Supplements

[Vindicated]

Okay in theory...every horse should do fine on oats, hay & water (& grass)
But...
My two (personal) boys are in pretty good shape, a bit flabby for lack of work, but they are shiny and happy. My warmblood is a bit of a lard and my Thoroughbred is a bit thin (needs maybe 50 lbs-but he has no "work" muscle, he looks way better when he is fit)

Both of them eat the best alfalfa/timothy hay in the area (12lbs in the am & 18 lbs in the evening-average), and get minimal grain (12# sweet, nothing special about it-each gets about 5 lbs 2x a day) as well as a product known as Sho-Glo.

I am not concerned with either horses current weight, the warmblood is easy to get fit, and gets the excess weight of quickly when he is in work, and the Thoroughbred looks better than he ever has (being a pasture pet anyway).
Neither of them have any special needs at this point-I would like to put them both back on a joint supplement..The warmblood is 9 and has minimal wear on his joints, he has however had a lot of soft tissue damage. The Thoroughbred raced for 2-3 years, other than that he has been doing minimal work since, he shows some very minor discomfort with climate changes.

I am looking for a good all around joint supplement, something that someone has had success with.

The sho-glo has some digestives in it, and some coat "condioners". I would like to do some sort of anti-oxident, coat condioners, and digestives, I have had very good results with the fastrack product..so thinking of going with that for the digestive-unless someone knows of an all around product-with good results.

Basically, even though both are just sitting right now-I intend on getting both back to work soon, and would like some supplement endorsements from people that have used them.
Thanks

[amanda1]

I also have all my horses on FasTrack, and love it!! It also helps tremendously with hoof health....my farrier recommends it above all other hoof supplements. I have my show hunters on Joint Saver. It is fairly new and is not cheap, but it has been recommended to me by Dr. Ron Genovese, who is one of the top leg docs in the country. For their coats they get one cup of Buckeye Ultimate Finish on their feed as a top dressing. A bag lasts awhile and they are sleek and shiny. It is high in fat and works great!

[madelyn]

Aniflex GL has worked absolute wonders on a broodmare of mine that came in with no cartilage in her hind knees (stifle joint) and used to pop her knees out when she walked - painful and inflammatory. She is almost normal after two little inexpensive tubs of the stuff.

[ratherrapid]

Vindicated, i get more skeptical of every horse supplement out there the more I look. recent stuff--the Italian mafia true to form in attractive bottles exports virgin olive oil that's really 90% soybean oil (see hilarious article on this by Atomic Dog at Testosterone nation. he's a high iq dude.), and, anther study, forgot cite--several substandard brands of human multis turn out to be mostly fillers.

You'll notice that almost all the horse vitamins fail to contain dosages at their websites, and who knows what's actually in them. mystery though that they can sell them so much cheaper than human supplements.

glucasomine (avoid condroiten --fails to absorb lol, and msm does stuff to your brain), seems to be the one horse supplement that's freely available. but, here's an example--recently orderd one from vitaflex at "Horse Health" and arrives stamped February 2004. That's what you run into.

Can we say that horses fed balanced horse diets look good when you add fat? makes them shine although you wonder re the health effect.

maybe true supplemenation will take some real digging around. e.g how about simply buying human glucosomine and giving it to horses. that way u at least know it's regulated. Brands in horses are irrelevant. Every brand buys ingredients basically from the same suppliers and mixes them. It's what they buy and actually include I think that is the question.

[Cathyleabo]

https://www.horseguard.com


This supplement is the one we use and it does give content and dosage information. Just click on the product you are interested in and go to the bottom of the info page.

[ratherrapid]

yes, they give the dosages. kudos!

Is it a good supplement based on dosages?

here's the dosage for Twinlab Daily One Caps (human multi vitamin) compared to Equine Nutrition's Trifecta 3 in 1 Super Duper Multi. The human vitamin is on the left, the Equine Nutritiion single dose on the right:

Vitamin A 10000 iu --50,000 iu. good!
Vitamin C 150 mg--127mg. huh?
D3 400 iu 4000 iu good
E 100 iu 2000 iu good (wonder if you want to thin race horse blood with e?)
B1 25mg 12.5 mg. huh?
B2 25 mg 22 mg. huh?
B6 25 mg 15 mg huh?
B12 100 mcg 75 mg good!
iron 0 400 mg gross overdose.
copper 2 mg 150 mg. unknown why so much.
magnesium 5 mg 700 mg. unknown again why so much
iodine 150 mcg 2 mg looks decent

My protein supplement contains human dose 481 mg Lysine. this contains 700 mg. barely more than human dose.

and, there's more. appropriate glucasomine dose e.g. From this lable Equine Nutrition seems better than most ,but still deficient for lot's of key ingredients and overdoses for reasons unknown on others. Anybody else have any other they like?

[Cathyleabo]

Good point about the E, this supplement is the one we give the mares, yearling and the mules. The race horse gets his own special blend.