My vet told me that the real “key” ingredients in the Platinum Performance Immune product were Lysine and Zinc, and told me how much to feed to mine based on a conversation she had with someone who works for Platinum Performance. I already feed the supplement (Platinum Performance to most and the CJ version to a couple), so I now add Lysine and Zinc whenever I feel like I want to support the immune system (e.g. when we’re traveling or showing or a minor cold shows up in one or more of the horses). Sounds like there might be a few more important ingredients in the product, but I’ve been happy with the addition of just the Lysine and Zinc to my usual supplements.
Maybe your vet is thinking of another product? Platinum Performance Immune Support doesn’t contain any Lysine. How much is the person at PP recommending to feed? Under “Immune” on their website, none of the four products listed have “key” ingredients of Lysine and Zinc.
https://www.platinumperformance.com/equine-immune-support#product-tabs
Ingredients & Product Analysis
Colostrum (bovine) (milk), Purified Thymus Protein Complex (Bovine)
Active Ingredients Per 1 Scoop (19,000mg)
- Colostrum (bovine) (milk) (minimum 40% IgG) 16,660 mg
- Purified Thymus Protein Complex [Bovine] (providing 400 mcg thymic protein and 770 mcg zinc as zinc gluconate) 6,670 mcg
Thanks! I will say that a recent conversation with my vet suggests that low nutrient levels are not always the cause of bleaching. She said she sees many horses like mine in NC that she knows are on an excellent diet and excellent forage, and receive excellent care, and they still bleach.
Thanks, PNWjumper! I have been looking at the USGS survey of my local land and zinc may be low. I plan to start with that. Lysine…hmmmmm. My vet says she does not see protein or aa deficiencies in well-cared for horses on grain or balancer. She’s pretty open minded, btw. My diet analysis says his lysine is low, but he gets his forage from grazing and I assume bugs. There isn’t harm in adding Lysine-I’ll look into it more.
Can I ask how much Zinc and Lysine you add? Do you know how much you have in your “normal grain and PP supplementation” and the total amount with your supplementation? Thank you for your input!
I’ll have to see if I can dig up the text my vet sent me (which I’m not seeing at first glance). I ordered lysine from SmartPak, and I feed the lysine as recommended on the tub (because that matched what my vet said). I ordered zinc from horsetech.com and I feed 1/5 of a small scoop…but I don’t know how much that actually is. I’ll see if I can figure it out and will post again if/when I do!
As far as my other supplements - there’s 1400mg of Lysine and 120mg of Zinc in regular Platinum Performance. But I’m going off of what my vet told me, which is how much the Platinum Performance folks add to their formula.
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Thanks, PNWjumper! I really appreciate it!
Found it! It’s a 5 page thread about a and d for rain rot and other skin ailments:
http://www.horseforum.com/horse-nutrition/vitamin-d-rain-rot-clever-horse-306402/
Found it! 5 page thread about a and d for rain rot, skin problems, immune problems:
This site won’t let me post the link
horseforum dot com /horse-nutrition/ vitamin-d-rain-rot-clever-horse- 306402/
(fix the dot com and delete all the spaces)
More about how effective Vitamin A is:
horseforum dot com /horse-health/ rain-rot-scratches-fungus-cure-inexpensive-526426/
horseforum dot com /horse-health /vitamin-rain-rot-questions- 288690/
Individual animals may have requirements that are outside the norm.
Just like I get visual migraines if I don’t supplement magnesium, but my husband does not. My own body calls for additional magnesium.
Even horse to horse, darker colored horses NEED more copper.
You can see this easily in horses with selenium supplementation. Some horses in the barn may need it, some may not. Because each individual horse’s ability to utilize the selenium they’re fed is different.
Bleaching indicates there is probably a need for more copper in the diet. You simply can’t look at the spreadsheet and say “yup, the horse is fine” and totally discount the possibility that the horse might not be able to USE all of the copper that it’s getting, or that specific horse just has a higher physiological need for it. Unless your vet has supplemented all these bleaching horses for a season, she can’t say that it wouldn’t help.
It’s cheap and harmless at the levels we’re talking, and SO incredibly common to see deficiencies here. Really kind of weird that you’re so averse to trying it 
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i like platinum skin and allergy as well. I have one who gets midline dermatitis from insects. greatly controls it.
I’m quite aware that individual animals have individual needs. But I research things before I apply them to myself or my horse. I analyzed my horse’s diet and the elements in the soil he lives on to make educated decisions about his nutrition. This is the logical way to start to me. This might seem really weird to you - we likely have different approaches to health care, even for ourselves! Thank you for your suggestions!
Welp, I tend to listen to what the horse is telling me. And a horse that bleaches significantly is saying it’s not getting enough copper. Add the other weird issues you’re having and it’s a slam dunk. Frankly the fact your vet says there are a lot of bleaching horses in your area just confirms there’s something off about the copper/zinc/iron balance in your region. Shame your vet can’t recognize that.
