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 Balance Beam and more...
Posts: 11493
   
Location: 31 lengths farms | My mare has Kidney stones, they suggest no bran in her feed (out goes my Renew Gold) and obviously no alfalfa. Any grain/feed suggestions. She is on grass and wheat hay and so far pretty much every feed I've looked into has alfalfa or bran in it it seems:( |
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  Ms. Manners
Posts: 1820
Location: Oklahoma | Excellent grass hay, a diet balancer (Progressive, Buckeye, etc.) and add in ground Flax for good fat.
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 Experienced Mouse Trapper
Posts: 3106
Location: North Dakota | Something Beet pulp based?? IDK what about whole oats with the beet pulp and maybe soybean oil if you need the fat. I would think there are some lower protein feeds that would be easy on the kidneys out there.....now my brain is thinking. Good luck in your search. |
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Experienced Mouse Trapper
Posts: 3106
Location: North Dakota | Morab76 - 2014-05-20 2:48 PM Excellent grass hay, a diet balancer (Progressive, Buckeye, etc.) and add in ground Flax for good fat.
Yes flax-duh-just bought a bag today for my crew! |
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Balance Beam and more...
Posts: 11493
Location: 31 lengths farms | Progressive, love the feed but everyone I've looked into has either bran or Alfalfa meal...
Will check the Buckeye... |
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 Shelter Dog Lover
Posts: 10277
| What about soaked beet pulp with a vitamin/mineral supplement for nutrients and a fat supplement? This is what I feed, horses look and feel great. |
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Balance Beam and more...
Posts: 11493
Location: 31 lengths farms | What does the beet pulp do nutritionally for them? The reason I need a feed in the first place is to put the Herbs in..I've been syringing it to her but she is getting a little tired of that game. |
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Balance Beam and more...
Posts: 11493
Location: 31 lengths farms | I have to be careful on the vitamin/mineral supplement too...calcium. Blah!!! This is making me crazy.
Seems like everything has bran or alfalfa meal or both in it anymore.....So guess I'm gonna hunt up some beet pulp shreds, oats, timothy grass pellets and some flax seed and start mixing my own "all in one".
Any other ideas or info would also be appreciated. |
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 The Bling Princess
Posts: 3411
Location: North Dakota | I just read where beet pulp is relatively high in calcium therefore I don't think you'd want to feed that to a horse that kidney stones. I would confirm with your vet. Otherwise beet pulp is a really good source of dietary fiber. |
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Balance Beam and more...
Posts: 11493
Location: 31 lengths farms | ARGGG!!! Thank you, I'll do some MORE research, LOL!!! Truly appreciate the heads up. |
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Expert
Posts: 1694
Location: Willows, CA | Here is where a little more information can help, and broad recommendations might be off base. Kidney stones, more often bladder stones, or uroliths can be made up of either calcium or, sometimes, phosphates. An excess of either can cause a problem if the horse is susceptible to them. Often a bladder infection is the underlying cause of the stone formation. Also a change in Ph can start them. Your vet is right to limit alfalfa due to its usually high level of calcium, same with beet pulp. Both should be avoided for a horse that has urinary tract stones. Straight bran is low in Calcium but is high in phosphorus, which can also be an issue, as can all grain based feeds. If the stone is made up of phosphorus, high grains can be as bad as high alfalfa. In this situation Renew Gold can be a significant advantage. While there is some stabilized rice bran in the formulation, Renew Gold is calcium / phosphorus neutral, not high in phosphorus like wheat bran or oat bran. In addition, it is fed at such a low feed rate that it contributes less calcium and phosphorus to the entire diet than any conventional feed that might be used to replace it. There is not a lot you can do with the diet that will diminish the stones that are already there. Once horses have them, they seem more prone to getting them again, and eliminating or reducing both high calcium and phosphorus loads can benefit. Do not feed additional mineral supplements to horses with this issue.
Edited by winwillows 2014-05-20 5:23 PM
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Balance Beam and more...
Posts: 11493
Location: 31 lengths farms | Thank you, not trying to diminish the stones with the diet, just trying not to add to the issue and watch my calcium/phosphorus content. |
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Expert
Posts: 1694
Location: Willows, CA | run n rate - 2014-05-20 5:28 PM
Thank you, not trying to diminish the stones with the diet, just trying not to add to the issue and watch my calcium/phosphorus content.
You are right on this issue. That is why you will be better off leaving the Renew Gold in the diet. Anything that you replace it with that will supply significant nutritional support will also provide much more calcium and phosphorus to the diet. |
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Balance Beam and more...
