I didn’t know this, did you?
It’s basically saying that you need to feed your horse a balanced diet. This is also one of the reasons why I don’t add many supplements and single ingredients to my horse’s diet - they get hay/pasture, a premium concentrate, msm and flax.
But thanks, it was interesting.
The dangerous effects on the bones of a horse of an imbalance of phosphorous over calcium are well-documented; the extreme result is “big head disease” or “miller’s disease.” It’s a basic concept of horse nutrition. Hay and grass usually have plenty of calcium, grain and bran the reverse, but you would need a lot of grain to imbalance the calcium in the hay, and also most commercial feeds would balance the minerals to prevent that. It seems that these days, it’s more likely to be caused by grazing toxic plants:
http://www.thehorse.com/articles/37632/what-is-big-head-disease
Calcium is an important component of bones. But hoof wall is not bone, but keratin, like fingernails and hair. The important component in hoof wall is protein. I suppose that since the hoof sprouts from the coffin bone, the condition of the coffin bone would influence the condition of the hoof.
though when I Google this a bit, I see that calcium is a small but necessary component of the protein formation of the hoof walls:
http://www.equinews.com/article/calcium-how-important-is-it-for-hoof-health
Anyhow, I think the takeaway from the advice here is that horses need an adequate balance of calcium. “Don’t feed bran” is just a small part of how you get that.
The article is also referring the the effect phytates have- which is more than just the cal/phos ratio directly.
My 2016 hay has a 3.3:1 cal:phos ratio and when fed to meet energy requirements is 20% deficient in phosphorus. I feed wheat bran to bring the ratio closer to the 2:1. Feet look great.
