Written by Malcolm Green, Technical Director, EquiFeast
Magnesium is an essential nutrient for horses, but the enthusiasm with which it is added to horse feeds defies all the science – you will find links to the science from this article. A horse’s Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of magnesium can depend on a range of factors. We have summarised these below:
|
Weight of mature horse in work |
Light work (grams per day) |
Moderate work (grams per day) |
Heavy work (grams per day) |
Very Heavy Work (grams per day) |
|
200kg |
3.8 |
4.6 |
6.0 |
6.0 |
|
400kg |
7.6 |
9.2 |
12 |
12 |
|
550kg |
9.5 |
11.5 |
15 |
15 |
|
900kg |
11.4 |
13.8 |
18 |
18 |
If this table does not apply to your horse, further information can be found in Nutrient Requirement of the Horses, 6th Edition, published by the National Research Council, 2007.
Grass, Lucerne and grass hay almost always contain excess of the recommended amount of magnesium for horses whatever their work load.
There are a number of reasons why we believe that the vast majority of horses do better with no added magnesium in their diet. For more information you can access our articles page here.
Less of a problem in Australia than some of our other markets are an increasing use of (mainly) herbal ingredients that hit the same receptor as diazepam (Valium). Technically they are called GABA agonists. Many are on the FEI or Equestrian Australia list of prohibited substances. But those lists grow slowly and there are lots of potential ingredients still not yet formally banned (though because they work in a similar way to GABA itself and because GABA is banned their legality for competition is questionable). Watch for them used as flavourings, calmers, joint supplements and painkillers. There is a lot more information here.
In this article, Malcolm Green describes how to create a diet with little or no added magnesium in an Australian market.
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Making your own diet from “straights”
The only real benefit of formulated feeds is that they contain supplementary vitamins, minerals and sometimes other key nutrients. It is these premixes that nearly always contain artificial sources of magnesium. They may also contain other minerals generally not needed and possibly counter-productive in Australia such as iron and manganese.
Formulated feeds are designed to be fed at a certain rate – often 3-4 kgs a day for a 500kg horse. Feed less and you under-supplement, feed more and you over-supplement. In the UK this has led to a dramatic increase in the use of “feed balancers”. These may take the form of a “feed” that is fed at 250-500 grams per day. In Australia the trend has been more towards supplements that may be in the region of 20-50 grams per day. These supplements are often quite aggressively promoted leading to many horses getting far more "additives" than they need by duplicating both feed and supplements.
Formulated feed options
From what I can gather the only Australian made formulated feed that doesn’t have added magnesium is the Running Cool Range from Jenco in Queensland. For some horses there is a trade-off using these products and this is that they have a relatively high grain, therefore higher starch content. If your horse does well on higher starch levels that is fine. But high starch can be linked to behaviour issues and greater risks of digestive problems.
Balancer options
In Australia most balancers are of the supplement variety. They enable you to make up your own diet from pasture, hay (various options) and various other ingredients we will discuss below.
At EquiFeast Australia, our main feed balancer was called However it has now been superceeded:
- Essential Daily Care (now discontinued) - Contained no added magnesium, iron or manganese. But does contain the amino acids lysine and methionine, sulphur (MSM), zinc, copper, iodine, selenium, cobalt (racing legal quantities). Vitamins include A, D3, E, K, C, B1, B2, B6, B12 niacin, pantothenic acid, folic acid, biotin and carnitine.
Essential Daily Care is now only available combined with other products:
- BREAK FREE Plus (EDC plus chelated calcium)
- BREAK FREE Elite (EDC plus a powerful joint support package plus chelated calcium).
- BREAK FREE Essentials Lick - Chelated calcium and a half dose of Essential Daily Care for extensively managed horses. This is proving very popular for mares, foals and young stock that are not handled and fed every day.
Other supplements you may need
Before I get on to the components of the diet that provide the protein and calories your horse may need I should discuss other supplement options offered by EquiFeast.
- Break Free Mainly chelated calcium
- DIGEST is for horses that require digestive support. It covers both the stomach and the hindgut.
- Fight Back is our powerful immune support product. Use it for allergies, infections and healing and repair.
So what can you make the rest of the diet up with?
Our primary objective is to turn your pasture and grass hays into good horse feed. So unless your horse has a problem with these feeds, they will make the foundation of the diet. Hay rich in ryegrass, clover and even Lucerne are fine if your pasture is made of native grasses or meadow grasses. Even oxalate pastures will be fine so long as they are not too rich and fast growing. But if your paddocks are rich and growing fast you may need to be sourcing some low carbohydrate, high fibre hay to dilute it with. Or some of the “super fibre” options below.
Hays from grasses like Rhodes and “meadow hay” are probably the safest you can get. Good native grasses are also excellent.
Lucerne is a hay that people either love or hate. Generally it is intensively produced so can be very high protein and potassium. For most horses it is fine as a supplementary feed where the pasture is setaria.
Oaten Hay will normally have a lot of the oat grain left on it. That makes it higher in starch. But oats have been a traditional feed for horses for centuries and there is evidence that, compared to other cereal grains, it is much safer and indeed may have some physiological benefits.
For more concentrated fibre sources consider beet pulp, which is now being imported from the UK, and Copra. Both contain what are becoming known as “super fibres” which are more digestible than grass fibre but also appear to boost the digestibility of the fibre in pasture and hay. So they provide a double whammy. A few people report their horses going a bit loopy on copra so test it out gently. UPDATE FEBRUARY 2021 - There is some anecdotal evidence that the relatively high level of oxalate that some beet pulp products contain is contra-indicated if pastures or hay are also high in oxalates.
Sunflower seeds are also high in slow release energy as well as protein and make excellent components of the diet. They need to be crushed or else they will pass straight through undigested. Balancing the omega 3 and omega 6 oils with some micronized linseed is a good idea.
Another protein boosting option is from pulses. I’m not a great fan of soya (quite starchy and too many phyto-oestrogens) but lupins claim to have a much better non-starch energy component. Again it is wise to test out how your horse responds to lupins.
The feeds above offer a broad range of fibre, energy and protein options enabling horse owners to adjust their diet whether their objective is to build condition or muscle or just provide energy and protein to maintain horses for work.
Diets for horses with special health issues
EquiFeast diets are always high fibre, high oil and low in starch/sugar because we believe that is the best way to feed all horses. But these characteristics become even more important for horses with health issues like IR, EMS, PSSM, Cushing’s or just those at risk of laminitis, ulcers, colic etc.
Whilst high magnesium diets have been traditionally used for these horses we are convinced that "no added magnesium" diets with chelated calcium added are proving very useful for many of these horses. So the principles above apply equally to these special needs horses and ponies. The supplement package for these horses is still Essential Daily Care plus Cool, Calm & Collected (or Break Free).
To read more about our work in these areas try these links:
https://equifeast-australia.com/supporting-pssm-horses/
https://equifeast.net/a-new-approach-to-cushings-and-laminitis/ (this article is only available on our USA site).
SUMMARY
Formulating a diet using a variety of different “straights” supplemented with a balancer (like EquiFeast’s Essential Daily Care) will provide all the options you need to formulate a feeding routine suitable for your horse.
If you need further help feel free to contact us.
Other articles that you may find relevant:
https://equifeast-australia.com/the-myths-about-magnesium-horse-calmers/
https://equifeast-australia.com/calming-and-sedation/
https://equifeast-australia.com/the-future-of-the-horse-calmer/