Short story: How accurate are Magnesium tests when running a blood panel?
Long story: Moved mare to a new facility and the previously steady calm schoolie type turned into an hyper-alert, hyper-reactive firebreathing dragon. Treated her for ulcers, tested for Lyme (neg) and had the chiro out (who noted muscle tension).
(and it’s not the “Spring sillies” brought on from lush grass since we’re still under feet of snow…)
The main change (in addition to the move obviously) has been her going from a mainly alfalfa diet at the previous barn to free choice grass hay at the new barn.
We’re in an area with an acidic soil - which may negatively impact the availability of Mag in the soil (we’ll need to test our hay for sure as well).
When chatting to our cattle farmer neighbor, he mentioned that he had seen similar flighty/nervous behavior in his dairy herd - which was connected to Magnesium deficiency.
So running a blood panel on the mare sounds like a good idea but I’m reading conflicting information online about how accurate the test are. Anything else we could test for at the same time (Calcium?) to get a better picture?