Remus has started on Thyro-L this week for his slightly elevated results from his metabolic panel. The good news is in his normal hoovering patterns, he vacuums up the powder in his grain with no problems as all. Good boy. This is one time when being a good non-picky eater comes in his favor! The plan is for him to be on it a month then we retest and go from there. The grass is coming in and I have cut his hay back. We will see how that goes.
Remus eating the food/hay/supps I buy him….
This got me thinking about supplements. What do you think of supplements? Do you use them? Why or why not??
Remus is on a few supplements. Do they help? WHO KNOWS?
Remus has been on this one below for a few years and the rest have fallen by the wayside at SmartPak. He was on a metabolic one back in Tennessee as well as a senior multi-vitamin but the costs kept rising and I tweaked it. To just this one.
SmartDigest Ultra is not cheap but due to the SmartPak Colicare and the fact that the minute I remove him from he he would probably colic, I just keep getting it. Does it hurt him? Nope. Does it hurt my wallet (slightly). Anyway on it he stays. He is now getting to the age where surgery may not be an option so will have to decide how long he stays on it.
The barn in Tennessee started this one back when Remus and I were still there, and we got it due to the barn discount was great. I also put him on the OsteoMax and swapped him out to the JointFlex as well.
Now I am not at the big barn anymore so i won’t get the discount. I am getting low on both and am trying to think is it worth buying it again or not? Anyone use this and swear by it? Anyone else just think it is snake oil and not worth buying??
So thoughts? I know three supplements is not a lot but am I just tossing money away? I really don’t know if any of it helps or not.
Would love to know what kind of supps you use if any and more.
HAPPY TUESDAY (I wrote this yesterday but alas Monday ran away from me! As it does).
Fat Buckskin in a Little Suit 
Amber is on some pretty basic ones. I actually went down an ADHD-fueled rabbit hole into supplements around five or so years ago lol. I’d had Amber on the SmartPak supplement thing for joint care and compared the mg it offered to how much she’d get if I just bought all of the 5lb tubs separately. Not only was buying the tubs cheaper, but she also got more mg per serving if I did all of them separately versus going with SmartPak. So I canceled it, and I give her the general ones – MSM, glucosamine, and HA powder for her joints. It helps a lot with her arthritis, and I give her equioxx as well to help her feel as well as she can. I can definitely tell when I stop giving her the supplements (usually cause I’m a terrible owner and keep forgetting to buy more lol). She’s the worst without her HA powder, and is ouchy off of glucosamine, but just a little grumpier off of MSM. I give her farrier’s formula hoof supplement too since it’s so dry here and her feet crack more easily. It also helps with her laminitic foot, so I keep her on that. The only other thing we do but isn’t really a supplement is giving them Sandclear every month. The dirt can get really sandy here, and with very little grass and lots of dusty wind, we do that every month to help clear any sand from their digestion.
As far as the supplements you listed though, I don’t have any experience with those. Amber and Whisper seem to do fine on the few things we have them on, but then again we don’t do as much with them as Remus does, so he may need something different! In looking really quickly, HA is really the most important ingredient either of those supplements have. The OsteoMax and Gut X combined have 350mg of HA and a regular dose of HA powder has 250mg. So he is getting more with those two combined. The JointFlex looks about the same as the GutX just with more HA, so looks like he’s getting about 400mg of HA with the JointFlex and OsteoMax. I think it might depend on what he’s doing and how hard he’s working. You can always take him off of those for a while and just stick him on an HA powder for the duration of a container and see if he’s doing okay on just that before going back to the 100X supplements if he isn’t as comfortable :).
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thanks!! hope Amber (and all of you too) is doing well!
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Like you, I have tried a variety of supplements with various horses over the years. Sometimes I thought they might have made a difference, but with each one, I ultimately came to the conclusion that I didn’t see enough results to justify the added expense. Within the last decade or so, I started feeding just hay and a ration balancer (plus medication when suggested/prescribed by a vet). I’m open to trying different things, but for the time being with the horses that I have, the hay and the ration balancer seem adequate for my two geldings who are in their early twenties, one of whom is retired and the other is in light ridden work Spring through Fall.
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thank you!
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What supplements are we NOT on? Jk but really. Mae is on daily omeprazole (powdered kind) – it really really helps her ulcery OTTB stomach. Both of mine are on the SmartPak joint supps and Farrier’s Formula Double strength. There is no doubt that it’s all expensive. The Farrier’s Formula is a really good one though – Mae has been completely barefoot and she had god awful feet when she first came to us years ago
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good to know thanks!
