Supplements & Salt

I'm a farrier, not an equine nutritionist, but I'm also a horseman, and I pride myself on having a modicum of common sense, so I'll step out of my area of specialization and make some general comments about feeding.

Supplements:
Although the quality of commercial feeds will vary, most of them are balanced mixes, and many of them are designed for the areas in which they are marketed. In general, then, supplementation is not necessary. If for some reason you believe it necessary to supplement a commercial ration, you should consult with an equine nutritionist to ensure that you are not creating a situation where you are in fact feeding toxic levels, especially of such items as selenium.

Finding an equine nutritionist generally entails contacting a university research and teaching facility. Your equine veterinarian is often equipped to handle general questions concerning nutrition, especially as it relates to your geographic and environmental concerns, but his/her expertise may be somewhat limited. Nevertheless, s/he will almost always be a better resource than feed salesmen, who are in the marketing business or farriers, who typically have no formal training/education concerning nutritional needs.

Despite manufacturers' claims of miracle growth, biotin supplements will not cause hooves to grow faster; this is why those same manufacturers focus their advertisements around testimonials, not around scientific data. Assuming that a horse is not deficient in any constituent of a balanced equine diet (grains and forage), there are no products that can be administered internally or externally which will cause hoof to grow faster.

Nevertheless, a significant number of horses (~80%) will respond to a biotin/methionine supplement by producing healthier, stronger horn, and horses which have been deprived of a balanced diet will respond and recover faster when receiving such a supplement. To be effective, a biotin supplement must provide a horse with a minimum of 20 mg of biotin and 1 gram of methionine per day per 1,000 lbs. of body weight. There are exceptions to this when feeding a complete supplement mix such as Farrier's Formula or StrongidC, neither of which has these amounts of biotin (I don't believe that StrongidC contains any), but both of which appear to be more effective than simple biotin supplementation.

Salt:
Because salt is cheap, it's generally added to commercial mixtures at the highest rate shown on the bag label. Subsequently, most horses are getting more than their share of salt simply by eating their daily grain. Nevertheless, salt needs will vary with temperature and exercise levels, so loose salt should be provided for horses.

Notice that I said "loose salt." I recommend this highly over combination salt/mineral blocks for two reasons: first, a horse's need for trace minerals is strictly metabolic and not influenced by temperature and exercise, so if you feed salt and trace minerals together, you are force-feeding trace minerals to the horse based upon his need for salt. Since trace minerals are difficult to shed, you can easily create toxic levels in your horse's system. Second, horse's don't have tongues like cats or cows, and it is actually quite difficult for them to lick a block and obtain salt according to their needs. They will occasionally resort to biting off chunks and swallowing them.

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