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I just read the headlines
Posts: 4483
  
| My barefoot trimmer was here yesterday and was talking to me about supplementing my horse with copper and zinc to tighten his hooves up. He has always had rings and hoof cracks at the toe, no matter what I feed and now has some separation. He is not laminitic. His soles have toughened up so that he can walk on caliche now and even lopes and trots across the driveway to his stall when turned loose. I have read where red horses have been thought to require more copper than other colored horses, but can't remember where I have read that. Do any of you know anything about this or experienced it yourself?
Edited by GLP 2017-11-16 1:40 PM
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 Expert
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Location: Texas | I have had my pastures & hay tested over the years and it always comes back with high iron with the ratio of copper & zinc way out of wack. To find a feed or mineral supplement that doesn't have any added iron and yet has high enough amounts of copper & zinc is next to impossible. You can buy bulk copper & zinc from Uckele Equine and calculate out how much to give, but it is VERY nasty tasting and my horses were not happy about having it added to their feed. The lesser of all evils that I have found is the Triple Crown 30% ration balancer feed. Yes, it has added iron but I live with that. (High amounts of iron can keep other minerals from being absorbed.) You can have a custom supplement made in a flax base by HorseTech. Or HorseTech's High Point vitamin & mineral has good amounts. They also have some stock "custom & non stock" products that have good amounts in as well.
Edited by TBone 2017-11-16 1:42 PM
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I just read the headlines
Posts: 4483
| TBone - 2017-11-16 1:36 PM
I have had my pastures & hay tested over the years and it always comes back with high iron with the ratio of copper & zinc way out of wack. To find a feed or mineral supplement that doesn't have any added iron and yet has high enough amounts of copper & zinc is next to impossible. You can buy bulk copper & zinc from HorseTech and calculate out how much to give, but it is VERY nasty tasting and my horses were not happy about having it added to their feed. The lesser of all evils that I have found is the Triple Crown 30% ration balancer feed. Yes, it has added iron but I live with that. (High amounts of iron can keep other minerals from being absorbed.) You can have a custom supplement made in a flax base by HorseTech. Or HorseTech's High Point vitamin & mineral has good amounts. They also have some stock "custom & non stock" products that have good amounts in as well.
awesome! Thank you, we also have high iron in our hay in our area. |
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Veteran
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| My crew eats the uckele copper and zinc just fine, but ymmv. It's cheap enough to give it a go, and if not, there's always horsetech products. |
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I just read the headlines
Posts: 4483
| hannahbug - 2017-11-16 2:14 PM
My crew eats the uckele copper and zinc just fine, but ymmv. It's cheap enough to give it a go, and if not, there's always horsetech products.
Thank you! He is quite the feed hound, so I will certainly look into that, too. |
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Extreme Veteran
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Location: Comanche, TX | Sometimes it depends on how the minerals are formulated into the feed too. I don't know what you are using right now but I use Patriot and GLO feeds for my horses. The products use the Grostrong package and also add complex sources of zinc and copper for more bioavailability so they are more utilizable by the horses. If you have any questions about them, feel free to pm me! |
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I just read the headlines
Posts: 4483
| turnnburn06 - 2017-11-16 2:48 PM
Sometimes it depends on how the minerals are formulated into the feed too. I don't know what you are using right now but I use Patriot and GLO feeds for my horses. The products use the Grostrong package and also add complex sources of zinc and copper for more bioavailability so they are more utilizable by the horses. If you have any questions about them, feel free to pm me!
I won't use ADM products any more, but the GRostrong minerals were really good. Thank you for the suggestions, though. |
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Expert
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Location: Texas | I see Uckele now offers both the zinc & copper in a pellet! YEA!!!  |
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Expert
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Location: The Great Northwest | I have no more cracks, chips or dry hooves after feeding the supplelment "Perfect Horse". It is blue green algae and 97% digestable. The hooves are tough and their hair is very healthy looking too. |
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I just read the headlines
Posts: 4483
| skye - 2017-11-16 5:21 PM
I have no more cracks, chips or dry hooves after feeding the supplelment "Perfect Horse". It is blue green algae and 97% digestable. The hooves are tough and their hair is very healthy looking too.
I will look that up. Seems like I have read whereblue green algae is high in copper. |
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