rate in the feet and poor quality of growth.
These are the horses people post about saying "if I carry on on the roads he will wear his feet down to nothing". They do as growth just doesn't keep up with wear. I have found with one of these type of horses that no supplement means his feet wear away too fast and he needed lots of booting. With supplementation he is normal. He goes on the roads and his feet grow and need trimming.

The other point for him was quality of foot, in his case wall. Without supplementation it was shelly. A trip through a river with rocks and he would have pieces of wall missing on several feet. Introduced a supplement and this stopped very quickly and now he can do anywhere with just a normal chipping rate of the wall (which is of course very infrequent).

so for some they are vital. Others seem to get away with it. I think the only way to find out is to hay and grass test for minerals or alternatively to try one of the better supplements and see if there is any improvement.

mine is unshod BTW, didn't make that very clear.
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Thanks for replying - I thought this thread may have died a death :o

How did you decide what supplements to feed btw?

Can you tell me how we would go about getting forage analysed please? Is it expensive? :)
 
touchstone said:
Forage analysis is the only way to tell what might be deficient in the diet.

I feel that many horses are over suplemented nowadays which can cause it's own problems.
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This is what i'm thinking. I feed 1 good base supplement to give her a good level of all of what she needs plus magnesium as i know she needs that. I don't want to go trying everything under the sun just because it's trendy to do so.

I am very much in favour of speaking with 1 nutritionist and noting changes in temperament, footyness and skin/hair quality and talking to him about it.

For example, mare went through a stage of starting to eat the yard picnic table. So i mailed Roger Hatch and he sent me some electrolytes. No more picnic table munching! :D
 
I feed mine straights (basically oats and sugar beet) and I don't feel the need to feed a broad spectrum vit and min supplement. I do give then linseed 'cause it adds a few extra calories, is said to help the joints and gives them a shiney coat (I used to feed a glug of veggie oil before I discovered that you could buy linseed ready cooked!) I feed brewer's yeast 'cause it aids digestion and it stops them rubbing their tails. I also feed calmag 'cause it's recommended for natives. I feed salt (a mixture of half sea salt and half lo-salt) or electrolytes (NAF electrosalts) when I feel they're needed. One is also having MSM and comfrey ATM in the hope that they will help him recover from a tendon strain.

The reasons I don't feed a vit and min supplement is 1, my ponies don't show any signs of any deficiencies, 2, they are on old pasture (currently six acres between the two of them) with access to many different plants, hedges and trees and 3, there are quite a few vits and mins in the supplements they are having, for example, linseed contains copper, phosphate and selenium and brewer's yeast B vits, copper and zinc.

I used to feed garlic but when my old horse showed up as having a low red cell count on a blood test, I looked into the possible causes and found the garlic could be one, I also found a few other reasons not to feed garlic whilst I was at it so I will never feed that again!

My ponies both look well, have shiney coats, enough weight on, have good feet (both unshod ATM), and are happy and well behaved and therefore I don't feel the need to change anything, have blood tests or my forage/grazing analised.
 
PooJay said:
Thanks for replying - I thought this thread may have died a death :o

How did you decide what supplements to feed btw?

Can you tell me how we would go about getting forage analysed please? Is it expensive? :)
Click to expand...

I feed my riding horses equimins meta balance. I also feed it so my oldie who is cushings. I have found the best results with that one and also it contains no iron.


http://www.forageplus.com/
the above site does forage analysis (there are other places as well) It is an expensive exercise as you will see

for some unshod ridden horses balancing minerals seems to be the vital key to success, others can manage perfectly well without a supplement or with the "half way" house of something like meta balance.
 
paddy555 said:
I feed my riding horses equimins meta balance. I also feed it so my oldie who is cushings. I have found the best results with that one and also it contains no iron.


http://www.forageplus.com/
the above site does forage analysis (there are other places as well) It is an expensive exercise as you will see

for some unshod ridden horses balancing minerals seems to be the vital key to success, others can manage perfectly well without a supplement or with the "half way" house of something like meta balance.
Click to expand...

wow....that is pretty expensive! :D thanks, i'll get saving! :eek:
 
I feed yeast because when I don't one of mine goes laminitic and another gets sensitive on stones. On yeast, the only thing I have to do is bring them in from 10 til 7 during the spring and summer days. Yeast has a double anti-inflammatory effect on the gut.

I supplement copper because my land is very heavy in iron and manganese and it's also in the water. They prevent the absorption of copper. Until I supplemented copper one of my horses had flat feet every summer and now he keeps his concavity.

I supplement magnesium oxide because it's deficient in spring grass, which is why horses go loopy in spring and need "calmers" (most of them are magnesium) and because it is effective in reducing the problems of grass diets, beause it helps with the insulin in some way.
 
cptrayes said:
I feed yeast because when I don't one of mine goes laminitic and another gets sensitive on stones. On yeast, the only thing I have to do is bring them in from 10 til 7 during the spring and summer days. Yeast has a double anti-inflammatory effect on the gut.

