| Archive for uknhcp.myfastforum.org Natural hoof care resource forums for all those interested in barefoot horses |
| poghag |
Magnesium in TS balancerSorry about all the questions; promise I'll calm down soon. Just don't want to constantly be changing Pog's feed, so if I'm going to overhaul now, I'd like it to be as spot-on as I can get it.Too many folks (not here) are advising me against seaweed for me to happily jump on that bandwagon... and plenty are saying the TS really works for them (Pog's currently on their comprehensive balancer, just over 600g/day). Would anyone be cunning enough to know whether this would supply adequate magnesium, or should I still supplement? Guess I should get on the phone to the TS people, but thought I'd pick all your brains first. |
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| horsesfirst |
Worry about seaweed maybe over boiled. Even my vet who is very conservative recommends it.
I have learnt not to trust yard experts. One of my clients is on a yard which is run by a qualified equine nutritional expert and the NE did a good job of damaging the clients horse with her 'expert' advice. I don't know the TS product, but having looked at various balancers, branded supplements and the like I came to the conclusion they are good marketing but not good feed sense. a) a lot of them have a cereal base which is a no no b) to get enough magnesium I'd have to feed 2 or 3 or more times the recommended amount. So I got the 'raw' ingredients and hoiked my kitchen scales down to the stables. Having experimented I now know what volumes of things gives the right weights. My highly suspicious mare loves the blend of brewers yeast, mag, seaweed et al and hoovers it up. I feed it in a base of Kwikbeet (3% sugar no molasses). She is also looking very well and has good pee and great poo............ 
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| Nic |
If by TS you mean TopSpec, then I've always found that the majority of horses on it are footy on stony ground.
I agree that the problem may be the cereal base, or it may be that the minerals in it are not sufficiently bioavailable. Either way, I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. OTOH, every horse that comes to our yard is fed the basic mix and all love it and are very healthy on it - "even" the ones who've been on it for years. Personally, I will trust the horse over the expert every time 
N |
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| brucea |
Yep - we had the most incredible episode of footiness in ours when feeding the TS AntiLam product! Also Link just didn't do well on TS products - just too nervy, jumpy and irritable.
I feed seaweed to all of ours and not had any noticeable problems, but many benefits. I wonder that unless you do a complete mineral analysis of what's in your feed, hay, grass, and then what's in the bloods you'll never know if they are getting everything they need - by season - and then what are you going to measure it against anyway - is there a comprehensive list of the RDA for horses available - and if so does that reflect every breed requirement? There are so many trace elements, environmental variables, individual neeeds, that it must surely be nigh on impossible to give a completely ba"feed balancer" for every horse with a single product - there is probably no "magic bullet" that has everything a horse needs despite what the marketing would like me to believe!!! For example, a higher zinc feed tends to help horses or cattle with ringworm - but is it due to a deficiency? Would zinc suplementation help prevent ringworm, or is it just that if they have ringworm then zinc helps them to recover and resist re-infestation? Mine look brilliant, better than they ever did, on what they are on - so I'm with Nic - listen to the horse and if it seems to suit them.... |
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| JulieD |
I don't post very often, more lurker sorry, but just had to say that I've fed TopSpec balancer for the past 4 years, apart from a break of about 8 months when I switched to HoofMender, and have seen no footiness over stoney ground, and no difference whatsoever when I switched to HM from TS.
By the way I do supplement with MagOx as well, about 10 - 20 mg per day, depending on the time of year and richness of grass. It's more to help with spookiness than feet though as without it he can be very spooky and has big reactions at times. |
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| becnreps |
I dont know where these folks are that are advising you against seaweed but the same thing happened to me.
I decided to go for the seaweed/yeast etc route and then went for some advice on metabolic disorders to find out whether Repsol may have some underlying sensitivities. They were very helpful and I learnt a lot from that group. The lady really knows her stuff about metabolic disorders! However this is what she said when I said what I was feeding him:
I then came on here and saw just how many people have had problems with TopSpec. Some horses have even had lami whilst on topspec anti-lam! I dont trust feed companies at all since I have gone barefoot - I'm incredibly suspicious of anything that they "claim" to do ... So I've stuck with what I know works and left the flashy feed supplement tubs well alone. |
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| horsesfirst |
Totally second that. Feed companies have a product to sell. Their nutrional advisers are part of their marketing overhead.
Anyone got a reliable analysis of seaweed? |
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| maggie345 |
Here is one:
http://www.crossgatesfarm.co.uk/seaweed.xhtml Don't know about how reliable it is. I had them fax me the analysis for the seaweed I'm using (I think it's probably repackaged Charwood Mills), and it contains over 800ppm iodine. I don't know what everybody is basing their information on. I took Dr. Kellon's NRCPlus class (can highly recommend it). Based on that information, my horse requires about 4mg/day of iodine, and toxic/harmful levels start somewhere around 50mg/day. For my seaweed, that means that I only need to feed about 5g a day (1tsp) to cover the full requirements, and feeding the "recommended amount" on the package of 50-100g would provide my horse with several times the levels considered to be harmful according to NRC. If I do feed seaweed at safe iodine levels, all the other ingredients in it are at such a low level that they don't make much of a difference as a balancer. I know many people on here do feed seaweed/linseed/brewers yeast/MgO, and seem to be doing fine. I'm curious, how much seaweed do you feed? Are you worried about excess iodine? Or do you have information that would suggest that the harmful NRC levels are too conservative? |
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| Yann |
Topspec made no difference either way to performance for my two, but did cause behavioural issues. | ||||
| Nic |
...and on a similar topic, read this as well
http://uknhcp.myfastforum.org/ftopic1162-0-asc-30.php N |
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| poghag |
This has all been SO useful. Thanks hugely. | ||||
| poghag |
OK... Topspec have assured me that there are no cereals in their balancer.
