My guy just moved to grain free and has never looked better. He has always been a hard keeper so he is on a heavy alfalfa diet and is thriving. I would like to add a mineral supplement. Any suggestions?
Our horses have been for decades on only alfalfa, in the summer our short grass prairie pasture.
All they get is white salt blocks.
Every time we ask our vets, they say horses look fabulous, don’t fix what is not broken.
I see companies selling supplements to alfalfa, like this SmartPak supplement:
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Most feed companies produce an “alfalfa balancer” for horses on a mainly alfalfa forage diet, and a “grass balancer “ for horses on mainly grass forage. It provides the minerals etc needed, as well as balancing the calcium/potassium ratios. Little if any calories and a serving is a very small scoop ( like a salt scoop). I use a grass balancer for my guys during the summer when I have lots of grass and they get no grain at all. Here in Ocala I use the Seminole product.
Don’t confuse this with an “Equalizer” which does have a few calories.
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Oh and it has to be soybean free.
I have a horse who not only can’t have grain, he can’t have any pelleted supplements. So, I have tried several of the powdered mineral balancers. The two I’ve liked most are Vermont Blend and Horsetech HighPoint. Because they are powders you will need to find a way to feed them. You could use alfalfa pellets. I use beet pulp.
Every forage balancer I know of is soy-free, unless there’s one I’m not considering that might have some soybean oil in it. Most aren’t aimed at alfalfa diets though. I would go with High Point Alfalfa from HorseTech. It would be best to bring the high ca:p ratio down a bit
I like EquiVM from Uckele for this.
Does California Trace Plus have soybean oil in it?
The ingredients are listed on the website. I’m nearly positive the powder doesn’t, not quite as positive about the pellets.
A lot of them had soybean meal and soy husks which was a surprise . So we are going to try this one. It has flax but no soy. My guy tested “allergic” to soy among other things so we are avoiding soy.
here is the Seiminole grass balancer ingredients etc. https://cdn-6047aa83c1ac18116c8af2d0.closte.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SF_GrassBalancerGranular.pdf
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It has to be alfalfa balancer minerals .
It’s a nice forage balancer, but doesn’t address the ca:phos imbalance in alfalfa, having no ca or ph. That’s fine, if there’s an additional source of P added.
High Point Alfalfa has 7.65gm P and less than 1gm Ca, which is very useful for high/all alfalfa diets
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The pellets say they have lecithin but wasn’t sure if it’s sourced from soy explicitly. Will check with them and report back for anyone in the thread interested
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