How to get a horse to eat Spirulina

[Wintergirl96]

So after some research and chatting with some people I know, I’ve decided to put my mare on Spirulina as well as some other herbs to boost her immune system, and hopefully help her skin conditions. She eats her other supplements with ease, and she only gets 1/4 scoop of grain, so she’s honestly not that picky! So I just got a bucket of Spirulina in the mail, and she absolutely refuses to touch it. Even with apple sauce, oatmeal, molasses, honey, peppermints, nothing with make her even look at it. Has anyone had success with getting their horses to eat it? And has anyone seen any benefits of it?

Worst comes to worst I’ll feed it to my dogs, as they’ll eat anything and it’s good for them too, but I’d really like to try and get her to eat it!

Whats everyomes favourite supplements to feed for skin and coat or for the immune system?

[luvmyhackney]

Mine would never eat it in his feed. I ended up just syringing it until he got healthy again. He has allergies.

[IPEsq]

I just got a small bag of HorseTech’s Respire to see if it would help my horse’s seasonal headshaking. It is largely spirulina but mixed with chia, flax, and there’s turmeric in there as well. It smells mostly like curry. I was afraid my horse wouldn’t eat it because he’s weird about things that have a strong smell, but he is LOVING it mixed with a small amount of TC senior and some extra ground flax, fed dry (his main meals are soaked, and he doesn’t like flax once it gets to gooey). It’s hardly made a dent in the allergies, though, but it’s only been a few days, and we are having a particularly bad season, for human and horse.

[Kyrabee]

Springtime has spirulina tablets. They are kind of big but when I had a horse that kept breaking out with hot weather hives, she would eat 1/4 tabs in her supplements…no bigger though. I had to break them up but that way, she ate them fine. She would eat the powder but it is so messy, I opted for the tablets.

Susan

[Garythesquirrel]

I started with a TINY amount and gradually increased it. The powdered spirulina is messy! SmartPak has a pelleted version that’s easier to work with and the horses don’t seem to mind it.

[alterblue]

SmartPak has it in pellets:

https://www.smartpakequine.com/ps/smart-and-simple-spirulina-pellets-formerly-spirulina-pellets-by-smartpak-13893

I don’t notice a huge difference in my mare’s sweet itch but it seems to really help her seasonal respiratory allergies.

[morgansnmind]

I use smartpaks pelleted spirulina and my girl eats it with no problem . It’s made a pretty difference with her coughing though she still has problems it does seem to help.