Posted on 08/07/2007 7:33:14 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
This is a horse chat thread where we share ideas, ask for input from other horsemen, and talk about our riding and horse-keeping. We have a lot of different kinds of riders and horses, and a lot to share, usually about our horses, sometimes about our dogs, gardens and other stuff we do. :~)
I have a ping list for horse threads that are of interest, and MissTargets will ping everyone most mornings. Let MissTargets and/or me know if you would like to be on the ping list.
So... like the previous threads, this is intended as fun place to come and share stories, pictures, questions and chit-chat, unguided and unmoderated and that we come together here as friends.
Previous threads:
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - thread ONE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread TWO!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread THREE!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FOUR
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FIVE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SIX
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SEVEN
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread EIGHT
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread NINE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread TEN
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread 11
New folk and occasional posters, jump right in and introduce yourselves, tell us about your horses, and post pictures if you've got them!
Well, I was a bit aggravated at his “friends”. I felt they should have brought him home immediately and let his family decide how to treat him. But to be honest, if they had brought him home immediately, we’d have probably waited too, not being big fans of doctors/hospitals.
I truly can’t say we’d have taken him any sooner then he went himself, unless he had told us he was feeling foggy. Just being honest.
Becky
Well, the farrier should have plenty of packing material in his truck. That’s pretty much a standard farrier supply. A lot of them use oakum, which is kind of a fibrous stuff like coir or coco fiber, but some use the newer stuff that I think has more shock absorbing qualities for packing hooves prior to putting on pads. Didn’t your old farrier used some kind of packing before he put those pads under Bay’s shoes?
I wondered why there were two in there. Duh! That was niced of you to remember. BladeRider will be proud to get one. We’re planning on meeting up for a ride on Saturday so I’ll be sure to give it to her then.
I’m good about getting other people to the ER... just not me. :~)
Yeah - Mark used Oakum under the pads.
Well, I share your distrust of the medical profession in general, and most of the time holding off and seeing how it goes isn’t going to hurt anything, but a head injury ain’t one of those times. It’s definately better to err on the side of caution then coz once your brain’s gone, there ain’t no fixing it. The same goes for strokes and TIAs. If ANYBODY is showing ANY signs you need to get them to the ER as soon as possible. You’ve got a very small window to reverse the damage, after that it’s just dealing with the aftermath. And I only say that because we’re all getting older, and like it or not, we’ve got to start thinking about stuff like that.
You know I’ve heard about studies that show that there are connections between even mild concussions and problems later in life. I’d probably go faster now then I would have back then...
Becky
For a long time I fed Purina Senior to everyone... Mixed with dry COB (Corn Oats Barley) depending on whether I thought everyone was thin or fat. The ratio was usually one bag senior two bags COB lately. But since the issue with Bay's feet, three months or so now, I've just been feeding dry COB, wondering if the molasses in the Senior feed had anything to do with that. They never got very much, still getting one small (1 lb) coffee can full for the horses, half for the pony. Plus good hay. The hay we get is pretty rich, nutrition-wise.
Well, I got in a long conversation with some ladies at the feed store who were discussing vitamins. It was sortof like jumping in on a thread over at the horse forum. ;~)
Most of what they said overwhelmed me... they were talking about Iron and Copper and Selinium and one of them binding to the other one so it didn't get digested and all that... over my head. But I did mention that I was only feeing COB and had never fed a vitamin. Occasional loose salt/mineral.
They thought I should probably feed Bay more.. that he needed some additional vitamins, Iron, Calcium, that he wasn't going to get from COB. So I bought that Millennium Gold supplement. I'm going to be giving it to everyone. It does have Biotin in it and I have known Biotin to make horses a little hyper... I'll be keeping an eye on Cyn... I don't mind it making Bay hot, but I don't want Cyn getting revved up on it.
I also switched to the Flex Wafers instead of the Joint Combo I've always used... it has a lot higher dose of everything, and is cheaper. Plus, it doesn't double Bay up on Biotin, since the JC and the vitamin have that. They're supposed to be fed like a treat and Bay won't eat them. I think he's eating them when I break them up in his grain.
