Nutritional analysis - soil or grass or both?

[Marigold4]

Trying to get to the bottom of why two of my horses have thin soles that seem to be causing them issues. I'm going to do insulin resistance testing but in the meantime, having read an article by Pete Ramey on vitamin and mineral analysis, I want to get some more information on what they are eating. I am going to get their haylage tested, but am unsure whether I need to get BOTH soil and grass analysed? Is soil analysis just so that you know what to add to the soil to get it to grow better plants, so I only need grass analysis as this is what they are actually eating and processing? Or should I do both? Thanks in advance for advice from any who have knowledge of this.

 

[PurBee]

I’d initially get grass analysis, at you say, that is what theyre actually eating.

The soil PH can determine massively how much the grass uptakes minerals, so for your soil its wise to first get a cheap soil PH test kit, and that will give you knowledge.

Anything outside of ph6-7 will start to inhibit mineral uptake in grass no matter what minerals are in your soil - so the first stage is to get your soil PH ideal for maximum grass uptake of the whole array of minerals available in the soil. PH 6.5-7 captures most minerals.

Chart below is really handy for landowners:

 

[Marigold4]

Thanks for your help. That's a really useful table. I will test the soil for PH. On the soil map my field shows as a chalky loam. Last time I tested the grass, results showed high in molybedum so I guess it's alkaline. I didn't really understand the results last time and didn't change much but am determined to do better this time, rather than randomly adding supplements. I have been reading Pete Ramey's article on nutrition and hooves which strongly argues the case for getting supplements right. I'm not very scientifically minded, so finding it all a bit boggling! Hopefully, I can find an equine nutritionist who can help once I have the results. I had some feedback from the forageplus people last time but didn't find it particularly helpful or convincing.

 

[criso]

As you say, the grass is what they are eating so useful immediately. Soil would be useful if it's your own land and are able to treat it so long term you can improve it and the grass that grows there.

 

[JBM]

You should soil test like every 3 years to keep on top of changes but only useful if it’s your land to maintain.
You should take a few samples from each field and not after something has been spread as it’ll spike immediately after

 

[Marigold4]

A new question. I am so confused! on the various testing websites I have to choose from so many options! Do I want a mineral analysis of grass and then a nutritional AND mineral analysis of my haylage? My haylage is not very "wet" so do I choose hay or haylage? What does the "wet chemistry" option do? What does NIR mean? There is no one to phone any more.

 

[YourValentine]

Wet chemistry and NIR (Near Infra Red) are different lab testing methods for the nutrients. Basically the NIR method works out properties of what is being tested using reflectance signatures. Wet chemistry works by dissolving in acid/other and analysing the results.
Pros & cons to both but in terms of results I don't think for your purposes the differences are significant, so pick the cheaper option.

Nutritional analysis will give you the protein, sugar, dry matter, digestible energy of the haylage but no details on the minerals e.g copper, molybdenum, etc

So if you just want to know mineral content just get the mineral analysis. It should flag if anything is deficient, or if over abundance of 1 nutrient maybe limiting uptake of something else.

However sugar has been linked to hoof condition, not just laminitis, so getting the nutritional analysis as well may be useful.

If its haylage, even dry haylage, ask for haylange analysis.

 

[lialls]

Have you looked in to hair analysis for your horses? That will tell you what they are lacking in vit and mineral wise. Equine Consulting Clinic/Kerry Campbell has been posting some bits on facebook about it, very interesting. I'm looking in to it for myself, never mind the horse! haha https://www.equineconsultingclinic.co.uk/b618ee19-1365-4d2a-8d0a-f0ccea4e4118

 

[SEL]

A new question. I am so confused! on the various testing websites I have to choose from so many options! Do I want a mineral analysis of grass and then a nutritional AND mineral analysis of my haylage? My haylage is not very "wet" so do I choose hay or haylage? What does the "wet chemistry" option do? What does NIR mean? There is no one to phone any more.

Forage Plus are useful for advice. They offer those services so can definitely tell you what they are about even if you went with another provider

 

[Marigold4]

Forage Plus are useful for advice. They offer those services so can definitely tell you what they are about even if you went with another provider

No longer a phone number available for them though! Just email.

 

[Marigold4]

Wet chemistry and NIR (Near Infra Red) are different lab testing methods for the nutrients. Basically the NIR method works out properties of what is being tested using reflectance signatures. Wet chemistry works by dissolving in acid/other and analysing the results.
Pros & cons to both but in terms of results I don't think for your purposes the differences are significant, so pick the cheaper option.

