Supplements

Just wondering what different supplements people use, and how often they fed.

I feed my five year old gelding;
extruded step two, grain, ground flax, BMZ, black oil sunflower seed at night
and extruded step two and grain in the morning.

This is on top of his 3x a day hay

Has anyone fed supplements 2x a day? What do you feed your horse? Also if anyones used apple vinager? I'm just curious how other people do it, and the reasons why?

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Permalink Reply by IrishRider on July 17, 2009 at 6:30pm

I try to be a minimalist when it comes to these sort of things. However, my horse lost a bunch of weight after I bought her, she was super fat when I got her and so she slimmed down quite a bit once we started a regular routine. Well she lost too much weight so I had to fatten her back up, but I wanted to without making her hot. So I fed her Equine Senior and Cool Calories. Worked like a charm. Now I have her off of CC and I just feed her equine senior with Sho-Flex, which is for joints but also has stuff in it for the coat and hooves, I believe. She gets hay twice a day and the supplements/grain once a day.

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Permalink Reply by Michelle Synnot on July 18, 2009 at 2:41pm

I make up the feed myself.. Oats, Corn, Soy, Flax, Oil, Molasses, Minerals, Vit, et. I feed alfalfa to my 6 yr old, but not to the colt, the sugar content of it gives him the runs. They both get free choice grass hay as well.

The only extra thing I feed is a probiotic supplement to my yearling Oldenburg colt, he has quite a delicate digestive system and really needs the extra gut flora. I had tried feeding apple cider vinegar to my 6 yr old WB gelding who has trouble keeping weight on to see if it would improve his condition. I diddn't really see a marked difference, I got better results with putting him on the probiotics for a month.

Here's a pic of him after the probiotics, he was reeeallly ribby before, and was not having any major growth spurts at that time..

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Permalink Reply by Cathy Mitchell on July 19, 2009 at 10:12pm

Check out Animal Naturals' Show & Go. It really, truly replaces all those supplements and works like a hot d*mn.

Save your money, buy one supplement and see the difference.

www.an-nat.com or in Canada www.busydogventures.com

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Permalink Reply by Geoffrey Pannell on July 19, 2009 at 11:10pm

We feed apple cider vinegar, 1/4 cup . A tablespoon of salt. 1/2 cup of molasses. Electrolytes as directed, when in heavier work or in the hotter months. The apple cider vinegar is to keep joints free and mobile, it works really well for the older horses. Iron to help keep blood functions healthy. That's about it really, sometimes we will get one that is a bit excitable so they will get some B12 until they settle into the routine.

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Permalink Reply by Vanessa R on July 24, 2009 at 9:32am

I'm a minimalist as well. I don't think horses need a bunch of supplements unless they have poor turnout and aren’t getting the minerals they need. That said, you can get blood tests to see if your horse has any deficiencies.

I use a mineral salt lick and he gets Flex + which is just stabilized rice bran, glucosamine, MSM and yucca—nothing else is in the mix as I do not want unnecessary ingredients. He gets that because he is a bit stiff. He gets that 2x a day and also has Purina Senior feed 2x a day.

Apple cider vinegar—I’ve never seen a benefit to it but I guess it's good for picky eaters. I did hear once that a woman was using it to treat her horse’s colic and it accidentally got sprayed into the horse’s eye and blinded the mare because the acid in the apple cider vinegar demolished the cornea.

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Permalink Reply by Lynsey Steinberg on July 27, 2009 at 12:59pm

In the summer time I use electrolytes because of the heat and ammount of work I exercise my pony. But also, he was previously injured a very long time ago and so I use SmartPak repair pellets once a day with his grain.

Its supposed to help with joints muscles and ligaments - but in all honesty I haven't seen much difference and its expensive.

I also use minivite but that's a small scoop and its like vitamins.

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Permalink Reply by Lynsey Steinberg on August 11, 2009 at 11:03am

I actually just changed mine.

I realized I was paying 70 dollars a month on two buckets of supplements and now I'm getting the smart pak paks where you can customize what you want. I just got 4 supplements (smart pak breathe, smart pak repair, electrolytes, and horseshine for hooves and coat) all for only 50 a month.

WAY better.