Posts: 11493
Location: 31 lengths farms | Thank you for the information, will pull feed tags again and double check...the bran thing just scares me but I get the information you are sharing also :-) |
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Expert
Posts: 1694
Location: Willows, CA | run n rate - 2014-05-21 12:16 PM
Thank you for the information, will pull feed tags again and double check...the bran thing just scares me but I get the information you are sharing also :-)
OK, I understand. Lets look at the numbers. Renew Gold typically replaces four pounds of conventional feed with one pound of Renew Gold. One pound of Renew Gold provides about 8 grams of Calcium and 5.9 grams of Phosphorus total per day. Four pounds of conventional, Cal/Phos balanced, feed provides around 25 grams of Calcium and 12 grams of Phosphorus. If you feed a product that has not been balanced and is grain based, the Phos number will go way up. Either way, you are introducing a fraction of the dietary Calcium and Phosphorus with Renew Gold compared to the typical feed that it would replace because of the much lower required feed rate. To figure the numbers for yourself on other feeds, multiply the percentage of Calcium or Phosphorus listed on the guaranteed analysis by 454 (the number of grams in a pound) then by the number of pounds per day you feed. Example: If the calcium guarantee is 1.5%, then 454 x 1.5% = 6.81 Multiply this number by the number of pounds you feed per day. If you feed 4 pounds total of this feed, 6.81 x 4 = 27.24 This would be the grams per day of calcium that is provided by that feed. You can do the same for any feed or roughage that you have numbers for. |
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 Expert
Posts: 1857
| I read some where that adding apple cider vinegar or Vitamin C will help prevent the formation of stones by breaking down the calcium. not sure if that is true but maybe something to look into...
Edited by FlyingJT 2014-05-21 2:24 PM
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Balance Beam and more...
Posts: 11493
Location: 31 lengths farms | Super helpful winwillows!!!
And yes, have her on both ACV and Vit. C...started that about a day after I found out she had the stones so a little over a month ago. |
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Veteran
Posts: 139
Location: Abbotsford B.C. Canada | I think you can use feeds like bran or some alfalfa as long as they do not add an excessive amount of calcium or phosphorus in other words it all about total intake per day and not exceeding recommended levels of anything. Some high calcium alfalfa hay may not add more than the kidneys can handle if paired woth rolled oats which has a very low calcium level . Yes the alfalfa adds some protein but oats are not great for protein.
If you use a basic grass hay from an area where the soils are low calcium and probably low phos you may find a good well balanced commercial feed will not blow the numbers. If the grass hay was fertilized with nitrogen I bet it will be low protein as well so you may be surprised that you can balance a diet for a horse with kidney stones when you line the numbers up. So the alfalfa may be 20% protein and high calcium maybe 1.65% , 0.25% phos but the oats are 0.06% calcium and 0.35% phos , and the grass hay may be 6-8% protein if mature and maybe 0.4% calcium and 0.17% p so when you do the numbers you may be able to get pretty close to just meeting calium and having a reasonably well balanced feed. Bran is about .13% calcium , very low, but 1.18% phos dry matter . So you may find you can use a vitamin trace mineral supplement and balance the rest and have a diet the horse can live with and enjoy.
Get you local feed guy to do this balancing for you, I do it a lot up here, including horses with kidney stones and one I work with who had stones when I was contacted, but only 1 kidney for some unknown reasson.
Other things that may help are not using NSAID's unless a vet says the one used is ok with the kidney situation, add some extra salt to keep water intakes up . Grazing pasture may help keep the horse hydrated.
Some are using the close up dry cow pellets used by dairy people to acidify the diet under vets advice. They use soy chlor or bio chlor , commercial products for acidifying urine. You can easily test the pH of your horses urine with urine test strips the dairy guys use.
just like my old siamese cat who got urine acidifying pills every day.
Some use ammonium sulfate or chloride but horses are not crazy about eating it in feed.
Make sure you only use antibiotics that do not cause renal function problems and do not over supply vitamin D3 as that can cause calcium deposits in the kidney among other tissues.
If you want the name of a good horse nutritionist in the usa contact me and I can refer you.
fyi
coastal rider |
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Balance Beam and more...
Posts: 11493
Location: 31 lengths farms | More great info!!! Thank you so much, you don't know how much I appreciate this :-)
She is kinda the light of my life...
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l232/tuckercan/photo-10_zps0f9578... |
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Blessed 
Location: Here | beet pulp and flax |
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