Nutritional analysis will give you the protein, sugar, dry matter, digestible energy of the haylage but no details on the minerals e.g copper, molybdenum, etc

So if you just want to know mineral content just get the mineral analysis. It should flag if anything is deficient, or if over abundance of 1 nutrient maybe limiting uptake of something else.

However sugar has been linked to hoof condition, not just laminitis, so getting the nutritional analysis as well may be useful.

If its haylage, even dry haylage, ask for haylange analysis.

Thank you. That's really useful. Can you do nutritional value of grass as well as minerals?

 

[Fieldlife]

Progreen are good for grass analysis, but I would think grass is a small part of diet most of winter, and concentrate on balancing to the haylage.

I have done lots of analysis over years, but tend to find Forage Plus / Equimins / Progressive earth balancers are close enough.

 

[criso]

Would grass be too variable changing at different times of the day as well as the year so not sure how useful it would be.

 

[Marigold4]

Thanks, everyone. I have ordered a mineral analysis of the grass and both mineral and nutritional analysis of the haylage. That cost nearly £200. Yikes! Hope it tells me something useful!

 

[YourValentine]

Thank you. That's really useful. Can you do nutritional value of grass as well as minerals?

Yes

 

[quizzie]

Have you looked in to hair analysis for your horses? That will tell you what they are lacking in vit and mineral wise. Equine Consulting Clinic/Kerry Campbell has been posting some bits on facebook about it, very interesting. I'm looking in to it for myself, never mind the horse! haha https://www.equineconsultingclinic.co.uk/b618ee19-1365-4d2a-8d0a-f0ccea4e4118

Totally unvalidated scientifically I'm afraid.....

 

[Fieldlife]

Would grass be too variable changing at different times of the day as well as the year so not sure how useful it would be.

that is sugar that changes, mineral profiles will be pretty static.

 

[Fieldlife]

Totally unvalidated scientifically I'm afraid.....

blood or hair testing of horses doesnt reliably show up mineral deficiencies.

 

[Marigold4]

that is sugar that changes, mineral profiles will be pretty static.

Yes, I managed to get an email response from forageplus and it's not worth doing a nutritional analysis of grass because of the sugar changing.

 

[Fieldlife]

Thanks, everyone. I have ordered a mineral analysis of the grass and both mineral and nutritional analysis of the haylage. That cost nearly £200. Yikes! Hope it tells me something useful!

whilst you take samples, wait for analysis, work it all out, and then calculate and order the required minerals, I would start them on a basic covering all bases, balancer covering typical UK forage deficiencies. Can refine later. As might take a month or two to progress.

 

[criso]

that is sugar that changes, mineral profiles will be pretty static.

OP asked about the nutritional analysis of grass as well as minerals so I was thinking about that.

I've done mineral analyses of grass in the past.

 

[Fieldlife]

Thanks, everyone. I have ordered a mineral analysis of the grass and both mineral and nutritional analysis of the haylage. That cost nearly £200. Yikes! Hope it tells me something useful!

Have you checked that all your haylage comes from one field? Ours comes from one supplier, but multiple fields and the variance between fields is huge, so limited value in doing haylage analysis.

 

[Fieldlife]

Thanks, everyone. I have ordered a mineral analysis of the grass and both mineral and nutritional analysis of the haylage. That cost nearly £200. Yikes! Hope it tells me something useful!

Is the cost including analysing the numbers and telling you what minerals you need to feed to use the analysis?

When I had lots of grass and hay samples analysed, half the battle was then calculating what proportion of hay and grass was being eaten, and then working out all the mineral ratios. e.g. high iron inhibits zinc and copper so need more etc.

I had two sets of numbers, one for winter, when bulk of diet was hay. One for summer when 60% of diet was grass. And two different mineral supplements for the two amounts.

 

[PurBee]

Edible equine safe trees and bushes in hedgerows are so useful as field borders, for horses to nibble on too. The much deeper roots of trees and bushes literally mine minerals a lot deeper and can compensate for a mineral shortfall that the topsoil grass may be lacking.

I regularly see mine grazing the borders trees and bushes.
The topsoil profile on this land is varied but the subsoil is mostly all calcium/limestone with various deposits of pink dolomite magnesium, bluish copper clays, and many other fascinating mineral colours. We discovered all this when we undertook deep drainage work all over the land, encountering many tree/bushes roots along the way.
We leave the leaves that fall in autumn to then rot down all over the field so the minerals deep mined by the trees are then deposited into the topsoil with leaf rot.
I leaf blow the pathways and tracks to keep them mud free!