SO there's that... new vitamins and supplements. I still don't understand what those women were talking about, but I was convinced I wasn't feeding quite as balanced of a diet as I should.
Honest opinion...from the talks I’ve gone to, (but keep in mind they were from Purina reps) adding supplements without knowing for sure they are needed is not a good idea. Just from learning about human nutrition over the last few years, it’s amazing how one thing out of balance can throw the whole shebang off.
IMO, instead of adding supplements, I would get a high quality complete (not speaking of the complete like I use, just one that has everything added at the right ratio), feed. But I agree to stay away from the sweet stuff.
If you are going to feed hay, then I’d feed Strategy...
Your situation is very similar to mine as far as pasture etc goes. In a situation like that, I still feel the best approach is a complete pellet that has the fiber in it, and either don’t feed hay at all, or feed/payfor a lesser quality hay. Hay for me is just something to keep them mentally happy, not nutritionally. Lesser quality hay, they don’t eat it as fast, so it lasts longer, but it does satisfy their gazing instinct which is all hay for me would be given for.
The guy at my feed store said that most of the supplements that are made for horses, the minerals particles are not small enough for their systems to absorb, so they are a waste of money.
I don’t mean to rain on your parade, just giving my opinion.
The proof will be in the pudding, won’t it:)
Becky
Well, I don’t know what proof to look for in the pudding ;~)
They look fine now, I expect they’ll continue to look fine even on the vitamin. Like the vet says... “Might help, might just be expensive pee”. It was mostly the iron and Calcium I got to thinking about for Bay.
Maybe I should switch to Strategy... It’s not sweet like some of them?
Yeah, I got into all that when I started having to keep Tennessee on a dry lot and feed only hay. There really is quite a bit to have to learn about horse nutrition when you can’t feed a prepackaged feed. The Yahoo Equine Cushings/Insulin Resistance group was very helpful in that regard. They have spreadsheets that let you punch in the numbers of whatever feed and supplements you’re using, along with the numbers from your hay analysis and it’ll tell you what you need to add or subtract to get the horse’s vitamin/mineral ratios balanced in relation to each other. The one that blew me away was the ratio of Iron to Copper needs to be just so or it can cause BIG problems. Most feeds have way too much iron anyways, and since we’ve got this iron-rich red clay soil here, they get more than enough iron in their hay, forage and water so there needs to be more copper in their diet to balance it out. It’s mind-boggling, but that spreadsheet has been a lifesaver for me.
See... all that goes right over my head. :~) Not sure what I would do with the spreadsheet. ;~)
I don’t think Bay is Cushings/IR (yet). I just agree he probably doesn’t need the sugar.
No, I don’t think he is either, but I just found the spreadsheet interesting. It was FULL of formulas so that when you keyed your analysis numbers in from the various feeds it calculated the ratios between the various components and gave you a recomendation for exactly what you needed to supplement with. They didn’t recommend using general supplements because you may just need more of one specific thing, like magnesium, and if you use something like a “Horsey Multi-vitamin” you’re getting more of other stuff too that you may not need and it might upset the balance there. There for a while I was giving Tennessee extra manganese, but when I got a different load of hay from a different place I had to stop that because it had plenty of that already in it.
I’ve never had hay or feed analyzed, and wouldn’t even know how to do that.
I just want the horses to eat right ;~) I wish it wasn’t so complicated.
Strategy is a dry pellet that looks a lot like the feed I use....it just does not have the roughage added.
Becky
I think that’s what Tiff feeds.
Well, being a Purina fan:), it is what I would use if I had pasture or fed hay.
I believe duchess uses it also, for all her horses.
Becky
And this was the first thing that came to my mind...why fix something that is showing no signs of being broken:)
And as far as the comment about expensive pee, well something I have been told, is that is not necessarily true. There are some minerals/vitimens that will not be passed in pee, but are stored and can reach toxic levels.
Becky
Strategy doesn't necessarily cause heat, it's just that to give Tuffy enough to put weight on and keep it with all of his work, he would get too much. There are two strategys, one for feeding with alfalfa and one for feeding with grass.
I give up... it makes my head swim. :~)
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