Supplements - the Blog Hop

To join the new name, the blog got a bit of a facelift! Hope you all like it!

A blog hop about supplements has been floating around for the last week or so - first seen by me when Olivia posted about it - and as I've recently moved Leo home and purchased a new (underweight) horse, supplements/feeding have been the subject of a lot of research/conversation/thought processes in my life recently.

Let's start with Leo. 

it's a little weird to watch your horse eat from above

Leo has been on a 12% sweet feed basically since I brought him home.  It was included in my board at CEC, and he did really well on it; he muscled up nicely, his coat looked okay, and he didn't require much grain at all to maintain a good weight.  (Actually, if he gets more than a 1/2 can of sweet feed 2x a day, he blimps up pretty quickly.)  I did, however, feel that the grain he was getting was probably not providing him with everything he needed - his coat could look better etc. - so I did a bunch of research and ended up putting him on two daily supplements - MannaPro Simply Flax and MannaPro Sho Glo.  I chose these because flax is the main ingredient in every single coat supplement ever, and because Sho Glo has a decent nutrient profile.  Both were cost-effective, and supplemented his sweet feed in a way that made me feel less guilty about not switching him to something better/significantly more expensive.

from the MannaPro website

I definitely noticed a change in Leo's overall appearance once I started him on the supplements, although since they were started around the same time, I can't necessarily attribute his improvements to one or the other.  He was also, briefly, on Horseshoer's Secret Concentrate because his feet weren't fantastic when I bought him - but that made him grow 6 weeks of hoof in less than 4 weeks, so my farrier recommended that I not use it any more...unless he developed a hoof problem or we decided to transition him to being barefoot.  Apparently, he responds to biotin very, very well.  

from Purina's website

When I decided to move him home, I started researching feed/doing cost analyses, and decided to try him on a ration balancer.  Around here, Purina Enrich is the only option if that's the route you want to take, and several horses at CEC thrive on it.  Because of Leo's status as an easy keeper, I figured he'd be an ideal candidate for Enrich.  I talked to Trainer K and Dr G about it to make sure I wasn't going to be making a Terrible Mistake by switching, and we began the slow process of transitioning him to a new grain this week.  Because Enrich has a significantly better nutritional profile than sweet feed, he's stopped getting the Sho Glo and (for now) stopped getting the flax - once the switch is complete, if he seems to be lacking something, I'm more than willing to start supplementing again.  

pills are cheaper than pellets

Because he will be transitioning back to the barefoot life when he's next due to be reset, I've started him on a biotin supplement again.  I didn't feel like paying an arm and a leg for Horseshoer's Secret, so I went the cheap route - three biotin pills a day gives him the same dose as a commercial supplement, and a handful of other owners at CEC have gone this route with the same results.  

So, Leo currently gets a mix of sweet feed and Enrich twice a day, plus three biotin pills once a day.  Once he's switched over to Enrich completely, he will cost $0.70 per day to feed. I guess that's one way in which he is making up for all the vet bills that he's racked up in the last month!  

Now that the cheap date has been covered, we'll move on to the high maintenance model.

no point in sugar coating it

Spring is pretty underweight.  Her former trainer says that when she was in full work and on a good grain, she was a very easy keeper.  However, when she moved to Missouri last fall, she went out of work pretty quickly, and they put her on sweet feed.  Then it was the winter, and now she looks like the picture above.  The first thing Trainer K and I did when we moved her to CEC was come up with a plan for helping her gain weight.  

stolen, again, from Purina

Our barn's go-to grain of choice for horses that need some extra help on the weight front is Purina Senior Active.  I've seen it in action multiple times in the last year and a half of working there, and it's a serious game changer for horses of all ages that are struggling to thrive.  We're weaning her onto it very slowly, and hopefully a month from now she'll look like a completely different horse.  I'm letting her finish off Leo's last tub of Sho Glo, because the extra vitamins and minerals can't hurt.  And, because her feet are kind of terrible, she's getting biotin as well - although whether or not it will work as well for her as it does for Leo is anyone's guess.

I think that this picture came from Tractor Supply

In the conversation that I had yesterday with Spring's former trainer, I learned that she has tied up several times in the past.  After conducting some research and speaking with Dr. G and Trainer K, she's been started on daily electrolytes.  When the Sho Glo runs out, I will most likely start her on a supplement called Elevate, which was recommended by Dr. G for another horse that had issues with tying up.  Elevate contains Selenium and Vitamin E, which have been shown to prevent incidents of tying up.  The reason for waiting is because Sho Glo also contains Selenium, and Selenium toxicitiy is A Thing that we would like to avoid.  

Elevate is cool.

Once Spring is receiving a full ration of Senior Active each day and starts on the Elevate, she will cost $4.10 per day to feed.  Most of that cost comes from the grain, and thankfully the vet and Trainer K agree that once she's back to a normal weight, she probably won't have to stay on Senior - but figuring out what grain to switch her to next is another topic for another day.

Do you have your horses on any supplements?