My horse tested positive for soy, flaxseed and oats. Does anyone know of a horse feed without? He is 8 yo and does FEI level dressage and tends to be on the slender side and I need ot ensure I can get him enough calories.
what test was done? If it was the blood test through Immubiome, then most horses “hit” for oats and flax, and really aren’t allergic to it. What was the actual result for each of those? Allergies are numbers in the 1000 range, not a couple 100
What prompted the testing? What’s the current diet so we know what sort of calories he’s eating?
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Hygain zero and meta safe no soy. Worth looking into.
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The test doesn’t show how much just a positive.
He is sensitive to touching in the flank area. My vet treated him for ulcers and cleaned/examined sheath area. He’s better but we decided to test and this came up. Test is nextmune.
How would one know that a positive marker is incorrect?
He’s on 5 lbs Purina Senior active, 2lbs TC Balancer, 1 cup each renew gold and ground flax, free choice orchard and Timothy hay. He’s very athletic and tends to be too lean.
Who did the test?
Yes, Nextmune, that’s who I meant, sorry! Immubiome is a supplement company I think LOL
Nextmune does give numbers. You should have a paper with all the things tested and all the numbers for each.
Seems like the simplest test would be to go with soaked Timothy pellets and Vermont blend for a balanced foundation and then add in a fat source that’s not flax? If he’s a moderate keeper it’ll be calorie light but I wouldn’t think this time of year his weight would tank while you test out the theory. If it works well, then you have clarity.
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How did you come to that? 2lb Balancer is the high end feed rate and not really something I’d add to 5lb of the Sr feed.
Either way, that’s fairly significant calories. You CAN make it up with hay pellets (alfalfa has more than grasses) + fat supplement (like 2lb rice bran) and then use a forage balancer like California Trace, Vermont Blend, KIS Trace, Lonestar Trace, and there are several others. It’s going to be more volume.
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Thanks for the suggestions. He gets Gary on alfalfa and he does need the calories. He’s pretty lean and easily on the ribby side
Saw the numbers. Soy and flax are 150 and 176
those aren’t allergies 
Allergy results are in the 1000 range.
I would assume you had other “hits” too? Can you post the results?
If there are lots of hits in the few 100s, then I might assume there’s some sort of leaky gut situation going on, which can cause the body to react to the proteins being where they shouldn’t be (in the blood stream), which isn’t an actual allergy
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Thank you again. Besides the soy and flax, oats was in the low 100s. What would be considered a significant range if the 150 and 176 is not “high” ? All the report indicates is that anything over 100 is an allergy
Mine was in the 800 range for flax and removing it completely got rid of his hives. Also 100s for oats. No problem with soy, thankfully.
I did the timothy /ricebran route for about a year but I couldn’t get him to really thrive on it (he’s a hard working, rather rangy dressage horse, too,) and it was getting to be a lot of volume to feed at once.
I switched to old reliable Strategy GX and add extra rice bran. That won’t work for you because of the soy, if that really a problem, but so far he’s doing well on it.
What are the symptoms?
I’ll look up the actual numbers when I go up to my office, and edit if I am wrong.
But I would say rice bran could be your friend!
Could you ask for advice from a sport dietician? Often feeding is such a fine balance.
As mentioned, an allergy is in the 1000 range
I’m guessing cotton was a “hit” too?
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Yep!
My FEI show jumper is allergic to corn, oats, soy, flax… and pretty much everything else.
Call Hallway feeds, my horse’s diet is based off of their Pure and Simple ration balancer. We add in barley and alfalfa pellets along with beet pulp when needed for extra calories. Their nutritionist came out and created this diet for me. My horse is always shiny, in good weight, and I rarely treat for ulcers anymore even with an intense show and travel schedule.
Also if you are looking for supplement alternatives as well, Equine Elixirs will make your supplements allergen free if you reach out to the company.
PM me for any other questions, I got my results 4 years ago and it was a game changer for my horse
Thank you so much and I’ll give them a call!
I feed the Hallway Pure and Simple ration balancer becuase one of my horses is allergic to soy. It’s great stuff. My young dressage horse is battling hives all this summer. I had the Nextmune allergy test done on him yesterday, but we don’t have any results yet. He is also getting alfalfa, oats and flax in addition to the Hallway and it will be interesting if he has developed allergy to any of them. I am following this with interest to see what substitutes might work. (I had intended to do more complex skin testing but the allergist couldn’t even do a consult for another month–we may still do that as well).
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Hygain Zero
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