There is negligible molasses. They're sending me a breakdown of ingredients so I'll be able to see for sure. Magnesium is 0.35% ie. in 100g there are 0.35g ie for a 500kg horse on 500g balancer, that's 1.75g of magnesium per day. According to my sources, a typical 500kg horse apparently needs around 10g per day of magnesium. Pure magnesium oxide is 60% magnesium so a 500kg horse would need around 17g of MagOx per day, more if you're using Calmag. Ho hum. Food for thought. Will introduce Calmag at about 20ml, and may well transfer from the balancer to seaweed/linseed mixes etc. over winter. Just don't want to change everything in one go else I won't know what it is that's worked! |
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| Nic |
This is what they've always said in the past too, I am afraid. The fact is that many (though not all!) horses still go footy on their supplements. Its a real shame they don't list ingredients on their products or their website, as it might be easier then to get to the source of the problem. BTW, I have nothing against TopSpec as a company, but I just can't afford to have horses going footy on me 
Not sure who your sources are, but thats only the case for a horse in very light work. Mg requirements rise with exercise as well as size of horse, so the NRC recommendations (which are conservative) for horses like my own, which are nearer 600kg and in hard work, are much higher. BTW, the NRC=the National Research Council, who publish the nutrient requirements for horses based on current research. N |
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| becnreps |
It is a shame Nic, but in the same way as most of the feed companies do, they wont and don't tell you the ingredients list until you buy the bag of feed and read it on the back ... and even then, it could be lies! I dont have anything against TopSpec either but I know that the diet that is 'prescribed' in the book works and that TopSpec might not ... and the fact that TopSpec supplements seem ridiculously over priced! 
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| Nic |
Thats true, but the last time I read a TopSpec label the ingredients included oatfeed and wheatfeed, as well as mollasses
Here's an idea - why don't we start a thread which lists the ingredients in feeds, so they are collected here? If anyone has examples, start a new post and I will pin it
N |
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| becnreps |
Can I put my Baileys Lo-Cal to start with??! 
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| Nic |
Have started a new thread for you here http://uknhcp.myfastforum.org/about1218.html
Poghag, don't forget to list TopSpec once you get that info, if you don't mind! N |
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| pat |
I have one horse who is very very sound and is on T/S balancer however I think he is the exception. It took me several years to realise that the balancer was the cause of severe problems for my LGL horse. Once clear of T/S (and that is the balancer, comprehensive and anti lam) he improved considerably. He was given some balancer by mistake only for a day and he went back immediately to being unsound.
I must be the only one but I found the advice I was given on the phone by T/S to be poor. I did not really realise then, about 4 years ago, that I was dealing with a severely LGL horse who needed to be off grass 24/7. Their solutions to my poor performance were to feed alfalfa and their own cereal mix. That did not help the LGL but made the horse seriously out of control when ridden.
They refused to accept that alfalfa could cause any problem to LGL horses and quite honestly in an E mail to me told me it was my horse, not their supplements that was causing the problem. Unfortunately their supplements are, to some extent, promoted towards laminitics and they are constantly recomended as the be all and end all of balancers by a feed expert on another yahoo group. |
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| becnreps |
hmm I found this too pat. I am on the said yahoo forum and I asked a question about possible insulin resistance and I told her what I was planning to feed as my horse is overweight (went on holiday for 10 days and he put 30kg on whilst on grass 24/7!! ) and suffering with some LGL:
seaweed, MgO, brewers yeast, linseed meal. This is the reply:
(I posted this earlier in this thread) And the said person on said yahoo group seems to suggest that all horses are better on the topspec feeds than any other. I was about to take the advice but then found Brucea (  ) and this wonderful forum!
Now I realise that Topspec obviously have it all wrong ... ! |
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| brucea |
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| horsesfirst |
[quote="Nic"]
To keep the 2:1 ration would I be right to increase calcium levels at the same time as upping the Mg? |
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| poghag |
[quote="Nic"]
Thanks for this Nic... I was mistaken; I've rechecked my research and it was advised 10-15g per day magnesium supplementation, based on the guess that there would be a little magnesium (maybe a few grams anyway) in general forage anyway. Wondering which forages contain how much magnesium now... but anyway... that NRC site is useful, if I could truly get my head round it! So much to learn! Next big step I guess would be full forage and grass/hay analysis. |
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| Nic |
Probably no need, as most equine diets over here are already high in calcium relative to Mg, particularly when you feed sugar beet and alfalfa, which are high in Ca and low in Mg. Most forage is also if anything low in Mg, so you are unlikely to need additional Ca. N |
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| CathyT |
Feed questionHi there,I have read THE book and love it. I have a new track system in the pipeline which I am excited about. I want to get the diet as good as I can get it without having to order bulk loads of feed from far away stockists.
I suppose you will need to know a little about my horses. Horse 1 - 17hh, Warmblood, 14 years. Currently doing a mixture of Dressage and show jumping. Horse 2 - 16hh, warmblood, 3 years. Unbroken and currently being a field ornament until next year as she still looks very immature. They live out 24/7 on an old pasture that contains alsorts of different grasses, herbs and weeds. They are both quite good doers. In the winter they have constant access to round bale haylage which is on a large concrete area and I intend to build on that area by creating a pea gravel track that they will use every time they go from the field to the haylage and vise versa. Mole Valley Farmers and Cornwall Farmers are the nearest feed merchants to me. I currently feed them Equilibra feed balancer. So guys I really need your advice. If these were your horses what would you feed them.
I have read a lot of other threads but the more I read the more confused I get. There is a lot of knowledge on here. You guys have been studying hard.
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