Supplements

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The snow has melted for what I think is the fourth and final time this spring and barren grass returns to the pastures of Ranchette.  In advance of luscious green shoots of grass popping from the current brown and dismal, it’s time to switch the horses to warm weather diets.  I make this switch once the caloric demands of cold weather have departed but before the sweet grass arrives.  During this weather, they no longer receive grain but still receive hay.  As the grass emerges, the amount of hay is scaled down until they  move to pasture alone by June.

In the winter, I feed a lot of hay: just plain green grass hay that has been cured well and stored tight from the second or third cutting.   In the cold months, the Big Horse also gets twice daily sweet feed and rolled oats mixed.  Smoke gets a bit as well just to stay out of The Big Horse’s bucket.  The pony, always counting carbs and calories, is on perpetual diet and gets rationed hay only even in the coldest weather.

Over the years I’ve also fed different supplements for different reasons.  They also have free access to salt – either plain or with trace minerals depending on whether I’m supplementing elsewhere or not.  When I first purchased the Big Horse, he received a biotin blend supplement to improve his hooves.   All three have been on Farrier’s Formula for a time.  The Big Horse needed electrolytes added to his grain this winter to ensure he was drinking enough water during the coldest months.  The pony, in his Chunky Monkey days, was on a magnesium / metobolic balancer (Smart Pak’s IR Smart Balance).   Of all that I’ve used, Farrier’s Formula seemed to improve troublesome hooves and the Smart Balance seemed to help the pony.  I say seemed to help only because I have no comparison, much of his improvement may have been due to reducing his weight alone.

My typical approach towards supplements is to use them to address a specific issue and then eliminate them if possible.    Partly this is to resist the “kill them with kindness” approach to feeding.  Obvious neglect and abuse cases not withstanding, in the world of rich, resistant pasture grasses engineered for cattle, the resulting nutrient rich hay and increasing percentages of obese horses, most horses in the US today are more likely to be over fed, over supplemented and under ridden instead of the age old problem of undernourished, over worked.  Mine aren’t competition horses; they are pasture kings who have a work to leisure ratio of which you and I should be envious.

For horses whose summer diets are based on pasture forage it can be hard to know what their actual supplemental mineral needs, if any,  might be.  There is no feed tag on the pasture grass, but for less than the cost of a bucket of supplements, you can get your pasture or hay tested.  Check out additional details at Equi – Analytical Laboratories.

Once the grass is up high enough this year I plan on doing a pasture and hay test.  The results will let me see what specific deficiencies (if any) I may need to address each season through other sources like a ration balancer or specific mineral supplements.  Doing this test this year will let me get a good feel for what typical grass and mineral levels in our specific pastures are so I can make an educated long term supplements plan where and if needed.