Adding copper and zinc is cheap and easy and benign if you’re wrong. I don’t know how it can get much easier.
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I feed Onega Horseshine to my insect bite reactive horse. It works for him.
NC here, dark horses (including a black), we have pretty high iron soil all around, and unless I supplement copper and zinc, the black fades to buckskin (and gets scratches) and the seal browns fade to “bay”, while bay just looks dull.
Excellent forage grown here still has too much iron. You just can’t get around that. High iron in the soil is high iron in the soil, and that means little cu/zn, either outright (common), or in relation to the high Fe.
3 of mine receive ration balancers most of the time, so while adding cu/zn, it still adds more iron.
My vet says she does not see protein or aa deficiencies in well-cared for horses on grain or balancer. She’s pretty open minded, btw. My diet analysis says his lysine is low, but he gets his forage from grazing and I assume bugs. There isn’t harm in adding Lysine-I’ll look into it more.
Keep in mind there’s a big difference between a deficiency big enough to cause obvious disease, and one big enough to not allow optimal health. The spreadsheet can say there is technically enough lysine for that horse - age, weight, work - but if it’s not enough for him, it’s not enough. Different metabolisms uptake nutrients differently, so the paper is only the starting point.
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I am skeptical about feeding an immune booster (if indeed there is such a thing) to an animal whose immune response is already in overdrive. I lived with the nightmare of a young stallion’s pemphigus foliaceus case and very respectfully suggest your vet (who sounds wonderful) run another biopsy, on unbathed animal, to rule this out. (One of the suspected causes is over-supplementation).It started out as just a bump here, a bump there.
I live out west where it only rains in the fall and winter. Here most horses bleach to buckskin in the summer when people hose off their horses and turn them out in the baking sun soaking wet. But my own now 26 yo black Trak bleached to orange even in winter until he started pergolide.
JB,
You are in Greensboro, and you have a very high soil iron content. We are down the Siler City way, and the Iron content is about half. See soil iron content below. The well water has been extensively tested, nothing out of range. Soil is testing is coming, zinc supps are here because it is suggested to be low. I might test him. Thank you!
[ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“title”:“Iron.jpg”,“data-attachmentid”:10112774}[/ATTACH]
Test your forage. That matters more. That’s where the majority of the minerals are coming from. Look at Fe, Cu, and Zn. No doubt the Fe will be too high in relation to the other 2 
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Thanks, the BO, who is a professional geologist and heads a large group for a triangle company, is testing the minerals on the property. He tested their well water extensively, which is a reflection on the local geology. The very well cared for pasture is the primary forage from spring-ish to fall-ish. Winter hay is sometimes local, sometimes not. Horse is always on a diet balancer plus. The Fe in this area is middle of the road, so is Cu. Zn can be low. I mentioned several times, the BO is a professional geologist and has, on record, soil samples from multiple sources in the area and the greater triangle area. It’s what he does for a living.His data matches USGS. This situation is not as simple as many think it to be. I don’t consider it as simply as many here do. But I value everyone’s opinion, and have researched what people have brought to light here.
Thank you!
Right, I understand the soil situation. But the horse is eating hay and grass, not soil There’s more to what goes into the hay than just the mineral content of the soil, such as soil pH,and even a given environmental situation which can alter nutrient uptake, and including the type of grass growing.
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This. We cannot feed locally grown alfalfa (water, soil issues). Those that do must get it from other areas, and the locally-grown stuff is shipped out for cattle or made into cubes or pellets (you would not believe the cr*p that gets made into cubes…). Local grass hay okay to feed. This can be a very ;localized; issue. Great discussion, I’m enjoying everyone’s input.
Thanks, JB! You would love the BO, he is adjusting the soil pH in the pastures this summer and is freakishly aware of the grass types. He talks about this regularly. You two would have tons to talk about!! Seriously, he loves to talk about grass and soil and would love a fellow geek to talk with about it.
Yes, the winter hay comes from multiple sources - mostly out of state. We used to get local hay, as in the hay harvested literally next door. That property was recently purchased by a neighbor and we might try to hay it again. Lordie, that opens up a whole new world to the BO. Ha! Thank you for the reminder about hay quality.
Brown Derby, you are right. Plus, local NC alfalfa hay had blister beetles in it last year and I avoid local sources (for better or worse). Like you, I avoid cubes and pellets. I like to have alfalfa bales on hand in the winter (to add extra calories without grain) and when showing (the cations buffer stomach acidity). Plus my horse is a junkie for alfalfa and even a large handful makes him so happy! I often purchase Ohio alfalfa because that is what local sources carry. I sometimes get compressed bales, which also come from Ohio. I used to live in NM, Alfalfa was so cheeeeaaaappp!
