Best vitamin/ mineral supplements to balance forage based diet

[a1eventing]

Looking for some insights from those of you who have had experience with different vitamin/ mineral balancers.

I have a fairly easy keeper but he is in consistent moderate work (5-6 days/ week). Like a lot of easy keepers my guy only gets 2-3lbs of a concentrate grain so is not receiving the minimum feeding recommendation to meet the guaranteed analysis.

I briefly trialed a ration balancer but my horse became VERY nervous and spooky on it. I’m thinking it could have been the dehulled soybean meal as I’ve read that many horses who experience this effect may be sensitive to this form of soy. Unfortunately there still aren’t many ration balancers readily available that don’t list dehulled soybean meal as a primary ingredient.

So this leads to considering the other alternative which is to find a suitable vitamin/mineral supplement with good amino acid coverage.

My horse is fed a forage mix of 2-3 servings of timothy hay (2-3 flakes each feeding) and 1-2 servings of alfalfa chaffhaye.per day. I also give 1 flake of alfalfa hay prior to riding. He has access to grass 24/7 via private paddock off of his stall (pasture grass is sparse).

I’ve been looking at the Arenus Eq-Well, Platinum Performance Wellness, and Equipride.

Any insights?

[ChocoMare]

EquiPride or a Lix tub. All the good stuff you want them to have, none of the bad. My easy keepers THRIVE on it. Simple, easy to feed.

[a1eventing]

What about amio acids? EquiPride doesn’t seem to contain/ list them?

[theresak]

I’ve fed Equishine and the SmartPak vitamin/mineral supplements successfully. I think HorseTech’s products are really good as well.

You may need to add something with additional amino acids - depends on what you hay and grass tests

[JB]

Can you get Triple Crown? The Lite feed might work. 1-2lb per 500lb, and it’s soy hulls, not meal, which is much more favorable for some horses.

I like Equi-Pride, but it’s not going to give you the nutrition you’re looking for. It’s also not providing significant protein or lysine.

[Simkie]

You might like AZ Copper Complete:

https://horsetech.com/equine-supplements/searchcategory/copper/arizona-copper-complete

It’s got the amino acids, it’s got some vit/minerals, it’s got a good dose of vit e. It’s flax based, so you’re getting some omega 3s. It also has a compliment of b vitamins, and some magnesium. No soy.

It’s neither crazy expensive nor crazy cheap, but it sure does fill a nice niche, especially if you don’t want to have a bunch of different buckets in your feed room.

[EmilyM]

i’m a fan of Platinum Performance. my show horses in decent work get mostly hay and prob 2 lbs of ultium a day. i supplement with platinum. i had bloodwork done to check vitamin levels on one for other reasons and his levels were normal. that made me feel pretty good about his health/nutrition.

[JB]

@EmilyM

my show horses in decent work get mostly hay and prob 2 lbs of ultium a day. i supplement with platinum.

Why not just 2lb of a good ration balancer? Much more nutrition than 2lb of Ultium, and cheaper than that + PP

[EmilyM]

@JB, in the past, I’ve noticed the horses get a little wild on the RB. And they definitely have better coat quality on the PP.

[OneTwoMany]

I like using FeedXL.com to help find solutions to questions like this one. They offer one month subscriptions and you can try tons of permutations.

[TWH_Girl]

I’m currently using Dynamite (regular original) and it’s worked great! Economical too.