28/03/2024
It's easy to underestimate the importance of feeding quality vits, mins and amino acids on a regular basis. When money was short these were the first things I dropped before I woke up to this simple fact. This is a really informative post from people who have years of experience with many horses debunking the idea that a hay only diet is sufficient to fully meet your horses nutritional needs. Discussion and comments welcome 😀.
Three Ravens is our second track system. We've been here for 10 years and had our previous track for 5 years, so we've been running Track Systems for 15 years. We've been caring for large groups of horses for nearly 30 years.
There is currently a lot of misinformation being posted on social media platforms, 'advising' owners that horses can live and thrive on hay only diets- meaning no supplementation of protein, vits & minerals. If only this were true!!! Think of the money and time we would all save! We tried the 'hay only' diet...not for 15 days, or a month, but for YEARS. Like the majority of people who run tracks, we found out it just doesn't work. Hay and hay quality is such a vast subject, it's not just about the type of grasses, not fertilising, not spraying with chemicals etc, but how and when it's cut and made, it could he argued the whole process is an art form. Not all hay is equal, and I think we all know this by now. Most people now know that vit E is deficient in hay, and horses usually get this from grass- and a deficiency in vit E causes all sorts of problems.
We test hay and have it analysed, and have also previously gone to the expensive lengths of doing blood tests for mineral & vitamin profiling on some horses- which isn't necessary except in exceptional or complex cases- because there is a broad range of what is deemed adequate/safe for each vit/mineral. So how can we tell? The answer is the horses in front of you and their health & symptoms. And I'm not necessarily talking about them being extremely sick, although long term, this can and does happen. Generally speaking, I'm talking about every day issues such as raising youngsters on a Track System with hay only diet, veteran horses on a hay only diet- both of which need extra protein and plenty of it. And then there's the wide range of health symptoms, many of which- like head shaking- are still seen by some as an allergy and can't be fixed by the correct supplements, balancing up with what is missing from hay. We've fixed 2 headshakers, but it would reappear if we stopped supplements- we know because we've tried it. There's a whole plethora of symptoms, both health and behaviour, that start to show up when deficiency is present. Sometimes it takes a few years, just like horses with PSSM2- yes, we're successfully managing those as well. We have every age on our track system from 6 months old to our 25yr old QH, Millie. She's been with us since she was 6 yrs old and we've seen and relieved her of a lot of health issues over those years. We have LONG TERM liveries as well as our own being long term here, and that's what counts- seeing horses thrive in the long term. Millie was one of our horses who suffered the consequences of 'hay only' and dramatically dropped weight and top line, she went from being rock crunching to having extremely poor hoof quality. She had muscle twitching and dangerous behaviour changes. We at the time were strongly advocating hay only, so had to completely do a U turn on our then belief system. You do the best you know, until you know better. We changed things dramatically and started to see fantastic improvements- but not just in Millie, in ALL the other horses, including those who we hadn't realised that there was room for improvement. That was years ago now and we've seen a lot of horses since who improve vastly on a supplemented, hay only diet.
It would be a dream come true if hay only was sufficient, it would save countless hours of work and a lot of money, but it doesn't work in the long run. We want horses to be fit and healthy in their bodies, and calm and happy in mind and spirit.
We're aiming to supplement what they would have access to in a wild diet- which is a broad choice of plants, grasses, trees, bark, legumes, herbs etc. The first pic below is our own Little Wolf, the second is a wild Mustang from the Sand Wash Basin.
Little Wolf has PSSM2, two variants of. We've had him since he was 6 months old and he started displaying pssm2 symptoms age 2yrs old. At the time, we didn't think it was fixable or even manageable. Little Wolf is now almost 7yrs old and is healthy and ridden, and we think he looks amazing too! So yes, we see all the usual EMS/laminitics etc here- but our work and care (like most other experienced track systems) goes way beyond just 'fixing hooves', we are about WHOLE HEALTH, WHOLE HORSE.
Please note- we refuse any sponsorship from all feed & supplement companies, we use what we use because we've seen fantastic results. We do not personally benefit financially or otherwise from any of the products we use.
