colt nutrition??

[ngcmcn]

I have an eight month old colt that is on good hay,oats, free choice kelp and or fertrell graziers choice salt.Doing well. I’ve been lite on the oats say 1-1.5lbs a day, he weighs(i’m guessing)650………..any hoo, i’d like to bump his nutrition up a lttle bit especially the calcium and phosphorus end of things without going to some fancy saddle horse d’ouvres T.V. dinner supplement.

Any Joe basic ideas? Sggestions??

thanks

Neal Mcnaughten

[sanhestar]

Hello,

you have already an overabundance of phosphorus due to the grain (oats) you feed. So you should primarily look at calcium sources.

Alfalfa f.e. is one, it’s also good energy feed for a horse and gives additional roughage for his gut.

But I would start with an analysis of the hay and the soil to see (if you don’t know already) what minerals and trace minerals are available to your colt. You may have covered the trace minerals with the kelp and a bit with the Graziers Choice.

But you should look also at magnesium, potassium, iron, iodum.

The high copper amount that is often found in kelp is likely to block the absorption of iron and/or zincum.

[jen judkins]

Neal, I agree with sanhestar..except I wouldn’t worry about the copper in the kelp. The interference in absorption of other minerals is not enough to outweigh its benefits. If I were you I would simply add a free choice calcium/phos loose salt. ABC nutrition is the easiest to buy and pretty cheap, I believe. I use Dynamite’s version. Just throw it in a mineral feeder and let him decide how much he needs. I agree that the calcium is the biggest gap in your diet…especially for a growing colt. BTW, there are generally two types of calcium/phos salts…one to be fed with grass hay and one to be fed with more alfalfa in the diet (has to do with how much phos is in the mix). If you do decide to go with the alfalfa for calcium, don’t over do it….20% of his forage is plenty. Too much calcium could lead to unwanted bone growth down the road…which is why I like the free choice option.

Jennifer.

[sanhestar]

Jennifer,

I didn’t want to suggest to stop the free choice kelp just point out that there could be another thing to think about when choosing a mineral supplement.

[dominiquer60]

At college we fed a group of horses a very low vitamin E diet to study the negative neuro-muscular side effects, it was a sad looking bunch of horses, but more ideal to study the deficiency when you know exactly what they eat. My point to think about is that in order to keep vit E to a minimum they got extra cooper in their diet that bound to the vit E in order to keep it from being absorbed. With so many factors to consider there is no shame in sending a sample of your unknown feedstuffs for nutritional analysis. I think its great that there are still people keeping horses on simple diets, it would blow your mind to see what some of these fancy show horses in Florida are fed.
Erika

[jen judkins]

Erika, I can just imagine the feed protocols down your way! I used to be right in the middle of all that….mentally exhausting, really!

Part of the problem is that people get so ‘in their head’ about nutrition…sort of a ‘paralysis of analysis’. I spent many years triing to micromanage a healthy diet for my performance horses and it wasn’t until I took a step back and looked at what they would do naturally on their own that they actually started to get healthy.

We tend to feed our horses the same thing, day in and day out. All the feedstuff gets concentrated in one or two meals (which is why all the competitive binding and absorption issues are so well studied), but that is not a natural way for horses to feed themself. In nature they would graze and browse, sampling a different mineral source throughout the day or week or month or whatever. Even we as humans eat a varied diet from day to day (or at least we should), ensuring we get minerals from different sources and in different combinations, avoiding deficiencies and overloads.

The matter gets worse with performance horses that are kept in sterile stalls and runouts…its no wonder they start eating their enclosure:eek:.

Simple is better. Forage, pasture, even a few weeds. Free choice minerals….ie dirt and rocks(I admit, I buy the fancy dirt…sorted into all sorts of mineral classes). Did you know that horses can convert silica (rock) into a calcium source…yep. Add alittle oats for energy when needed.

