Supplements

[Ginn]

Following on from a pub conversation last night.....

What are your views on supplements?

Do horses need them?

Do only certain types of horses need them?

What do you understand them to actually do?

I have fed T a supplement since may as she's had no hard feed and being the neurotic mum I am wanted to know she was getting a broad spectrum of vits and mins that she should have in her diet. However, considering she's had pretty good grazing and at the end of the day is a horse and therefore designed to live off grass Im thinking that probably she hasn't needed or benifited from it (but hey, it was £20 for 6 months worth so my logic was that it'd do no harm to give it to her and so was worth a try).

We also give Mick's a lami supplement, more because he has very restricted grazing and very little hay (as he's a very good doer and doesn't need any more). We have noticed a marked difference in his coat and general appearance to last year when he didn't have it. Now this could be coincidence or that fact that he's groomed more, or the hays better quality but as its doing him no harm and it doesn't break the bank we will continue to keep him on it for a while yet.

So your views......

 

[ihatework]

My view is that the vast majority are a marketing ploy to keep us horse owners poor!

Some have their place on the market but the majority don't.

Horses have evolved over thousands of years to meet their own nutritional needs, we obviously often take them out of their natural environment and therefore need to be aware of this but in general good quality grazing and hard feed (if required) should be sufficient.

As for supplements - mine get lump rock salt in stable and field. They are currently on no hard feed as have recently moved to better grass but when they were on virtually bare earth I was feeding them a scoop of cubes twice a day each.

 

[AmyMay]

Both AmyMay and loan horse have a broad spectrum vit suppliment. Amy because she could do with it at the moment - and the other because it has improved her condition no end.

Both are only on a small amount of hard feed and whilst the grazing is ok, it's not brilliant at the moment - so it all helps.

 

[Tempi]

hiya

Well Bloss gets a huge load of suppliments, but i know they all work - they cost me a fortune but i wont ever take her off them now. When (if) i get my next horse i wont be giving it any suppliments at all - Bloss just has hers as she needs them.

Feedmark Equidermis - for her skin as before i put her on it she had a scurfy mane and tail and was all scurfy when she got clipped out, her coat is now gorgeous and she hasnt had a scurfy mane and tail since. Ive halved the amount i give her now so its a bit cheaper for me and its still working fine.

Cortaflx - shes got windgalls in every leg and in her hocks and she gets really stiff due to her age and the amount of work she does, this helps her to stay more supple and again before i put her on it her joints were clicking like anything.

Global Herbs Scratch & Zephyr - for her pollen alergy, they recently ran out of scratch and she was without it for 2wks and her head shaking started to come back again, now shes back on its shes fine again.

and thats it, phew!!!!!!!!!!

 

[monstermunch]

They do have their place but there is definately a marketing ploy as well. Essentially a horse at grass should be receiving all the vitamins and minerals they need. Obviously in some cases with exceptionally poor grass you may need to supplememnt. Like wise a horse that is kept in 24 hours a day would not get all the natural vitamins from the grass, so in this case yes some supplementation is required.
I am personally agaginst feeding your horse a big long list of supplememnts. Although I see no harm in it as far as the horses health is concerned it is money that may not necesserily need to be spent.
With regards to supplememnts like joint supplememnts, these compounds are not supplied via forage so have to be supplememnted and these do indeed have enormous benefits.
essentially it is the horse lovers choice to make the best and most educated decision for their horse. I believe in supplements in small doses i.e one or two products at a time.

 

[puddicat]

I think that not to see that feeding supplements is pointless except in special cases (at the end) and very few individual cases (and usually under veterinary direction as a result of clinical symptoms), you've not got to know a few things.

First you've not got to know about the evolution of the herbivore digestive system and what it does. You've not got to know that it is highly specialised at extracting all the necessary nutrients from very poor quality forage. Its not got to occur to you that eating for most of the day, a high gut motility, fermenting (hind-gut if you're a horse fore-gut if you're a ruminant) are all ways of achieving this.

Second, you've not got to know the nutritional composition of grazing - even bad grazing. You've not got to realise that as a result of thousands of years of farming in which grass varieties and land quality have been managed in the UK even the worst grazing (with exceptrions of course) is a good deal better than the grazing on the planes of N America and the other places in which horses evolved. So rather than thinking that horses are in nutritional heaven grazing our fields and eating the hay produced from it, you've got to believe that the feed available to your horse is in some way deficient of something. In fact grass mixes for horses are deliberately mixed down - cow pasture is too rich for horses!

Third I think you've not got to realise how digestive system works. You've not got to appreciate the beautiful complexity and efficiency with which the digestive system breaks down ingesta to its component parts, absorbs the ones it wants and passes the other out. From the ones it absorbs a balance is maintained in the body either by storage or excretion. You've not got to realise it is extremely difficult in the UK to feed a horse so that it is so deficient in any particular vitamin or mineral that you would see a physiological effect on the skin or elsewhere. You've also not got to realise that homeostasis means that sending in more vitamins and minerals via supplements is not going to have any effect because as long as the horse is in the normal bandwidth for V and M your supplement will just end up out the back end. I suppose also you have to have to have the view that you are only doing good to your horse by giving it supplements whereas a more scientifically informed view would be that you're just screwing up its digestive system for no reason. A friend (who fed supplements!) suggested to me that keeping horses in stables is cruelty because it goes against their natural state. I wouldn't go as far to agree it was cruelty but I am of the school of thought that horse's are better kept out for a range of reasons (respiratory, psychological etc.). I put it to my friend that feeding supplements is comparably cruel using the same line of argument. I don't really believe it is "cruel" but you are tinkering with the horses natural nutrient intake for no good reason, and whats more, most people I know who do this have no idea about recommended daily intake for vit/minerals and have no idea of the amounts in their forage/short feed.

Finally a caveat. Pregnant, lactating animals, animal in hard work - and I mean hard - where the electrolyte loss is significant justifiably require appropriate modifications to their feed. However, I propose that a more useful way of viewing this is to think of it as modifying the diet rather than adding a suppliment. As humans we modify our diets if we do more exercise or want to loose weight, most of us are familiar with several types of fat carbohydrate, the concept of calories etc. We know vegetables that are rich in vitamins and minerals, we know citrus fruits are rich in vitamin C but perhaps most of us minapulate our own diets without using the concept of "supplements". There was a post on HHO a few weeks back asking whether anyone could recommend a *suppliment* to put on weight. (yep its called fat and excess carbohydrate and exercise) Ironically in the days of feeding straights I think people knew more about nutrition because people formulated their own ration. These days when feed is formulated by the feed companies and if you've got a cob in mild work, you just buy "cob in mild work nuts" there is less incentive to understand nutrition. Not that I'm against manufactured feed, its great for all sorts of reasons.

 

[Farm Kat]

Mine have all been on a supplement for the past few months, although most are natives they have been on 2 acres of very poor bare grazing, and have been having more hay than grass, and bucket feed which I only usually do this time of year for the youngsters and hard workers, but I felt I should give them a boost as there really is nothing to eat, and I wanted them to get what they should, as the forest has more grass than my field, should have branded them and stuck them out there - that's what my rights are for!! Doh Apart from that Mickey is on F4F and yes I have seen it working.