They horses do very well on the land during summer, and mineral feed top-up is very limited. Winter is mainly bought-in hay/lage and more supplement given due to slow field growth and less turn-out hours.

Spreading the fully rotted manure/bedding from winter piles is useful as any excess minerals fed and excreted via pee and poop are added back to the land, helping replenish topsoils.

Once you get your results OP, pop them on here if you need any help figuring out what to add.

 

[Marigold4]

Edible equine safe trees and bushes in hedgerows are so useful as field borders, for horses to nibble on too. The much deeper roots of trees and bushes literally mine minerals a lot deeper and can compensate for a mineral shortfall that the topsoil grass may be lacking.

I regularly see mine grazing the borders trees and bushes.
The topsoil profile on this land is varied but the subsoil is mostly all calcium/limestone with various deposits of pink dolomite magnesium, bluish copper clays, and many other fascinating mineral colours. We discovered all this when we undertook deep drainage work all over the land, encountering many tree/bushes roots along the way.
We leave the leaves that fall in autumn to then rot down all over the field so the minerals deep mined by the trees are then deposited into the topsoil with leaf rot.
I leaf blow the pathways and tracks to keep them mud free!

They horses do very well on the land during summer, and mineral feed top-up is very limited. Winter is mainly bought-in hay/lage and more supplement given due to slow field growth and less turn-out hours.

Spreading the fully rotted manure/bedding from winter piles is useful as any excess minerals fed and excreted via pee and poop are added back to the land, helping replenish topsoils.

Once you get your results OP, pop them on here if you need any help figuring out what to add.

Thank you. That is a kind offer I will take you up on. I'm expecting a deficiency of copper and zinc. Pete Ramey's article and advice on this topic is really useful and he has inspired me to get everything tested. His view is that it will save money in the long term, but the main thing is to sort out my mare's lameness/sore feet and give her a better chance of sticking around a bit/lot longer.

 

[Marigold4]

Is the cost including analysing the numbers and telling you what minerals you need to feed to use the analysis?

When I had lots of grass and hay samples analysed, half the battle was then calculating what proportion of hay and grass was being eaten, and then working out all the mineral ratios. e.g. high iron inhibits zinc and copper so need more etc.

I had two sets of numbers, one for winter, when bulk of diet was hay. One for summer when 60% of diet was grass. And two different mineral supplements for the two amounts.

Thank you. That is a useful thought about the different seasons. I think the cost only covers the analysis but you can pay extra (!!!) advice. I'm just trying to concentrate on the money I save by keeping them barefoot!

 

[Marigold4]

whilst you take samples, wait for analysis, work it all out, and then calculate and order the required minerals, I would start them on a basic covering all bases, balancer covering typical UK forage deficiencies. Can refine later. As might take a month or two to progress.

Good idea. They are on Baileys no 14 low cal balancer, sugar beet and molasses free chaff plus salt at the mo. So hopefully SOME of what they need and not too much sugar.

 

[PurBee]

Thank you. That is a kind offer I will take you up on. I'm expecting a deficiency of copper and zinc. Pete Ramey's article and advice on this topic is really useful and he has inspired me to get everything tested. His view is that it will save money in the long term, but the main thing is to sort out my mare's lameness/sore feet and give her a better chance of sticking around a bit/lot longer.

Aside from nutritional balancing, a major aspect that affected my mare’s footiness was quality of hay/forage, and eradicating mould completely.
When i was getting hay from allover looking always for best fresh stuff, i struggled getting a consistent good supply and sooo many were baled too damp and were growing mould. I live in a very wet climate country, its truly not easy to find a week of glorious warm windy hay making weather1
The mould level is not always perceptible to the eye, but is to our nose. It just smells of musty nothingness, and causes us to sneeze and have stomach ache if we take in a lungful!
I was soaking and steaming for many seasons trying to mitigate the problem.
Her feet were up and down with health.
She was on balancers throughout this whole period and starting her on them helped a lot, to mitigate the systemic inflammation from the moulds mostly aiding the immune system, but the one thing that absolutely stopped her tender footy episodes was when i switched to full-time fab quality mixed grass haylage. No moulds at all.
It was like winning the lottery after sooo many seasons fretting about sugar and soaking and hauling around heavy hay bags!

