OP, I sent you a PM! (I’m not getting email notifications these days so I don’t know if anyone else is.)
My mare went off ALL “feed” - her beloved alfalfa, beet pulp, even (and may I go to horsey hell for even trying it) sweet feed if I so much as mixed one molecule of my (mostly cu/zn) vit/min mix with it. I went so far as to make her no-bake cookies with wee amts of the supplement - no ma’am. So, because I am SUPER extra (like horse like owner, apparently), I found this: https://www.naturesflavors.com/116-s…syrup-powdered bought several flavours (I am in Canada, they are in California, yes I am insane), and this was the magic bullet, for us. Huge bonus: it’s sugar free! So I was able to use it for my other guy to intro new supps as well, since he gets ulcery with anything too sugary. He is mostly a garbage disposal with hair, but nice to have on hand anyway :lol:
You can make up bottles of liquid syrup and squirt it over the offending feed, or mix the powder in with the supplement and wet it before you feed. I tried banana, apple, and mint - found the mint to be the most successful. This mare will cut you for a peppermint, and it seems to just overpower the bitterness of the copper really well.
I’ve heard really good things about the diamond V yeast as well, but I had a hell of a time finding it locally and didn’t want to pay 3x the amt of the product in shipping to get a bag sent to me!
Submitted this and it came out as unapproved, sorry if it ends up being double posted! :
My mare went off ALL “feed” - her beloved alfalfa, beet pulp, even (and may I go to horsey hell for even trying it) sweet feed if I so much as mixed one molecule of my (mostly cu/zn) vit/min mix with it. I went so far as to make her no-bake cookies with wee amts of the supplement - no ma’am. So, because I am SUPER extra (like horse like owner, apparently), I found this: https://www.naturesflavors.com/116-s…syrup-powdered bought several flavours (I am in Canada, they are in California, yes I am insane), and this was the magic bullet, for us. Huge bonus: it’s sugar free! So I was able to use it for my other guy to intro new supps as well, since he gets ulcery with anything too sugary. He is mostly a garbage disposal with hair, but nice to have on hand anyway :lol:
You can make up bottles of liquid syrup and squirt it over the offending feed, or mix the powder in with the supplement and wet it before you feed. I tried banana, apple, and mint - found the mint to be the most successful. This mare will cut you for a peppermint, and it seems to just overpower the bitterness of the copper really well.
I’ve heard really good things about the diamond V yeast as well, but I had a hell of a time finding it locally and didn’t want to pay 3x the amt of the product in shipping to get a bag sent to me!
Well now! LOLOL, hey, Hmmm - worth a try, right?? DAMN THESE MARES :sigh::dead:
I could order this and hand feed her the c and z with this drizzled over it (or at least TRY! it), but the BM will not do this, so it would have to be the 5 days a week I’m out there. Sugar free! Definite bonus.
Ms Pickypants does NOT like the yeast additive (has turned her nose up at both of the samples provided with added yeast and amino acids SIGH), but your mare might be different.
Or one can hope - if you try it!
Well now! LOLOL, hey, Hmmm - worth a try, right?? DAMN THESE MARES :sigh::dead:
I could order this and hand feed her the c and z with this drizzled over it (or at least TRY! it), but the BM will not do this, so it would have to be the 5 days a week I’m out there. Sugar free! Definite bonus.
Ms Pickypants does NOT like the yeast additive (has turned her nose up at both of the samples provided with added yeast and amino acids SIGH), but your mare might be different.
Or one can hope - if you try it!
@dr.doolittle, I feel for you. She sounds 1000 times more picky than my gelding was. He wouldn’t eat the AZ copper complete and I had to switch to alfalfa pellets with the California Trace plus pellets but he is eating that. There is no way he would ever eat the powder unless I added just enough water to mix it in and even then, if there wasn’t enough volume of other stuff to dilute the smell of the zinc and copper, forget it. He’d go to his feed pan, sniff it and come to the stall door asking for food. I did have luck, briefly, with soaking fenugreek seeds and adding them and the soaking water but even that quit working after awhile. I’m glad he’s eating the pellets, it’s a pain in the rear to bribe them into eating the other stuff.
