Joint supplements for youngsters?

[GramV]

It would be great if JB would chime in on this. I agree supplementing for joints so young without a purpose seems antithetical to good horse keeping. It would seem the only supplement you should need is what good hay may be lacking in your area.

[JB]

Me? :lol: :lol: Not exactly an area I’m truly well-versed, but here are my thoughts, similar to secretariat and NancyM as well (and yes I know this is an old thread )

Inflammation is necessary. Too much is where we need to intervene. Too much is typically something that makes it visible to us. I truly do believe some horses have growing pains, just like kids. For that, I have no problem with some MSM. Obviously something stronger may be beneficial, but for me, that would require vet involvement to determine exactly the cause of whatever discomfort, and not just assume. I would think that level of soreness would be quite rare.

It’s fairly well proven that most forms of glucosamine and chondroitin are molecules too big to be properly absorbed, and are mostly a waste.

I also don’t think it’s proven, but given that for some other nutrients where the body WILL at least slow its own production if there’s some coming in, it’s not unreasonable to suspect that supplementing something like HA may backfire. If a joint is healthy, there’s no reason to use Adequan/HA/Legend/etc

Young growing horses need lots of movement on varied terrain. They need nutrition on the level of a moderately working horse. There is no hay that can provide all that nutrition, in proper amounts and/or in proper ratios.

The mention of copper is good - the pregnant mare does need more in the later months, but also needs adequate amounts during all of pregnancy, and that’s often overlooked, largely due to thinking there is enough copper intake, on paper, but not enough relative to the amount of iron that’s usually consumed.

As a foal and fast growing youngster, that’s also important - make sure copper and zinc intake is high enough to balance high iron, and that usually means supplementing, even sometimes outside of a regular feed or ration balancer.

Never sacrifice nutrition for calories. Forage-only diets don’t provide it all. Horses who get away with it do, until they don’t, or do in spite of it (genetics, not working hard enough, etc).

This means, for me, it comes down to feeding a very high quality diet which yes, does have to get into the weeds for some of this. Protein, several minerals like copper, zinc, selenium, calcium, phosphorous, need to be evaluated. Vitamins A and E need help if there’s no/little fresh grass.

Support growing joints/bones with all the building blocks, and there should be few, if any, problems.