Moulds ingestion causes gut disturbance and inflammation that becomes a whole body immune response and relatively quickly (24hrs) shows up in the feet as tender soles.
Barefoot horses will show the pattern of symptoms with forage quality change more obviously than shod horses whose soles are lifted off the ground.
The trials ive done were like night and day - batches of excellent hay or haylage, her feet were solid….on sections of rough stone tracks here too…and with her having adlib no muzzle lush grass in summer.
I was following lami protocol previously restricting sugar but it never made sense as she was fine with grazing anything in summer.
Sugar level does not affect her footiness, moulds do.
As soon as a ‘dodgy’ batch of hay/haylage was started her footiness would present itself. Mostly winter when not having much grass grazing and lots more forage.
Once i got settled on a steady consistent good supplier of mixed haylage, she’s been sound.

Moulds are the nemesis of horses health. It took years for me to realise how detrimental they are.

Balancing nutritional minerals in their diet is somewhat futile if the overall quality of the hay they eat is musty and has an appreciable mould spore count.
Sourcing the best quality hay 15% moisture or less, or finding a good quality haylage source is the cornerstone of their health imo. Then the minerals fed can really be absorbed well too, rather than pass through an inflamed gut that’s not able to absorb as well.

Sorry for the thread subject detour, but thought you might find it useful as having also tore my hair out for years over a footy mare!

 

[Marigold4]

Thanks for your input and I totallly take your point about the quality of the haylage. I buy Country haylage which is more like wrapped hay than haylage. It very rarely smells musty and if it does, I throw it away. I used to use other haylage which WAS musty and sometimes had white bits in it, but am now pretty satisfied that the Country haylage I use is mould free. It certainly smells and looks good. PS I don't work for Country haylage!!

 

[Fieldlife]

Aside from nutritional balancing, a major aspect that affected my mare’s footiness was quality of hay/forage, and eradicating mould completely.
When i was getting hay from allover looking always for best fresh stuff, i struggled getting a consistent good supply and sooo many were baled too damp and were growing mould. I live in a very wet climate country, its truly not easy to find a week of glorious warm windy hay making weather1
The mould level is not always perceptible to the eye, but is to our nose. It just smells of musty nothingness, and causes us to sneeze and have stomach ache if we take in a lungful!
I was soaking and steaming for many seasons trying to mitigate the problem.
Her feet were up and down with health.
She was on balancers throughout this whole period and starting her on them helped a lot, to mitigate the systemic inflammation from the moulds mostly aiding the immune system, but the one thing that absolutely stopped her tender footy episodes was when i switched to full-time fab quality mixed grass haylage. No moulds at all.
It was like winning the lottery after sooo many seasons fretting about sugar and soaking and hauling around heavy hay bags!

Moulds ingestion causes gut disturbance and inflammation that becomes a whole body immune response and relatively quickly (24hrs) shows up in the feet as tender soles.
Barefoot horses will show the pattern of symptoms with forage quality change more obviously than shod horses whose soles are lifted off the ground.
The trials ive done were like night and day - batches of excellent hay or haylage, her feet were solid….on sections of rough stone tracks here too…and with her having adlib no muzzle lush grass in summer.
I was following lami protocol previously restricting sugar but it never made sense as she was fine with grazing anything in summer.
Sugar level does not affect her footiness, moulds do.
As soon as a ‘dodgy’ batch of hay/haylage was started her footiness would present itself. Mostly winter when not having much grass grazing and lots more forage.
Once i got settled on a steady consistent good supplier of mixed haylage, she’s been sound.

Moulds are the nemesis of horses health. It took years for me to realise how detrimental they are.

Balancing nutritional minerals in their diet is somewhat futile if the overall quality of the hay they eat is musty and has an appreciable mould spore count.
Sourcing the best quality hay 15% moisture or less, or finding a good quality haylage source is the cornerstone of their health imo. Then the minerals fed can really be absorbed well too, rather than pass through an inflamed gut that’s not able to absorb as well.

Sorry for the thread subject detour, but thought you might find it useful as having also tore my hair out for years over a footy mare!

this is fascinating. I have a sensitive barefoot gelding and similar issues. He shows hind gut inflammatory issues, main symptom is stuffy, and swings right hind out wide (rather than tracking straight with it), 5 days of equishure (protected antiacid so gets to hindgut) and tracks straight again.

I have recently come to the opinion mycotoxins, moulds are as big if not a bigger issue for him than sugar changes.

Though I most recently, had been assuming that dodgy bits in his haylage bales are one of the causes of his flares.

He has good quality, meadow haylage, in large bales (it is provided as part of our livery) analysis is pretty good. But I think you do get the odd dodgy bit included in big bales of anything when unexpected things were sucked into the bales.

I thought the odd mouldy / smellier bit in haylage in inevitable? Especially when keep it mostly covered from rain.

I had niavely assumed moving to really good hay would be loads better for his gut, and loads lower for the mould risk.

Interesting, and food for thought.