There are definately obstacles to good nutrition in any given situation, but looking at ways to take advantage of the horses’ natural tendencies to forage is preferable. JMHO. Jennifer.

[ngcmcn]

Thanks for all the feedback. I have posted the analysis of the mibneral we’re feeding below. It’s labelled for cows, so not sure how that translates to horses. There’s no added copper, and obviously it contains a lot more trace minerals, etc… part of the reason for choosing a kelp based mix.

However, we’re still not sure how much of this he’s getting, or even if the levels of nutrients in this mix are adequate or excessive. We feed it free-choice to the horses, as we do our cows, despite the paranoid labelling… but he doesn’t seem to eat a whole lot of it–or the kelp and redmond salt.

Anyway, we thought about putting the little bugger on a peletted feed instead of oats, just to be sure he was getting adequate levels of vitamins and minerals… Any recommendations would be appreciated. We’re not looking for top of the line gourmet. Just a basic feed with about the right energy and protein levels, plus a good mineral pack.

Any thoughts???
—

Fertrell Grazier’s Choice

Guaranteed Analysis:
Calcium (max)9%
Calcium (min) 8%
Phosphorus (min)1.5%
Salt (max)25%
Salt (min)23%
Selenium (min)45 ppm
Copper (min)2.5 ppm
Zinc (min)11 ppm
Vitamin E (min)1500 IU/LB

Ingredients:
Kelp Meal (Ascophylum Nodosum), Sea Shell Flour, MonoSodium Phosphate, Salt, Sodium Selenite, Vitamin E Supplement, and Diatomaceous Earth.

Directions:
Feed Gazier’s Choice free choice along with forages and grains. Cattle should not consume more than the following amounts: Growing Animals – 1 oz. per day for maintenance. Finishing Animals – 1 oz. per day for maintenance. Brood Cows – 1 oz. per day prior to calving and while lactating. Consult your local Fertrell Dealer for more information about feeding Grazier’s Choice.

Caution:
Follow label feeding directions. The addition of feeding higher levels of this premix containing selenium is not permitted.

[sanhestar]

Hi,

well, now depending on the amount of oats, his daily intake of this mineral feed and the amount of minerals in you hay/grass, it could (!) be ok.

It’s a typical cattle mix, from what I can tell. Very wide Ca:P ratio to allow additional grain feeding.

Could you tell us about the type of hay you feed and the daily quantity? Have you had this analized some time?

If you chose to feed a pelleted mix you have to take into consideration the amounts of minerals and trace minerals in that in relation to the mineral lick.

[jen judkins]

Neal, Two thoughts before I am late for work…

First, I have always been leary of feeding cattle feed to horses..ever since the big Alpaca cross-contamination event a few years ago. Urea Nitrogen in particular is not something horses tolerate and can lead to kidney failure. Now moving past that paranoia, there is obviously no urea nitrogen purposefully put in your cattle salt (its a protein source in cattle grains)…but there can be issues with cross contamination because the mill handles cattle feed. Just an FYI…I don’t own cattle, so I bringing this from the horse side of the story;).

Second, I love Kelp..great for the micro-trace minerals…a very nice complete mineral source. The trouble with free choicing the Kelp all the time is the amount of iodine in it. Horses can get toxic on iodine and this is likely the reason you don’t see them eat alot of it. So the kelp in the free coice might actually prevent them from taking advantage of the other minerals. If you are free choicing straight Kelp as well, go for a mineral salt that isn’t kelp based, so they have a better choice for mineral intake.

Got to run for now… Jennifer.

[Lane Linnenkohl]

If I may ask, why is it you feel you need to “bump his nutrition up”? Is he small, underweight, weak? I mean, if he’s doing fine, playing, active, eating and drinking adquately, why change what you’re doing?

I say just give him the Redmond salt and kelp meal free choice, give him all the clean hay he can eat, and let him out to run and be a foal. Why get fancy? I think people over think this feed/nutrition stuff sometimes.

[Author]

Posts