I did consider that, but since there was no difference in his movement before he was on the supplement and before we found out about his hocks, and now, I have to believe that they weren’t effective, or at the least that he didn’t really need it. And if there was anything that helped, i agree, there would be no way to know what actually helped (which was another problem I had with them wanting horses immediately on everything). It will be interesting to see if he starts getting stiff, then trying ONE thing at a time to see if something helps. It wasn’t the way I would have liked to do it, and I probably should have stood up for myself a bit more, but as the more vocal one had been a huge source of drama in the past, and I knew from looking at everything in the supplements that it wouldn’t HURT him to be on it and best case it might actually obviously help in some way, I opted to just go along with it.
But I do have to say, I never saw the things they claimed to see. Like, “the coat is so much shinier”, “his feet look so much better”, etc. But again, I’m from a more scientific background so I tend to look for things to NOT work than for them to work. I’m not going to say, “I think his coat might possibly look a little shinier so it must be one of the several supplements I have him on”, when there are so many factors such as going from being on 24/7 turnout to having a stall in an insulated barn which made his coat a bit sleeker so it didn’t hold as much dirt, getting groomed more often, being on a more balanced diet in general (before the supplements), better hoof care, etc. I think that’s another hard thing about supplementing, you could see a difference but there could be several variables that could all be contributing. Not to mention the lack of regulation in supplements but that is a WHOLE other can of worms!