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Tiz is on cosequin, vit E and California trace, and 3 nexium pills.
I think I am going to stop the cosequin when I run out and do adequan (or another injectable) instead.
Vit E during the winter when he is on straight hay. I honestly feel like it helps him (and others) when they don’t have much grass. Its cheap enough and helps to prevent EPM so keeping this, but over the summer I will move to a half dose instead of full.
California trace at a half dose to cover our bases on what he gets from his feed. He doesn’t get a full serving of feed, so the trace covers anything he is missing. We have changed barns & therefore feed, so TBD if we stay on it once we run out or not. Seems to be helping his feet too I think (and the main reason I started it, but may go back to a copper mix, i’ll compare prices again when we start running low).
He also gets 3 nexium tablets with his supplements. I want to scope him and treat him for ulcers if he has them, but I can’t find a vet locally with a scope, sooooo doing the nexium until I decide the next step.
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Remus did great on Adequan (and may need it again later this year if I actually start going places with him)
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I have LOTS of thoughts on supplements! I used to feed more, but after listening to Straight from the Horse Doctor’s Mouth podcast for a few years as well as Feed Room Chemist, I only feed three to my 3 horses and all but 1 are directed by my vet. All 3 horses get Elevate for vitamin E and a Magnesium supplement. My vet said that nearly every horse in my region (North Texas) is deficient in those. Otherwise she believes supplements to be expensive manure and urine. I do also feed 1 horse a SmartPak supplement with colicare, but I may just buy him insurance and quit the supplement. Or even just quit the supplement and self-insure.
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thanks!!
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Nayās on succeed. He crashes (as you know) hard every time I take him off so we just stopped taking him off. While I refuse to think it helps, not being on it hurts. So thatās that logic. Heās also on his crazy biome food 7 priobiotic that seems to help. And nexium whenever his life falls apart (or itās this time of year). And maybe weāll try spirulina for skin allergies? Allergy pills didnāt work and I canāt really afford allergy testing and shots soā¦
Jamesā¦ heās back on his metabolic supplements. Iāll probably push him over to remission unless we test and then do what Remus is on. Also considering spirulina too since itās good for metabolic issues and breathing and he can use all the help. But also we muzzle because thatās a supplement, right?
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muzzle is totally a supplement š Thanks Sarah. Your horses are SPECIAL š
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Muzzle might be the cheapest supplement ever too!
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I’m doing a custom HorseTech blend of DailyWerks (their general overall balancer type supplement), Nutramino to help build topline since he’s young and their ReitHoof as the newest addition since it’s been such a wet winter. In summer we also feed their SweatWerks to combat any anhidrosis and he stays on Sucralfate year round! Now that I write it out, it feels like a lot but they’re all pretty specifically chosen.
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Thanks Holly! Hope you are feeling better!
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My horses are on so much crap… Who knows if any of it does anything, but like, hopefully it does? The Thryo-L is the same medication I take for my non working Thyroid, so Remus, Shiny, and I all have something in common! I can verify that one works very well. For the mountains of other things my horses get… They’ve all been things my vet likes and recommends. The most important one that I think really does help the horses is vitamin E. I also like to keep them on a probiotic (I like Equiotic) because they all seem to have a hard time with the hay at the boarding barn. At home they do better, but it only hurts my wallet to keep them on it so I do. A lot of the other supplements though? Who knows. Mine are on so many things right now (different things for each horse of course), I need to sit down with doc and see what should stay and what should go because it’s getting crazy expensive.
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It is kind of like streaming services. You just add on and add on and before long you you are spending a fortune. Supps are the same š THANKS!
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After months/years of struggling to get B fit and keep weight off, we had her tested and put her on ThyroL – I think it was only or a month or two but it was the jump start we needed, after that diet and exercise kept her in a good place for 5+ years. We’re just now revisiting another test and maybe some meds.
I went really minimal on the supplements for a while there. Just hay, ration balancer and Vit E. But we’re moving and I cleaned out my horse supply cupboard and it became apparent I’m a sucker for anything claiming to help with ulcers/moody mares š There were so many partially used supplements stashed away that I tried and didn’t finish for whatever reason it’s a bit embarrassing.
Figured I better start using them up before they expire so now she’s on them whether she needs it or not lol. Of course now with my luck she’s going to look and feel better than ever and I’ll never pinpoint what made the difference and have to buy them all again….;)
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