I supplement copper because my land is very heavy in iron and manganese and it's also in the water. They prevent the absorption of copper. Until I supplemented copper one of my horses had flat feet every summer and now he keeps his concavity.
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we are also high iron, high manganese. By yeast I presume you mean yea sac. Do you find it has a tendency to put weight on? (Or are they just ridden so hard you work it off.) I have 4 on meta balance. Since going onto it they seem to have a tendency to put weight on although they definitely need and do well on that mineral balance. One ridden does enough to keep the weight OK, one ridden is struggling a bit and the 2 pasture pets are showing a definite tendency to weight gain. I can only put it down to the yeast in the MB. One pasture pet is 27yo cushings who is one month into laminitis so his exercise for the foreseable future is going to be very little.
Just wondered if it was the yeast as I am trying to pin point the problem.
 
HashRouge said:
My mare's hooves could be better quality, but I can't afford to have a forage analysis done atm so I'm a bit stuck really :(
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The likeliest deficiency which is coming out of forage analyses is copper. I took the decision not to analyse, due to changing forage supplies, to just supplement the amount of copper which is in Copper Trition, which has no warning on the label that any overdose is possible - so I assume it is safe to supplement that amount.

It's made a lot of difference to the footiness of two of mine, and to the concavity of one of them in particular. You can buy copper direct from Equimins and from Forageplus. It costs less than 5p a day to supplement 100mg
 
paddy555 said:
we are also high iron, high manganese. By yeast I presume you mean yea sac. Do you find it has a tendency to put weight on? (Or are they just ridden so hard you work it off.) I have 4 on meta balance. Since going onto it they seem to have a tendency to put weight on although they definitely need and do well on that mineral balance. One ridden does enough to keep the weight OK, one ridden is struggling a bit and the 2 pasture pets are showing a definite tendency to weight gain. I can only put it down to the yeast in the MB. One pasture pet is 27yo cushings who is one month into laminitis so his exercise for the foreseable future is going to be very little.
Just wondered if it was the yeast as I am trying to pin point the problem.
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Either Brewers yeast or yeasacc will do the same job. It would only put weight on because it sorts out bad digestion, because you don't feed enough of it to cause weight gain from its own calorie levels.
 
I own a barefoot Native whose weight is easy to manage (how lucky am I??!!) and I never have any problems with her feet (touching wood frantically now!). I feed her a very bog standard vit & mineral supplement (NAF) because I don't feed the recommended concentrate levels, especially in the spring/summer. I have a salt lick in her stable at all times, but add additional salt to her feed if we've been out competing and/or she has been sweating copiously.
 
Sorry to bring up an old thread but I have a few questions and have been vigorously researching

I want to make sure my horses diet is balanced in terms of vits and minerals, for his general well being health and feet (touch wood, he is "healthy" at the minute I just want to make sure he is getting what he needs)
There's no point in me getting forage analysis done as my YO supplies us with the hayledge and its inconsistent and he buys it from different places
I currently feed
1 handful of spillers coolmix 2x per day
3 handfuls of hifi lite 2x per day
3scoops micronised linseed 1x per day (for coat and joints)
1scoop brewers yeast 1xper day (got him this for his digestion because of wet hayledge)
Not 100%sure of the scoop size think it was the scoop out of a vid of hoof supplement maybe biotin
Adlib hayledge of varying quality (sometimes quite wet, sometimes drier, mostly a darker colour but never black - definitely hayledge and not silage but just not always 100% brilliant quality much to my frustration) I will be cutting his hayledge down as he is quite fat and I wud like him to lose weight before summer
So, can I buy a general supplement seeing as I can't analyse the forage, or what would you do? Would a lick be sufficient? he has a mobility horselyx that he gets supervised access to
Have looked at pro balance + from progressive earth on eBay?
Wud I take the brewers yeast & linseed off him if I used that?

Also, tell me if I'm worrying unnecessarily

Ps please no criticism about hayledge it's a VERY sensitive subject and have been to hell and back with YO regarding!

Thanks in advance for any responses
 
googol said:
Sorry to bring up an old thread but I have a few questions and have been vigorously researching

I want to make sure my horses diet is balanced in terms of vits and minerals, for his general well being health and feet (touch wood, he is "healthy" at the minute I just want to make sure he is getting what he needs)
There's no point in me getting forage analysis done as my YO supplies us with the hayledge and its inconsistent and he buys it from different places
I currently feed
1 handful of spillers coolmix 2x per day
3 handfuls of hifi lite 2x per day
3scoops micronised linseed 1x per day (for coat and joints)
1scoop brewers yeast 1xper day (got him this for his digestion because of wet hayledge)
Not 100%sure of the scoop size think it was the scoop out of a vid of hoof supplement maybe biotin
Adlib hayledge of varying quality (sometimes quite wet, sometimes drier, mostly a darker colour but never black - definitely hayledge and not silage but just not always 100% brilliant quality much to my frustration) I will be cutting his hayledge down as he is quite fat and I wud like him to lose weight before summer
So, can I buy a general supplement seeing as I can't analyse the forage, or what would you do? Would a lick be sufficient? he has a mobility horselyx that he gets supervised access to
Have looked at pro balance + from progressive earth on eBay?
Wud I take the brewers yeast & linseed off him if I used that?

Also, tell me if I'm worrying unnecessarily

Ps please no criticism about hayledge it's a VERY sensitive subject and have been to hell and back with YO regarding!

Thanks in advance for any responses
Click to expand...

I don't feed any supplements. If I feel that one of my horses is not looking or going right, my first port of call is to get a urine sample and send it to a homeopathic practice that I've used for years. They don't charge much for the test and can tell you what your horse is lacking. They will then make me up a supplement to address the issues if there are any.I find it very useful.
 
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