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Refusing supplements - alternatives?

So in the last month or so, my OTTB has randomly decided his supplements must be poisonous.

At first I worried that he may be having ulcer trouble again, but he’s cleaning up his feed (3lbs Purina Ultium AM + PM, 1lb Purina Amplify AM) as long as we don’t add his SmartPak, and isn’t symptomatic otherwise.

Farrier’s Formula Double Strength
MVP Vit E-Selenium-Magnesium
Smart & Simple MSM

I’m not really concerned about the MSM or FF, but he’s tested low E/Se, and the magnesium seems to help him in the cold weather. Any suggestions for a replacement for that would be appreciated!

I would try each supplement one at a time to see which one he’s actually refusing. From there look at some alternatives.

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We’ve tried that. Hard no on all 3 of them individually. He ate them fine until October, so I can’t figure out if something was reformulated or what’s going on.

Hmmm. That’s how it started with me, and then before you knew it, he wasn’t eating the food. So it could be the start of some stomach distress, honestly. FWIW, I use the Ellevate brand of VitE and that’s one that has always been pretty palatable, even when very, very sick.

How is your horse with a syringe? For Vitamin E, I syringe it orally.

I struggle with even the simplest supplements with my horse (also a Thoroughbred) and I only give him the ones he absolutely needs (like Vitamin E). We’ve tried it all- starting with a pinch and slowly increasing, etc. He will boycott entire meals if they’re “poisoned” with supplements. He’s worst if I feed him a feed and then add something to the feed a few months later. He’s better if I introduce the new feed WITH the supplement in it. And he’s better with a larger volume of the carrier, like a big bucket of soaked hay cubes with a little bit of the supplement. Less is more- simple works for him. All the flavor tempters just make him more suspicious.

MagRestore might be a little more palatable for magnesium if you can try a sample- they make a pellet.

Hope you find a simple solution!

You might try Santa Fe/ Ultra Cruz supplements. That seems to be the only supplement company my horses will touch. I use their Wellness product, their magnesium and their Vit E. Hope this helps.

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@bugsynskeeter1 is a great resource regarding Ultracruz products.

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I have samples of some of our UltraCruz products - including the Vitamin E and Advanced Hoof. We have selenium, magnesium, and MSM supplements (all pellets), but unfortunately I do not have samples of those ones. Send me a PM and I’d be happy to help in any way.

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Mine hates Farriers Formula Double Strength. But she is on a minimal amount of Ration Balancer so nothing to mix it with. Eventually she decided to eat it to avoid starvation.

Consider Horsetech. Almost all of their supplements are in stabilized food grade milled flax seed. It is a family-owned company. Rod, the owner, really knows his stuff, as they say. He talks to you on the phone about what your horse needs. They will create custom formulas for your horse. It keeps the nutritional profile balanced, and can address other problems like allergies.

Several years ago my gelding’s selenium level was at the top of the scale. Maine has low selenium levels. He was getting Sentinel LS grain and Horsetech vitamin E with selenium. Rod returned my call. He pulled up the online selenium map and the LS website. He converted the selenium to the same unit of measure tand determined the serving size. His advice was to stick to with the grain and switch to straight Vit E. I also was in on the WaterWerks project to control fecal water syndrome. It helped my 28 y.o. gelding. He was drenched every day and needed a bath. WaterWerks got it under control with an occasional squirt that I curried. I kept him on a smaller serving figuring that it would help keep his intestines healthy. His knee gave out in July and I had to put him down. He was still a healthy bundle of energy, though, with a clean shiny butt. :racehorse:

Horsetech

Same thing with mine - got very picky with his dinner (that has supplements added) but better with breakfast (no supplements), then went off his food. It was ulcers. Not many other symptoms except being picky with his food for several months.

We’re keeping close tabs on him in case this is an ulcer flare, but this doesn’t seem consistent with what we’ve seen from him in the past. When his stomach has bothered him, he’ll go right off feed, supplements or no supplements.

We’re going on 3 months without supplements, but he’s still literally licking the bucket clean morning and night with Ultium, Amplify and Outlast added. Appetite for hay has been good, manure is normal, not at all grouchy to be groomed/tacked, continuing to gain weight.

We’ve been through the gauntlet of ulcer issues with this horse. It’s the first thing I look to when something seems off. I may test out a different type of supplement and if that’s a no go we’ll talk to the vet about scoping or meds.

Just realized that I never updated after we figured it out. The MVP E-Se-Mag pellets were apparently so objectionable that he’d sooner refuse the entire bucket of grain. He ate them fine for months, so I wonder if they’d reformulated sometime in the late summer/early fall.

It took trying to feed one SmartPak well at a time for us to catch it. He’ll now eat Farrier’s Formula pellets and SmartPak MSM pellets out of a hand like treats, no problem. Offered the E-Se-Mag pellets the same way and got a dramatic snorting rejection.

Swapped the E-Se-Mag for Elevate SE + Grand Calm for magnesium and he’s back to licking the bucket clean.

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