Sorry, I had paragraphs, but they disappeared.
I had really good luck making up little tupperware tubs with the powder mixed in with the supplement, and then just having BO add some water before feeding!
And yes. MARES. Did I mention mine is retired and does literally nothing to earn her keep? :lol:
Thanks folks, and LOL - they are “special”, aren’t they? :lol::nonchalance: HEAD DESK.
Ella does NOT like her food wetted, thankyouverymuch, and MON DIEU!!!, so that’s out. My BM (with 150 horses: TB broodmares, babies, retirees, layups, etc.) is too busy to mix anything or add water to feed - I premix baggies with the supplements and her RB, and put it into big ziplock bags so she can just dump it in - she gets fed once a day.
I’m thinking I’ll try the sugar free sweetener suggested by @kashmere and see how that works. At this stage I’m willing to try anything; the last resort will be mixing the dreaded c and z with applesauce and shooting it down her throat. SIGH
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions! Anything is worth a try, right?
Does she like yogurt, or does it have too much sugar? It’s the only thing I could think of that hasn’t been listed already. You could try mixing or syringing in that.
I too have a picky one, and she will go so far as to fling her feeder (big rubber tub on the ground) if I put anything in it she doesn’t like. She’s also a sniffer, worse than a dog. One trick that works with her is to mix the untouchables in a small amount of molasses water in the bottom of her tub (basically just brown water, it’s cut very thin and I use a squirt bottle, like for hair dye, to mix it in), then add the feed on top. She will lick the bottom of her feeder to get the sweet, and everything is ingested.
Yogurt as a “binder”, hmmm. Might work!
The water with molasses flavoring sounds like it SHOULD work, but a big “negatory” to anything with water for Ms Pickypants.
LOL, the sniffing thing!, sounds familiar :lol:
A new (to me anyway) product I ran across recently is Hay Harmony - cu, zn, biotin. It’s a pellet, so obviously has binders that may make it taste better
Thanks, JB! I just looked it up, certainly worth giving it a try for $20 for a month’s worth – maybe? She’ll like it better than the Uckele pelleted form?
I ordered some of the sugar free syrup powder (peppermint flavor), with luck ONE of these will turn the trick 🤞
UltraCruz has an Advanced Hoof Supplement and the Trace Minerals, both which contain Zinc and Copper. I don’t know what amounts you are needing, but those would be 2 options.
I do have samples of the Adv Hoof if interested
Unfortunately, the AHS is 450ppm Cu, and at a 32gm serving is only 14mg, and is very little in the grand scheme of trying to balance high iron, where we often need to add a couple 100mg. Zn is 40mg, vs the several 100mg we usually have to add
The Trace Minerals product provides even less per serving - 9.5mg cu and 26mg Zn.
I figured it wouldn’t be enough, but wanted to offer just in case
We make copper boluses for goat and cattle but that totally wouldn’t be what you want lol
My horse is stunningly similar to yours…I read about people dampening Timothy pellets, adding supplements, and down the hatch! Not happening w my pony. I can very easily syringe Uckele copper and zinc down his throat w just a bit of water. He doesn’t spit it out. Thank you to everyone who has posted suggestions here.
Thanks rubygirl!
It appears to have 600 mg copper and 1,600 mg zinc :encouragement:, BUT! the smallest (only) size is the big tub for $190.00! And what if she doesn’t like it???
Argh…
This thread makes me love my fella. If he could fit his 14.2 high, 14.2 wide body in there, he would bathe in his feed pan full of brownish-yellowish-green, Kool-Aide-and-yeast-smelling, soaked-timothy-and-supplements slop. Sorry, OP.
@JB - I just ordered the Hay Harmony supplement (only $28 including shipping), so thanks!, and crossing fingers…
Appreciate ALL the feedback, folks! :yes: