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Opinions on supplements

2K views 7 replies 3 participants last post by  TessaMay 
#1 ·
I need some more experienced opinions on the vitamin/mineral supplement that I feed my mare. On the whole she is very healthy, but she is prone to rain rot, so I'm worried she might not be getting enough vitamin A, despite it being in her supplement.

A little background, she is a 16 year old draft cross who is just starting to come back into light work after several months off. Very easy keeper, has 24/7 access to a pasture with grass (not much and not very good at this time of year) and gets 3 flakes of orchard per day. She has a mineral block right now and I plan to switch to loose minerals when I move her to a new barn in 2-ish weeks.

I feed her supplements with a little bit of crimped oats (less than a pound). She could do without grain at all, but I need her to have some in order for her to eat her joint supplement.

This is what she gets as a joint supplement: https://www.smartpakequine.com/recovery-eq-1689p. I give her 1 1/2 scoops per day.

Vitamin/mineral supplement. It's called Millennium Gold and is produced locally so hard to find online. She gets 2 ounces a day, per the supplement instructions.
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#2 ·
Be careful that what you are feeing isn't creating damaging imbalances. Water soluble excesses are excreted in the urine but not the fat solubles. They are stored in the fat which can lead to excesses. Rain rot needs to be treated topically. Vit A is fat soluble and can be overdone.
 
#4 ·
That seems like a pretty strong supplement.

Empower Balance Ration Balancer Horse Feed by Nutrena

SafeChoice Original Horse Feed by Nutrena

SafeChoice Mare & Foal Horse Feed by Nutrena

Horse Feed & Horse Supplements | Purina Mills

EQUI-PRO® Carb-Safe | Equine | Poulin Grain - Dairy, Equine, Pet, And Livestock Feeds

and Mare Plus which I have used to knock out rain rot

https://farnamhorse.com/product.php?mainkey=200005&pid=100087&key=300002#


I only had to use one tub to knock it out and keep it away. The Poulin grain I linked to is what I use normally and it's higher in vitamin A than the Purina and Nutrena popular feeds.
People dosing with the cattle supplement or mare plus aren't feeding it constantly. They feed it a few times and then figure out a maintenance dose for their horse. Once a week, couple times a month, depends on the horse and the forage.
It just does seem like an awful lot of vitamin a. I'd use it sparingly.
I know too much vitamin A becomes toxic but you have a lot of wiggle room.
There isn't a lot of wiggle room in selenium. Depending on what you have in your soils and forage this could kick you into too much.
 
#5 ·
It just does seem like an awful lot of vitamin a. I'd use it sparingly.
I know too much vitamin A becomes toxic but you have a lot of wiggle room.
There isn't a lot of wiggle room in selenium. Depending on what you have in your soils and forage this could kick you into too much.
Thanks Sue! How much vitamin A do you generally use as a maintenance dose? She was on this same supplement, same amount the last two times she got rain rot (last spring and this fall) so I was wondering if it was enough. Sounds like it should be though...

I'll have to look into Selenium. I don't really know anything about it. I suppose the only way to know how much is in her forage/soil would be to have it tested?
 
#6 ·
The one horse I used the Mare Plus on was covered in rain rot when I got her. She also was real thin.
I just gave the mare plus according to directions for 2 weeks and then finished off the rest by giving it once a week. It was already too cold out to bathe her when I got her so I was only able to spot treat the worst spots with iodine. I've had no problems with it since and my horses have just a run in and come and go as they please. No blankets either.

I did have one mare that never used the barn and would back into a thicket of pine during a snow storm. She used to get a little on her rump once and while in the spring before her coat really started to shed but it would pretty much fade away on it's own. I remember working a little cheap dollar store athletes foot power into her coat around her tail where she'd get it a few times and by then the coat was lightening up and it would go before I ever had to get aggressive with it.

Selenium in Counties of the Conterminous States

That's a map by the US geological Survey of selenium in the soils in the US. The bluer it is the more there is.
I'd be hesitant to supplement much selenium in those coastal areas of Washington.

The Mare Plus has 0.4 ppm, parts per million Se
The supplement you show has 47 ppm

The feeds are all around 0.6 ppm

If you have high selenium in your forage I think you've lost all the extra leeway.

Most salt licks made for horses have some selenium in them now too.

Selenium Poisoning in Horses (Alkali disease)

I wouldn't feed that with any regularity.


Vitamin A for horses | The Feed Room

and the Merck Manual

Nutritional Requirements of Horses: Nutrition: Horses: Merck Veterinary Manual

I think that stuff is too strong for a horse that has been taken care of.
 
#7 ·
If she's an easy keeper why not just a ration balancer and hay pellets to hide her joint supplements in.

2 of my easy keepers get a mix of hay pellets and a ration balancer. The other, the same as the one covered in rain rot gets a low carb, forage based feed. She needs a little more calories into her than the other two. There has been no rain rot since I treated her for it.
 
#8 ·
Thanks a bunch for all the info. She definitely seems to be getting too much Selenium - even if she only got it from the supplement which I know isn't the case, she would be getting 2.55mg per day when the recommended is 1.3mg. She also seems to be getting too much Vitamin A.

The recommended feeding on this supplement is way off - following them is overkill big time. I think for now I will cut back and give her less than an ounce of the supplement until it's gone and then look for something else. If I'm providing loose minerals, I wonder if I even really need a vitamin/mineral supplement at all. I might be able to take her off of it and just feed her the joint supplement with some crimped oats and call it good.

My vet will do mineral analysis from hair, I think it might be a good idea to get that done for some kind of guideline to start from.
 
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